Does wearing a hoodie make someone a criminal?

Photographer and director Myles Loftin explores the stereotype

HOODED is a multimedia project that humanizes and decriminalizes the image of Black boys and Black men dressed in hoodies. When you Google “black boy hoodie,” for example, you get images of criminals, while the search “white boy hoodie” produces cookie-cutter stock photos of white teenagers smiling.

I photographed four Black teens/men and portrayed them in a positive light that is in direct contrast to the media representation that has oppressed us. The final product is a series of photographs, screenshots, and a film that attempt to shift perception. 

 Society’s negative view of Black males needs to be erased because it’s extremely harmful and divisive. It contributes to the reason Black males are targeted more by police, why we receive longer jail sentences than our white counterparts, and the discrimination that we receive. This project seeks to understand where these negative portrayals come from, and how we can change them for a better future.

 Also, by reversing the portrayals of Black and white males, this project seeks to understand how the perception of both changes depending on how they are depicted.