Officer punches girl in face...

[djct_watt]

Originally Posted by tomato

With respect, that's not what he said, at least I don't read his comment that way at all.

I understand, and it's possible I misread the comment too. But my retort was a bit sarcastic too. It's the common belief that black people inherently dress "urban" and white people dress in suits. But in fact, it's not true. It has more to do with money than anything else. Yes, there are a few weirdos and wealthy rappers that dress like gangbangers (because sometimes they are). But for the most part; black, white or any race will tend to dress in more conventional upscale type clothing. Generally, those less fortunate cannot or choose not to dress that way (as they would probably be ridiculed for it).

But there are tons of white people (and white people who wish to portray an image) who dress urban. . . and subsequently get profiled by the cops too.

Hence, "so a black guy dressed like a black guy should be profiled.

a rich black guy dressed like a white guy should not be. " My understanding is that means that black people dressing like they inherently do is a social negative and that they need to adopt cultural ideas not of their own. But here's the irony of it all, "urban" clothing in itself is not native or inherent at all! They're all main stream brands sold and marketed by the very same clothing company that sell dorky t-shirts and nerdy clothing. And in fact, very many (the majority) of wealthy black people do not dress urban because they choose not to. Now if some black guy was pulled over because he was wearing some cultural african clothing, that'd be terrible!

But IMO, dress like a gangbanger, expect to be treated (and profiled) like a gangbanger. It has nothing to do with race. If eminem wasn't famous, he'd be profiled in a heartbeat. And so would a punk-rocker meth-head lookalike. . .

And my sarcastic point is that to assume that such clothing trends are inherent to race is in itself a racist perspective. The clothing trends, in actuality are inherent to social conditions.