Tip of the hat sends Tyrone mall over the top

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By HOWARD TROXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

Last Saturday in Afghanistan, a soccer match was interrupted when Islamic police stormed the field and arrested the visiting team from Pakistan -- for wearing short pants.

As punishment, the visitors' heads were shaved.

The local governor, to his credit, apologized for the whole incident. "They were our guests and shouldn't be treated like this," he said ruefully.

This apology, therefore, puts Afghanistan slightly ahead of Tyrone Square Mall when it comes to expertise in guest relations.

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Last Saturday evening, a 15-year-old in St. Petersburg named Ephraim Sykes was walking through the mall, wearing a baseball cap turned to the side.

A mall security officer concluded that this violated a regulation against clothing "commonly recognized as gang related." The officer instructed the young man to straighten his cap.

Here versions of the story differ. Did he comply, and get kicked out anyway, or did officers spot him later wearing his hat askew again? Either way, he was ordered out, and left to his own devices on 22nd Avenue N.

Ephraim's father, the Rev. Manuel Sykes, is certain the mall picked on his son because he is -- did I mention this part? -- black. The father says he saw plenty of white kids in the mall that very night with their hats turned sideways. Arriving on the scene to protest, the elder Sykes, too, was invited to leave.

It would not be a huge stretch to suspect racism. Most black people I know, especially males, say they are treated differently in the world. When I, a middle-aged white yuppie, walk into a store at the mall, they see dollar signs. When some of my black friends my age do the same thing, some people get nervous, like they are there to rob the place or shoplift. Not all. But plenty.

Yet lots of people were saying Tuesday that Tyrone Square's guards hassle white kids too. I suppose we could get into a head-counting contest as to who gets hassled the most. Maybe the mall is an equal-opportunity hassler.

Either way, it would be better to ask why this happened in the first place, and what should happen now.

I have little use for grown-ups who enjoy power trips over kids about the way they look. How come there are no dress codes for grown-ups wearing "Big Johnson" T-shirts? How far, exactly, can a baseball cap be off-center before it is a violation? Ninety degrees? Forty-five? Is it a violation when worn by a 10-year-old boy? A 40-year-old man?

Tyrone Square, like shopping malls everywhere, wants to take as much money out of the pockets of teenagers as possible. It is too bad that to accomplish this, they must undergo the unpleasantness of having the teenagers actually present.

I confess a bias here. When I was 15 years old, the same age as Ephraim Sykes, an adult ordered me to take off my hat. He did it with complete arrogance, like he had the absolute right to tell me what to wear, so I told him to get stuffed. He was my high school principal, so I got an involuntary couple of days off from school.

This Sykes kid sounds like he did not react quite as foolishly as I did. I do not know whether the mall was being racist or just stupid. Either way, it is silly. If a kid's actions are out of line, sure, bounce him at once. But have guidelines that do not have guards telling people how to wear their hats, or get rid of these rules altogether.

Throwing out an angry father and prominent minister was not so smart. Not making peace at once, and letting the thing steamroll Tuesday into a news conference and talk of a boycott, was not so smart either.

If Dillard's, Sears and JCPenney and the mall's other stores want fewer rather than more people in their mall, then perhaps a certain percentage of their customers will be happy to oblige them. If they would rather sell things than worry about the direction of their customers' hats, they should say so.

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