Hooded

My first winter in New Haven was cold,really cold. There were record breaking snowfalls levels, and low temperatures were put in the history books during the winter of 1977-78. There was so much snow that students took the dining hall trays and used them as sleds to go down Science Hill.

All of the athletes wore hooded sweatshirts. After showering at Payne Whitney Gymnasium, they would put on their hooded sweatshirts to return to their residential colleges on those very cold days in New Haven.

I hate cold weather. I was born in the Midwest and was raised in a town that is cold and gray for at least six months every year. I should be accustomed to the cold but I still hate it. So when it got very cold in New Haven, I went to the Yale Co-op and bought a grey hooded sweatshirt with Yale printed on the front.

Today, hooded sweatshirts are sterotypically worn by criminals to hide their identity from security cameras. When I bought my first hooded sweatshirt over 30 years ago, I would have never suspected a member of the Yale football team to be a criminal. I feel sad that my son may be targeted as a criminal just because he chooses to wear a hooded sweatshirt.

One day--- I hope that a person's choice of clothing does not lead to them getting killed. To make an assumption about the content of a person's character, based on what a person is wearing, is wrong.

In memory of Trayvon Martin.