Black Lives Matter: Turkish Dispatch
By Jean Jacques Charles
A pivotal scene in the 1978 Oliver Stone written B-movie Midnight Express is when our protagonist Billy Hayes, a young American attempting to smuggle narcotics out of Turkey, is caught and detained on the airport tarmac by Turkish military police.
It’s a harrowing scene as director Alan Parker effectively depicts everyone's worst nightmare of being arrested in a foreign country, far from home. The film is a fascination and guilty pleasure of mine although highly problematic.
The work epitomizes Edward Said's definition of "Orientalism"- every non-western character is arguably evil, corrupt, cruel or insane and Oliver Stone himself later apologized for his portrayal of Turkish and Arab people in the film.
Although I had probably watched it dozens of times, it was until my hundredth viewing with Turkish friends in Istanbul did I gain new insight into the film.
The scene on the airport tarmac resonated with them because of what Billy was wearing when the police approached him. "Of course he was detained, look at what he's wearing!" they told me. Upon seeing my puzzled expression, they elaborated.
Apparently, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, about the worst thing a teenager could wear out in the streets of Istanbul was an army surplus camouflage jacket- the Camo! The 1970s were a tumultuous time for Turkey as a decade long recession had caused widespread unrest with labor unions staging demonstrations, and Left and Right-wing groups violently clashing in the streets.
The Camo (like the motorcycle jacket), adapted and worn by Turkish youth, had become a sort of symbol for the young, rebellious, hippie counter-culture. Merely wearing it could attract negative attention from the police and young adults were warned against wearing them.
In the film Midnight Express, a green camouflage jacket is exactly what Billy was wearing that night at the airport. As I listened to my friends discuss the symbolic potency that a mere article of clothing could have in a specific culture, I had a flashback to another piece of clothing of equal potency that my own parents had warned me against.
Cut to February 2012, where Latino journalist Geraldo Rivera is apologizing for the “hoodie remark” he made in reference to Trayvon Martin. Martin was an unarmed African-American teenager who was fatally shot by an overzealous “neighborhood watch” coordinator who claimed self-defense in their confrontation.
Rivera had urged Black and Latino parents to forbid their children from wearing hoodies. He later apologized, fearing his suggestion had overshadowed the senseless murder of an innocent human life.
Yet truth be told, Rivera was just saying what I and many kids growing up in 1980s New York City with Black immigrant parents had always heard before leaving the front door…”...take off that damn hoodie! Do you want to get shot by the police?”
Originally a garment of utility to keep laborers warm in the early 1930s, the modern hooded sweatshirt (hoodie) exploded in popularity among American youth in the 1970s when the Knickerbocker Knitting Company (now Champion) began producing uniforms for the National Football League (NFL).
The all-purpose gear was well suited for urban wear, combining style and functionality- perfect for the multifaceted Hip Hop culture emerging at the time. I, however, was witnessing its popularity as a bystander. I dared not wear one…...yet.
My parents were conservative Haitian immigrants who had fled a brutal dictatorship for a better life in America. They ruled with an iron grip, and my sibling and cousins knew that wearing a hoodie was out of the question.
As Black parents in NYC, they knew the luxury given to White teenagers for youthful rebellious expression (goth make-up, black trench coats, mohawk haircuts, leather jackets with spikes) was not extended to teens of color.
They knew we were seen as threats to the larger White community. Nothing we did or wore was seen as “harmless”. We were seen as menaces to society and our parents did everything they could to protect us.
Honestly, at the time, I didn’t need much convincing to avoid hoodies. NYC in the late 1980s was every bit as bad as you heard it was…and fun!
Stories of classmates either getting jumped or robbed on subway platforms or in the side streets of Queens Borough Plaza and South Jamaica Queens for their jewelry and clothes, in addition to being stopped and frisked by police, filled the hallways of my Catholic high school daily.
Wearing a hoodie on the streets marked you, even if it had the logo of your school’s track team on it (Saint John’s Prep!). It attracted danger and menace in one form or another to Black/Latino wearers whether they defiantly welcomed the threat or not, so if you wanted to make it to graduation in one piece, you might consider forgoing it. It wasn’t until I was safely on my liberal arts college campus in Maine did I feel safe enough to start wearing one.
The Million Hoodie March in Honor of Trayvon Martin in March 2012 was a cathartic release for many of us. Thousands of protesters wore a garment that had come to symbolize the societal demonization of youth of color.
The Camo in Turkey has long since been defused of its prior signification. It’s now just a style of jacket you can buy in any trendy clothing store like L.C. Waikiki or The Gap. Has the Hoodie also been depowered of its menacing meaning in America? In light of the current protests regarding the murder of George Floyd, I’ll have to ask this of my younger cousins who are now navigating high school the same way I was back then.
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Jean Jacques Charles is a Lawyer, Political Analyst and Writer from Queens, New York. He has lived and worked in Turkey, Morocco, Ukraine, Egypt, and Scotland.