Geraldo: Many Middle Class Families Deal with ‘Pretender’ Kids Who Want to Be ‘Hood’

It’s been more than three years since Geraldo Rivera took substantial flack for his comments that a hooded sweatshirt was as much responsible for 17-year-old Trayvon Martin‘s death as was the actual shooter, George Zimmerman. But a lighthearted story brought the controversy back into conversation Friday on Fox & Friends, and Rivera had some follow-up details.

Reacting to the news that NFL legend Deion Sanders publicly teased his son for acting “hood” despite coming from immense wealth, Rivera recalled how his sons were ashamed of his controversial “anti-hoodie” campaign.

“My one son said I totally embarrassed him with my anti-hoodie campaign,” Rivera told the couch full of F&F hosts. “He said, ‘You have your head in the sand. We’re cool.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure, you’re cool. I get it that you’re cool. Now get that thing off your head.’ Really authentic there.”

He continued to mock his own sons for their hoodie-wearing ways:

Both my sons went to the best prep schools in the country… Harvard Westlake and the one in [inaudible] — so they went to these prep schools. Fine prep schools. I mean they’re all kids headed for Ivy League colleges and they wore hoodies and had attitude and walking around. And I’m like, “Look at you. Take that off your head. I know where you went to school.”

Rivera suggested many “middle class families” deal with a similar problem: The so-called “pretenders” who want to be “hood.”

Watch the clip below, via Fox:

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