Could Geraldo be right?

I saw a news story about the Trayvon Martin shooting over the weekend that gave me pause. In it, former talk show host, now Fox News contributor, Geraldo Rivera, claimed that the "hoodie" worn by Martin on the day of his death was somehow responsible for the shooting.
I have very little respect for Geraldo when it comes to being a legitimate journalist. Every time I see him, I automatically think of his network special in the 1980s about the contents of Al Capone's safe. As I recall, after an hour of hype, it was opened and found to be empty. When I see him, I can't help but think of his sleazy talk show from when I was growing up, in which he highlighted the very basest aspects of human nature, with shows featuring Nazi skinheads and the like. Geraldo was Jerry Springer before Jerry Springer. The fact that he now has reinvented himself as a legitimate journalist on a real news network is laughable, at best.
But you know what? As much as I hate to admit it, Geraldo actually made a legitimate point in his comments about the Martin shooting. In a nutshell, what he said was that Martin's hoodie played a role in his death because it has become associated with criminal activity. When people see someone wearing a hoodie, he said, they automatically assume the wearer is up to no good.
Do I think Martin's hoodie is solely responsible for his death? Of course not. Like the reformed talk show host he is, Geraldo has seized on one small aspect of this tragedy and exploited it for headlines. But he is correct that certain objects in our society carry certain meanings, right or wrong. A Confederate battle flag, for instance, is today widely viewed as a racist symbol because it has been appropriated as a banner by the Ku Klux Klan and other "white power" groups. But not everyone who flies the flag is a racist. Many Southerners fly it to legitimately pay homage to their ancestors. Today, youths who wear baggy pants, or who let them hang down below their hips, are often considered to be gang members. But not every youth who enjoys the fashion is in a gang. And not every person who wears a hoodie is a criminal.
I don't know if George Zimmerman, the accused shooter in this tragedy, is a racist. According to the account given by Martin's girlfriend -- that Martin was followed, then stopped and asked "what he was doing there," before being shot -- it would certainly seem so. But Zimmerman is claiming that he was attacked, that he acted in self-defense.
We may never know the truth about what happened that day. And barring the revelation of conclusive proof one way or the other, I am reluctant to call Zimmerman a crook. Still, I believe we can, and should, learn from this tragedy, lest Trayvon Martin die in vain.
We can start by examining our deepest held prejudices. I'm talking about prejudices so deep, we may not even know that we hold them: the belief that those who wear hoodies or baggy pants are criminals. The belief that those who fly the Confederate battle flag are automatically racist. The belief that young black men walking through gated communities, or driving a nice car, are automatically up to no good.
I don't have the answer to how we rid our society of such cancerous beliefs. What I do know is that holding these beliefs is not OK, even if we never act on them. If the death of Trayvon Martin has taught us anything, it's that we must bring our prejudices out into the open. We must work to obliterate them from this, and future generations. Failure to do so can have tragic results. In that sense, and ONLY in that sense, Geraldo was right.