Would you be less scared if they were white and wearing argyle sweaters instead of black hoodies and baggy pants? Funny you should say that, because in the UK

Would you be less scared if they were white and wearing argyle sweaters instead of black hoodies and baggy pants? Funny you should say that, because in the UK an argyle sweater was at one time the uniform of football casuals. In certain places at certain times it would create far more fear than hoodies and baggy trousers. The signifiers do change all the time and this is a good example of how weakly tied to behaviour they actually are and how troubling our assumptions based on them are. But your point on the dissonance between ideals and actions is quite valid - we make all sorts of judgements about people based on appearance alone (their culture, their education, their background, their likely behaviour etc), before they've even had a chance to introduce themselves or show us who they are. Casuals in the UK exploited this for some time to avoid scrutiny by the police.