I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was.

Possibly the most ridiculous thing he has ever said, and that is saying something. Everybody wears hoodies. Everbody has ALWAYS worn hoodies, even when I was a kid.

It was Skittles and iced tea.  The kid went to the store for Skittles for his kid brother, and also got some iced tea.  And that he had something in his hand or pockets or something near the waistband was cause, in Zimmerman's mind, to accost him and to shoot to kill.

Don, next time choose more thin People of Walmart models.  Preferably male. Maybe some more racial diversity too, do you have something against whitey?

The underlying "blame the victim" strategy here is more absurd than usual, though, as it attempt to blame the future victims as well. It implies that responsible parents of black and Latino children will stop their kids from wearing a common piece of clothing lest they get shot and killed. And if they choose not to heed Geraldo's advice, well...

Is he telling parents not to let their daughters wear short skirts too?  

But that beside the point, some people are freaked out by clowns.  The point is where your irrational fears intrude on others rights.  You can be scared the grass for all I care, just don't come packing and shooting up the park when I'm trying to grill me some lunch.

I was at a bar once and half the Rockets where there, let me tell you even white a$$ Jason Collier is a scary dude, at least to me.  I'm used to being the tallest and he's got damn near a foot on me, but they all seemed like giants.

What many people don't realize is that stereotypes can be learned experientially. They're not always taught. When people experience certain behavior from multiple members of any group, and that group can be identified by skin color, clothing choices or even an accent, they start to respond to the pattern they see. Given my experiences in the world, a young man of any skin color who doing anything secretive such as hiding his face with a hoodie or like following me down the street would appear dangerous to me. It's human nature to identify those things that are good and those that are dangerous. Sometimes it's behavior, sometimes it's the way a person looks. Even babies recognize their own group by skin color. If we couldn't do that categorizing, we'd be dead. Squirrel good, lion bad. This root good, that one makes you sick. Young man hiding face on a dark street, scoping the neighborhood for theft opportunities, dangerous.

My point is that sometimes we bend over backward trying to deny our innate biological tendency to identify and group. Our instincts kept our ancestors alive. Now we need to understand our nature if we're to help people resist our natural tendency to stereotype. Obviously, blanket stereotypes aren't useful or functional in today's world, but pretending there's no natural basis for the groupings we make won't get us anywhere either.