This seems like a good day to catch up on weird things people with access to television cameras have said, in the wake of the Sanford shooting. Here we have Geraldo Rivera spraying his opinions all over the place on Fox News:
The Blaze offers this transcription of the wit and wisdom of Mr. Rivera:
“I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain, should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable he should be prosecuted,” Geraldo said. “But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters, particularly, to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”
“When you see a kid walking down the street, particularly a dark-skinned kid like my son Cruz, who I constantly yelled out when he was going out wearing a damn hoodie or those pants around his ankles, ‘Take that hood off!’”
He went on to say that people associate the hoodie with crime.
“You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a gangster - you’re going to be a gangster want-to-be. Well, people are going to perceive you as a menace, that’s what happens.”
That wasn’t all, he added that while Martin is “innocent,“ ”I’ll bet you money, that if he didn’t have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn’t have responded in that violent and aggressive way.”
“You cannot rehabilitate the hoodie!” he exclaimed later. “Stop wearing it!”
“He wore an outfit that allowed someone to respond in this irrational, overzealous way, and if he’d been dressed more appropriately–,” he added before saying hoodies should be left for rainy days and track meets.
To complete the impression that Geraldo Rivera is a clueless blowhard who should think a bit harder before he speaks, The Blaze notes that it was, in fact, raining on the night of Trayvon Martin’s death.
Whatever semi-coherent idea about the impression created by wardrobe choices Rivera might have been struggling to impart is smothered beneath the sheer lunacy of his expression. “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was… he wore an outfit that allowed someone to respond in this irrational, overzealous way…”
Rivera wasn’t caught by surprise, or stumbling over his words in the middle of a heated discussion. He was sitting in on a discussion panel, and these were, in essence, his prepared remarks. Is it unreasonable to expect better out of a man who makes a handsome living by talking?
