You Can Take the Brother Out of the Hood

You Can Take the Brother Out of the Hood (But You Can't Take the Hood Out of the Brother). This image is my father in his lowrider car club gear in front of his Chevy Impala lowrider with our dogs. When you grow up in the hood, you develop a thick skin. This is part of a series documenting the contemporary American Black experience, from the perspective of my own social world. The intention is to objectify the subject, to explore how society can view people with stereotypical ghetto style as an “other” non-citizen and hence a threat and police target. The photo was taken where we live in predominantly white Palo Alto, between Stanford and East Palo Alto, the historically diverse community where my father grew up.