If guns were outlawed, as I believe they should be, the chance encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin would not have resulted in a death. Yes, the two may have gotten into a knock-down, drag-out fistfight, but no one would have been killed. It's as simple as that.
— Anita Walker Field, Skokie
Yeah, because no one has ever been beaten to death in the world. Not like twice in Chicago inthe past 30 days from just hitting their head on the pavement, right?
Or this one:
In "Hoodie stereotype" (Voice of the People, March 30), letter writer Jerome C. Malon says, "While the hoodie never started out to mean something criminal, it has developed to just that."
He goes on to say, "Having these pictures implanted into one's mind makes one suspicious of any young person with a hoodie up and head down."
I am a 23-year-old female, a pale, blue-eyed Caucasian, and I wear hoodies on any given day of the week. I own more than 10 of them and substitute them for coats from March to November. I'm wearing one right now, in fact. And never, ever, have I aroused the mildest suspicion as I walk down the street. No one has followed me down the street in a car; no one has asked me what my business is on his or her block. No one has seen me in a hoodie and assumed I was in a gang or holding drugs. And no one has killed me with gunfire.
No one can tell me that my white skin is completely irrelevant to those truths.
[...]— Marnie Shure, Chicago
Exactly what streets were you walking down Marnie? Location, Location, Location. Totality of the circumstances, stuff like that.