Messages depend on context and timing as well as the background of both the sender and the receiver. There no longer is flexibility, subtlety or even nuance. This week, the NFL announced a ban on players wearing bandannas under their helmets. The league noted that the additional headwear is troublesome. The head covering, the league worried, also makes reference to gangs and thug life, topics that the NFL would no doubt prefer to disassociate itself from considering recent run-ins many of its players have had with the judicial system.
Players are free to wear skull caps in their team's colors.
They can also don alternative head gear if they have a doctor's note. Once gangs appropriate an item, it seems that this connection can never be severed. Thus, a host of schoolchildren are prohibited from wearing baggy jeans to class. The pertinent issue is that the silhouette has a gang connection. Other reference points are obliterated.