In the trial of George Zimmerman, a fat, ignorant jackass may be in the Defendant’s chair, but he’s not the one who’s on trial. What’s really at stake? The future of the oft-maligned over-garment known as “the hoodie.” Zimmerman’s chief argument, of course, is that he was acting in self-defense when he gunned down Trayvon Martin in a Florida neighborhood. That defense, however, hinges on whether the jury believes what Zimmerman and most of America knows all too well: hoodies, and the people who wear them, are and always have been constant menaces to society.
To Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s hoodie signaled his peaceful neighborhood’s certain doom. This wasn’t the Mark Zuckerberg Harvard-educated genius-hoodie being sported - hood down - in a board meeting to signal a hip “outside-the-mainstream” twenty-something tech vibe. This was a hood-up, late-night gangster-style affront to Zimmerman’s and his neighbors’ entire well-being. Nevermind that it was raining and Martin’s hood provided him convenient cover from the downpour. If he didn’t want to come off as sinister, he should have bought an umbrella.
As everyone knows, hoodies aren’t for the rain, they are for destruction. Just look at the Dark Lord, Bill Belichick, the evil genius at the helm of the New England Patriots. His signature hoodie isn’t there to protect him from the infamous New England winter elements. It’s there to signal, loud and clear, that your team is screwed. Just look at his inspiration, Lord Vader himself, or any of the various Siths and Emporers of Star Wars fame. The hoodie, cloaking in darkness the faces of evil, meant one thing to the rebel Jedi- they were going to have to fight for their lives, just like George Zimmerman.
Finally, don’t forget the wearer of the most revered, and feared, hoodie of all: Jesus of Nazareth. Here you have a guy running around the land claiming to be a King, curing and feeding people and spouting off dangerously radical ideas that threatened Rome’s very existence. All the while, of course, donning the original Hoodie of Doom.
He, of course, had to be put to death. What other options did they have? Let this hooded hooligan rabble-rouse all over Jerusalem for eternity? No, the Romans had to protect their homeland by any means necessary, just like George Zimmerman. And hopefully, if the jury does the right thing, we’ll all breathe a little easier knowing that hoodies, and the ne'er-do-wells who don them, will be on the run.
