Posted on 09/27/2007 6:12:14 PM PDT by Coleus
Have you heard about the movement to ticket and fine people - meaning, people like you - for wearing sagging, underwear-revealing pants? It started in a small Louisiana town, where you can now get up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for exposing your undergarments. Proposals have since popped up from Atlanta to Baltimore to Trenton, and last week even in Yonkers. It's only a matter of time before some enterprising City Council member puts it on the table here in New York.
And in every city, the most vocal critics of the saggy pants ban - groups like the ACLU - argue that it is a form of racial profiling that unfairly targets African-American males for what supposedly is just a type of cultural expression. Enough of this "cultural expression" argument. Those who want to ban sagging pants (who, by the way, in most cases happen to be African-American lawmakers) are onto something. And it's more than just about indecency. It's about your self-image as young black men - and our self-image as African-Americans.
Do you realize where the sagging pants trend started? It started in our nation's prisons - where inmates were not allowed to wear belts (or have shoelaces) for fear they would use them to harm themselves or others. Before long, the gangsta rap world caught on - and made the look a symbol of street life in urban communities across America, New York City included. So this is not your fashion trend, young black men. It's a trend created by and perpetuated by people who have hurt others. A staggering number of black men are incarcerated across this nation. You don't really want to celebrate that, do you? For far too long, we - black men like you and black women like me - have silently accepted the low expectations that have permeated our communities. That's led far too many torefrain from encouraging you to improve your self-image - and your true self. Everyone knows that academic achievement among black youth nationally is still scraping the floor of the basement. Everyone knows that far too many young black men are still in the thrall of gangs and street violence.
If we can't outright reject a prison fashion trend, God knows we will not be able to grapple with the really important stuff. And please don't tell me clothing is irrelevant. It matters. Go to any one of the exemplary all-boys, predominantly African-American schools in America - like Bedford-Stuyvesant's Excellence Charter School - and you'll find there are many ways they instill in their young people a sense of self-worth and respect. And that starts with how the youngsters dress. They dress to reflect self-respect. And that translates into discipline, leadership and scholarship.
Yes, I understand - it's a shame it had to come to this. It would have been better if we could have gotten our own house in order. But for years, we let pants ride lower and lower, exposing more and more of young men's undergarments. Hardly anyone did anything. Constitutionally protected expression? But there are limits to everything. You can't walk around naked, can you?
Instead of cursing the fashion police and going to great lengths to defend a style of dress, I say you should get outfront and endorse this movement. That's right. You, young black men, should be the first to say that you are rejecting a prison mentality. Stop this fashion trend dead in its tracks if you can. And if you can't - well, then, a new law may be on its way. Pants up. And stand up, young black men. You've got your self-image. Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud.
Jenkins, a former Miss Louisiana and runnerup to Miss America, is an attorney in New York.
'cause the Silky Pony just said they will all end up dead or in prision?
If I’m wrong somebody please correct me, but the vast majority of young men who I’ve seen dress this way are black.
I used to see quite a few redneck boys who dressed like that, but not so much in the last couple of years.
Hopefully these kids are finally seeing just how stupid looking this fad really is.
At the school where I used to work it is almost exclusively the black boys who dress like this.
As a matter of fact, I can’t recall ever seeing a boy of another race dressing in that manner there.
The author is only half correct. It started in the prisons as a sign that one was willing to be another's "jail-house girlfriend", to put it nicely. Now blacks use it as a symbol of being one of the "niggas" (never confuse this term with the sound alike term ending in "er" lest you be shot). "Saggin" spelled backwards is "niggas".
There are now like 7 out of 10 black kids without Dads. This is their #1 problem. No Dads = chaos and dead end streets.
Coming soon: trousers with the waistband just underneath your armpits.
Hope this fine lady is black. Otherwise, she’d better be ready for the “racist” tarbrush. And if she is black, she’d better be ready to be “cosbyised” by her own race. Sad state of affairs in America’s dominant black culture. But, only they can clean it up ... if they ever want to.
At 61, I resemble (resent) that!!! LOL!
Stupid fad, sure. But do we really want the government to tell us what we can’t wear? Or how we wear it?
Seems to me inmates often wear jumpsuits or low-quality trousers with elastic waistbands or similar.
I had always heard an alternative explanation for the baggy pants thing:
-kids from poor families would often be given older brother's pants to wear as hand-me-down. Often such pants were too big.
-such kids correlate significantly with the kids who become "gangstas"
-thus, the baggy-pants look became identified with "gangstas", to the point where
-rappers began dressing like that intentionally so they would look the part, and eventually,
-rich white kids would intentionally buy pants like that.
To me this is a much more convincing explanation. It also seems to fit better with where fads like this tend to come from. What was once the shameful embarrassing predicament of a poor kid became the mark of coolness and strength.
Excellent article.
The problem is precisely that it is indeed an expression of their culture. The culture itself needs to be rejected, not just this particular expression of it.
I've tried to imagine what Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman would have to say about modern black gangsta culture. But I can't post it, as I'm afraid it would not meet FR language standards.
And I will bet you look just adorable. LOL
Depends on where you live and when.
Years ago, this was also a fad with white kids from the suburbs, but eventually it phased out with most of them but not all, however, among african americans it doesn't seem to have faded out as much.
That said, I do kind of chuckle that this is a law that on the surface is inherently aimed at african americans, is obviously targeting them, and ironically, isn't going to be attacked by any african american civil rights group or leaders.
You do have to kind of see the irony here.
I didn’t like the title of the article. Then I read it and really liked what she had to say about a rejection of the prison mentality and instilling the proper expectations and code of behavior for young people.
I believe the saggy pants trend was actually a conspiracy by da man—it’s hard to run from the law when your pants are falling down to your ankles and you’re trying to keep them up.
A very sad irony.
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