Fox News host Geraldo Rivera on Friday insisted that he had been vindicated for suggesting that a hoodie "allowed" Florida neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman to gun down 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
In March, Rivera had faced criticism after he asserted that "the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was." Even Rivera's son said he was "ashamed" of his father's comments.
During a discussion about shootings in Chicago on Friday, Geraldo brought up his hoodie remarks again.
"I was right about the hoodie, wasn't I?" he told the hosts of Fox & Friends. "I hate to brag, but I got criticized by every pundit in America when I said that Trayvon Martin would be alive today but for the fact that he was wearing thug wear. He was wearing the hoodie. Turns out now that we look at George Zimmerman’s interviews with the police. He didn’t profile Trayvon Martin because he was black, he profiled him because he was wearing a hoodie."
"The headline is: Zimmerman is not a racist. Trayvon Martin would be alive today if he wasn’t wearing thug wear, if he wasn’t wearing that hoodie," Rivera added.
After his initial comments in March, the Fox News host offered a much-derided semi-apology to those who felt offended, so it's likely few people that objected to his characterizations then will find his latest comments surprising.
"I apologize to anyone offended by what one prominent black conservative called my ‘very practical and potentially life-saving campaign urging black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies,'" Rivera told Politico at the time.
“I have obscured the main point that someone shot and killed an unarmed teenager,” the Fox News personality said, adding that he was extending a “heartfelt apology” to anyone offended by his “crusade to warn minority families of the danger to their young sons inherent in gangsta style clothing; like hoodies.”
Watch this video from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast July 13, 2012.
(h/t: The Huffington Post)
