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I was also going to make the skinhead example lol.
Oldshadow explain it well.
Normally I would say that we take many cues from how everyone's dressed - if you dressed like a homeless person and showed up to work at a formal office, people could think you looked crazy, without being shallow/jumping to conclusions.
We use connotations in things every day in an attempt to find familiar patterns and react 'correctly' to them. If you forgot that a red light symbolized "stop" then you might get into an accident because you weren't reading the road like all the other motorists. Here's where I disagree with all that 'critically evaluative symbol reading' -
When it's people. People are tough symbols to read. In fact, I might argue that they're literally impossible to properly connote, seeing as every person alive could behave completely normally and live life properly and unassumingly, all while doing Ted Bundy serial killing shtick on the side. You may think you understand a person's intentions and capabilities, but external appearance doesn't really give you much data, if we're talking about "who's a threat" or "who looks dangerous" to a cop. It's all about actions and context in police encounters, or at least it should be.
TL;DR version: if people judge people based on what they're wearing, they could just as easily judge people by their racial connotations or skin color. Judging people based on appearance should take a backseat until you get words and actions from someone that lets you know what kind of person you're dealing with. That goes for targeted minorities in cop encounters: if you resent being stopped, so you act indifferent and hostile towards the cops, then you're validating the shitty projected opinions that cop may already hold for you. Don't give cops validation for their suspicions, even if those suspicions are dead wrong and slightly racist to boot, and that pisses you off. Makes sense, especially when someone's already judged you unfairly - but you look to prove them wrong. Also in this scenario, the other person's a cop + gun. So tread carefully.
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