Jason Ham

Multiculturalism: A word favoured by politicians in the 21st century.

However, not a day goes by without me looking at the TV or internet and seeing or reading about how some sort of shop or school has banned a certain item of clothing.

I’m sure that people are now starting to think that if a young person wears a hoodie or baseball cap they are automatically a criminal. How can this ever be right? How could we ever get to this stage in such a diverse world?

The arguments these shops and other places are giving is that, if you wear a baseball cap, CCTV won’t be able to pick you up if you try to nick something from a shop. Similarly that’s why these places say that hoodies aren’t allowed.

I really don’t believe we should change our lifestyle for these new crime prevention technologies. After all, are we not talking about basic human rights here?

The government always seems to be going on about individual expression, and they are always saying that people should respect other people from different faiths and cultures.

Nevertheless, we still decide to ban a simple form of clothing like a hoodie!

Our country now has 24-hour drinking – drinking which contributes to many deaths each year. Yet hoodies, which don’t cause any harm, are banned in certain places.

The fact is, I can’t see how banning certain types of clothes can ever be justified.
 
We can never be a fully multicultural society if we keep going against the young people in our world and prevent them from expressing their opinions and identities.

Let’s not stereotype people by what they wear; let’s not send out the wrong signal to young people that they are a “type” of person if they wear particular clothes; let’s not ban any other forms of clothing.

Let’s try to be more of a multicultural society, celebrating – not simply going against – each person’sindividuality.

Go to www.savethehoodie.com/site.php 
Jason Ham is a Year 11 student from Wellington, Somerset