This right here:

"The garment called a "ski mask" is in desperate need of a name change. For reasons that are obvious to everyone in the English-speaking world, the thing should be called a "robbery mask." Whenever you see a man of any color wearing a ski mask, you do not think "skier," you think "armed and dangerous thief."'

...is the funniest thing I've heard in a coons age.

The manufacturers of ski masks generally use the foreign word Balaclava to avoid putting off a potential customer with a negative association ... or it may be that it's used because it's more fun to say. Either way, my face would be sandpaper without them.

Yeah, a ski mask on a ski slope is no cause for alarm. But a ski mask in a convenience store...

Apropos of "ski mask"/"robbery mask"... you also think: riot cop, SWAT team member, or black-clad commando.

Speaking of crime Charles & Dominic, I came across this horror from the Chicago Tribune:

2nd brother shot dead this month within blocks of home
October 1, 2010 6:25 AM | No Comments | UPDATED STORY
Street violence struck a Chatham family for a second time this month when an 18-year-old man was fatally shot, just weeks after his younger brother was gunned down in the same area, police said.
Jajuan Brooks had gone out for pizza when he was shot in the chest and leg around 6:35 p.m. at East 79th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, police and family said. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died.
Brooks was shot not far from where his brother was gunned down earlier this month, said Gresham District Capt. Ruth Wedster.
Jeremy Brooks, 17, was shot several times by one of two people who confronted him about 2:15 p.m. on Sept. 2, police said. He stumbled behind a church near 78th and Cottage Grove and collapsed.
"They're not the kids who hung out on the street," their uncle, Michael Tribett, said in a telephone interview Thursday night. "They spent all their time together. They waited on their mother because she's a senior citizen."
The brothers' mother, Sheree Tribett, could be heard crying, grieving over the family's latest tragedy. Michael Tribett said another of her son's had just arrived home from work and was being told of the slaying.
Tribett said a turf war has taken hold of the neighborhood, but his nephew stayed in the house all the time unless he was running errands for his mother. The brothers were the third and fourth of eight siblings.
When the 17-year-old was killed, police said the shooting may have been gang-related and that he might have been the younger relative of a top gang member. Police said then they feared a retaliation shooting could take place.
--Serena Maria Daniels, Caroline Kyungae Smith and Liam Ford

This was shocking by any standard. The mother lost two of her sons to gun violence within one month! Imagine being this parent.

They stole Swisher Sweets? What - was one of them a 65-year-old black man?

Hey Mudede
Do you think these robbers would be good members of whatever Marxist utopia you believe in?

Too bad the victim didn't have a Glock and a permit, or at least a machete.

I'm surprised there isn't a fucking police brutality protest being planned over this.

The rest of the English speaking world refers to it as a "balaclava", and is generally thought to be in the hat family, as opposed to the mask family.