Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Nice try, doesn't wash.
Marketplace tries to explain the power of the hoodie.
Nice try at the standard Orwellian reversal, but completely false.
In fact the hoodie has exactly the same meaning for Trayvon and Mark.
It means "I'm supercool. I'm superpowerful. I'm at the absolute top of the status stack. Mere mortals bow down when I enter their neighborhood. Any Untouchable (e.g. white, Southerner, Christian) who fails to bow shall be mowed down by the brute force of the Culture and the Law."
There is, however, a difference in level of abstraction between the Trayvon hoodie and the Mark hoodie.
For Trayvon and his colleagues, power comes directly from the barrel of a gun, from an instant readiness to shoot, stab and rob anything that gets in their way.
For Zuckerberg and his colleagues, power is more abstract but vastly more overwhelming. Zuckerberg and friends have the direct and total power to write all of our cultural laws through Facebook, Hollywood and TV; and they can buy any economic law they need from CongressMart. Supply and demand not giving us enough quadrillions this week? Buy a revised version. ¶ 4:51 PM
Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box.com, says in the land of Internet entrepreneurs, hoodies are actually a status symbol.
"Most of your time is spent just completely at the computer, doesn't matter what you show up to work in. I think Zuckerberg was accurately representing what the culture of Facebook is."
Yet it was only a few months ago that the same cozy outerware[sic] had a very different meaning, after the shooting of a teenage boy named Trayvon Martin, who was wearing a hoodie. Thenjiwe[sic] Tameika[sic] McHarris is an organizer with the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice.
"When black boys wear hoodies, they are identified with criminal activity -- whereas the Mark Zuckerbergs, they look comfortable. And so what does that communicate about the politics of race and class in America?
A lot, says Simon Doonan. He's creative ambassador of Barneys New York.
"You know, Mark Zuckerberg has adopted the uniform at a sort of disadvantage. He's already a tremendous target because of his wealth, so his disinclination to telegraph that wealth through his clothes is very understandable."
Nice try at the standard Orwellian reversal, but completely false.
In fact the hoodie has exactly the same meaning for Trayvon and Mark.
It means "I'm supercool. I'm superpowerful. I'm at the absolute top of the status stack. Mere mortals bow down when I enter their neighborhood. Any Untouchable (e.g. white, Southerner, Christian) who fails to bow shall be mowed down by the brute force of the Culture and the Law."
There is, however, a difference in level of abstraction between the Trayvon hoodie and the Mark hoodie.
For Trayvon and his colleagues, power comes directly from the barrel of a gun, from an instant readiness to shoot, stab and rob anything that gets in their way.
For Zuckerberg and his colleagues, power is more abstract but vastly more overwhelming. Zuckerberg and friends have the direct and total power to write all of our cultural laws through Facebook, Hollywood and TV; and they can buy any economic law they need from CongressMart. Supply and demand not giving us enough quadrillions this week? Buy a revised version. ¶ 4:51 PM
