So in case you hadn't noticed, the push-back on my little piece last Friday that used "Hoodie-gate" as a jumping off point for a larger discussion on style and perception was swift and merciless. On the After Party that'll be posted a little later this afternoon, Bob and I spent almost the entire show going at each other -- it really did get mildly contentious for a while there -- over my opinions and the reaction to my piece. We also disagreed on whether we as a country had become too sensitive, too eager to be offended and to voice reaction to that offense, and too unwilling to simply let things that piss us off go without demanding immediate redress.
Basically, my views on these subjects can be seen right now in a piece posted over at the Daily Banter. I'm going to begin doing more work for the mothership of this site, and today's column is the first of many to come.
Here's the opening salvo from the piece. Feel free to comment either here or at the Banter.
"All it took was one retweet for the wrath of God to rain down on me.
Last Friday morning I did what a lot of hacky self-proclaimed online pundits were doing in the wake of Geraldo Rivera’s galactically stupid claim that the choice to wear a hoodie is what got Trayvon Martin killed: I penned a quickie column on it for my blog. Like a lot of other ostensible progressives, however, I apparently had the bad form to not heap what I would soon learn was the universally agreed upon level of scornful indignation in Geraldo’s direction. On the contrary, while I said that Geraldo’s idiotic no-hoodie plea to American parents of brown kids was just that, idiotic, I argued that he did manage to touch on a larger issue that deserved at least some consideration..."
Read the Rest at the Daily Banter
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