EDITORIAL: Hoodie Day deserves the boot

LOUIS PIERARD
NO more compelling reason should be needed to scrap the pointless portfolio of Youth Affairs Minister than for her defence of National Hoodie Day, which is part of Youth Week.
Like the hooded sweatshirts themselves, National Hoodie day is a North American import and is being staged in an attempt ``to challenge youth stereotypes', says Youth Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta.
Apparently with the widespread support of youth workers it aims ``to get people to look past the clothing to see the young person inside them'.
Holding a Hoodie Day is pointlessly bizarre and it is not surprising it has attracted the barbs of New Zealand First MP Ron Mark. He said hoodies had connotations with American gangs and that it was tragic to see gang culture being adopted by Maori and Pacific Island youngsters. Ms Mahuta said Mr Mark was just being negative, that many young people, not just thugs, wore hoodies and that she herself wore them.
One media commentator, who says he will be wearing a hoodie on Friday, describes the garment as ``sartorial shorthand for stigmatisation of youth'. It's not. It is shorthand for the stigmatisation of bad behaviour, which has elbowed hoodies into the spotlight.
Hoodies are a stock item in the teenage wardrobe and only a tiny minority who wear them behave antisocially.
There have always been items of clothing associated with the ``excesses of youth' such as duffel coats, winklepickers, balaclavas, black jeans, Doc Marten boots and trousers worn at half-mast. They are adopted as fashionable accessories for their utility and for the fact that they provide a sense of community for the wearer. But the ``hoodie' is in a different category because of its potential for disguise.
In malls overseas, as well as in Coastlands, North Wellington, wearing hoods up has been banned because shoplifters have used them to hide their faces from security cameras and staff.
Who's doing the stereotyping? Teenagers' habits and standards have been criticised by their elders, at least since the beginning of recorded history, and no feelgood, self-serving youth ministry initiative will ever change that.
Furthermore (setting aside the blanket prejudice of the many by the few) the ``stigmatising' of youth - which assumes amnesia and ignorance are the twin conditions of adulthood - is greatly overstated.
Until now, it seems, there have always been expectations of the young. When youth advocates' hackles rise at any criticism of the behaviour of some teenagers it is because they regard youth as a collectivised ``lump' - judge one, judge all. And ironically, nothing promotes that facelessness more than the hoodie, which can make individual identification impossible.
Holding a Hoodie Day as an exaltation of the young makes as crude and worthless a judgment as those who think badly of all who wear hoodies.
What a dismal way to celebrate the flower of New Zealand's youth. And how impoverished and lacking in aspiration society has become when a government minister promotes the young with a garment that is the emblem of slavish conformity and that's preferred by some for its ability to conceal.