Myles Loftin explores racial profiling of black men wearing hoodies

The photographer says his project was partly inspired by the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Part of the Project

From the Series

Parson School of Design graduate Myles Loftin shared his photography project “Hooded” at the first antenna gathering earlier this year. Loftin seeks to employ his own life experience through art and dissect the racial profiling that occurs around black men and boys who wear hoodies.

Wanting to decriminalise and humanise the societal image of black males, Loftin is creating a bank of visuals that portray hooded men and boys of colour in a positive light that is in constrast to the negative perceptions of the media.

In a chilling demonstration of the systemic problem that Hooded addresses, Loftin showed footage of an ordinary Google search with the terms “three black teenagers” as compared to the results given for “three white teenagers”. It is this deepseated and historic imbalance of representation that Loftin aims to rectify through visual art.

For more information on Loftin’s work, watch this video interview.