Recently, police in the city where I live shot a 19-year-old Hispanic man in circumstances that remain under investigation, as they say while waiting for the public to lose interest.
Of course, as soon as the guy died, people whose agendas have eaten their souls found the young man’s Facebook page and before you could say, “The little spic deserved it,” they were posting pictures of him shirtless, in a logo cap with the brim straight across, waving a bottle of Hennessey cognac.
See? See?! Ya don't get killed by our thin blue line of heroes unless you look like a THUG! Ya don't get smoked by men and women who risk their lives every day unless you don't bend the brim of your cap. Now, into the dirt, Pablo! By the way, in the pictures, the kid's holding up a pint of Hennessey. How gangsta are you if you can't afford a fifth of the stuff?
I live in a city underserved by nearly every form of commercial endeavor except Walmart and dope dealers. That’s how kids dress where I live. I don’t take it personally because I dressed like a jackass when I was a young guy, too. To explain my teenage self most quickly: I was the kid giving the finger in my 9th grade class picture. Even then, the man couldn’t hold me down.
But listen up, brothers! You wanna not get shot by the cops? Take some wardrobe tips from an old white guy. You can’t do anything about your skin tone, but you can apply a little L.L. Bean camouflage.
In fact, a good first step is to get a hold of an L.L. Bean catalogue, and look through it slowly. See those clothes? The real dull, lame-dorky-looking shizz? That’s what you want.
Plaid. Oxford cloth (look it up). Khaki pants, baggy, with cuffs. Those sweaters that button up the front. Button-down collar shirts.
And tweed. You know what tweed is? It’s thick wool cloth, and it’s hairy. It comes in gray with brown flecks, and brown with gray flecks. They make sport coats out of the stuff, sport coats that fit like a refrigerator carton. Get a couple of those. Try a used clothing store. Most tweed owners are 95, so they die all the time, and their hipster grandkids donate all their tweed to a used clothing store the day after the funeral.
I went to work today wearing cordovan leather chukka boots, baggy khakis, an L.L. Bean red plaid and a tweed sport coat. If you’re wearing an outfit like that, you can hit a cop in the head with an ax, and he’s just going to stand there bleeding and ask you, “Do you know why I pulled you over, Sir?”
You dress like that, and you become much less likely to absorb a bullet during a routine traffic stop. And, if you do, the pictures of you on Facebook are going to make you look like someone they shouldn’t have shot.
Of course, you’re not gonna get a girlfriend, either, but, if you do get killed, not having a girlfriend means there will be one less pregnant teenager howling at your funeral while a newspaper photographer takes her picture.
And remember: The truth will set you free, but tweed will keep you alive.