Photo by me
For some reason, wearing sagging pants -saggy low pants- has become a popular trend among mostly young Black men. No matter how you try to excuse it, but wearing your pants low in public will be considered by most as demeaning, disrespectful, tasteless, rude, humiliating.
For others, this is considered sexy, appealing and a sign of rebellion against the status quo. Well, it can seem attractive in some cases, but still it is important to respect others when you are in public, which means you are in a common place.
I was attending a conference in Washington, DC, and I run into this group of students who gave me their opinion about sagging pants. It seems like this way of wearing pants originated in the prison system:
Not convinced yet that you need to pull your pants up? Please watch this video and you might also want to see this website.
cool blog!
ReplyDeleteThe laughable irony is that the only people who think sagging pants are cool, are others who wear their pants this way. That is to say, only idiots think other idiots are cool. Sort of like the morons who tool around in the cars with the loud mufflers, the only people impressed with such things are themselves useless morons.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple: those in our society who are of consequence, those who actually matter and believe in something, don't engage in these pointless lemming-like acts of follow-the-leader. If you, the sagging pants guy, want to wear your pants like a moron and annoy everyone within a three block radius with your obnoxious muffler, then have a ring installed in your nose. Because you are surely being led by the nose like a mindless sheep. In short, you're a coward. You're afraid to stand on your own and think your own thoughts, make your own call. You bury yourself in ghetto group-think and mistakenly believe that the key to manhood is doing what all the other pointless, useless, inconsequential idiots are doing.
You have a choice to make: grow up and be a man who MEANS something to society, or just be useless scum. You can comport yourself with dignity and worth, or you can be a cheap imitation of a man.
Rob, Colorado Springs
You should get a different prospective before calling everyone "idiots" or "scum" because of how they look. Learning not to be such a judgmental tool should be your first objective. Do I dress like this? No, but you'd probably still judge me because I like wearing black. So what? It's what I like and how I choose to live. Don't push your morals on other people. Rob, you should be ashamed of yourself. Just because some people choose to dress a certain way doesn't mean they should be persecuted for it. I don't see you complaining about how skimpy women's clothing has become. Quit judging others, maybe people will start to like you.
ReplyDeleteHey anonymous, hate to tell you, but look around you. First of all, they all look like retards. They don't look in the least bit cool. RE-TARDS.
ReplyDeleteThey have to walk like a gorilla with their legs way apart to keep them up. I see these idiot followers every day in NY city, and you watch them. They keep looking down and adjusting them like every fifteen seconds.
Like people are supposed to be impressed because they are wearing underwear. Hate to tell you, but we ALL have underwear.
Is it any surprise that no real employer besides McDonald's will hire them? They are advertising to the world "I'm a follower", or even better, "I follow other losers".
Thats all they are doing, following the other losers who also think its cool.
Anyway, hope you're good with a mop, because eventually that will become your best friend at work when you're 40, when you are mopping the floors for the other 40yr olds who actually did something with their lives. But by then it will be too late, and you're kids will be losers too.
And one more thought you might consider asking yourself: How many successful people dress that way?
Peace out
I have volunteered as a musician in a Prison and was told point blank that wearing sagging pants was the way an inmate advertised that he was available for sex. I think the vast majority of the folks wearing their pants this way would pull em up if they knew this. The others, of course, would keep them down, get caught by the police because they can't run, and end up, well, in prison where they would learn, too late, that wearing your pants this way has some real consequences.
ReplyDeleteLee D. Baker, Dean of Academic Affairs at Duke University, states that it is widely believed that sagging was adopted from the United States prison system where belts are prohibited. Belts are sometimes prohibited to keep prisoners from using them as weapons or in committing suicide by hanging themselves. The style was later popularized by hip-hop artists in the 1990s. It has since become a symbol of freedom and cultural awareness among many youths or a symbol of their rejection of the values of mainstream society. . . . . i don't sag but i think its a waste of time when we spend our tax dollars to make a law on sagging pants. kinda makes me wonder what other fashion statement is our government will wage war against?????
ReplyDeleteHello Carlos I have this blog called Victor Space on blogspot. First of all great job I like what you did here. On the topic unconsciously I joked with a cousin while wearing a saggy pant "what you want a man to $#$ you?" I didn't know I was so close to the truth. This topic revived tonight a friend just posted it on his Facebook wall. I did some research and that's how I got to you. You know what's the problem? society lack of self identity, look around. I'm sure you will see some copies of Nicky Minaj, some J lo, some Eminem as well. I already posted on my blog stating that I feel that this was some guy who went to prison, saw the trend, tried, liked, came out with the same fashion hoping some former inmates notice but who noticed was some identity-less person who saw that as cool
ReplyDeleteWell, if a man likes to have sex with another man, I don't see the wrong of it. It is a personal decision, BUT there are ways now to express that attraction without fear nor disrespect for others. Men can either meet men in certain places or websites, or creating your circle of loyal friends who know somebody. Do what you choose. But when you show your ass in the streets, it seems that those guys think they are still incarcerated, is like they are defeated or perhaps because they didn't get a father, they have forgot they are not freaking alone in this world.
ReplyDeleteSaggin is Niggas backward. These idiots are rebelling themselves out of a job, out of a future, and most importantly, out of respect.
ReplyDeleteI have always been deeply offended by this "fashion statement." My first thought upon seeing it, "ick," has remanined the same.
ReplyDeleteI was once involved with a former (at the time) inmate, who told me the same thing the anonymous musician above, was told, that it is, in fact, a prison advertisement for sex.
If one doesn't want it, he FINDS a way to keep up his pants. Even after having been released, the man I was involved with was pretty fastidious when it came to keeping his pants around his waist. LOL
In prison the homosexuals wear their pants sagging off their ass to advertise to the man bucks that they are willing to be mounted. In public, these imbeciles walking around with drooping drawers are an insult to so many civil rights activists before them who fought for real civil rights. I like these fools to wear such stupid clothing, however, because it puts them on the radar of law enforcement and it is that much easier to nab them with the vicious bite of a K9 when they they try to spring over a fence caught doing their thuggish activities. www.SheriffReady.org
ReplyDeleteI heard about the prison code for saggers, awhile ago and figured the sagging pants was some kind of 'artistic vigil' for the men -especially, the young men- who are getting raped in the prisons and for those, who prostitute themselves to stay alive. While I don't wear the baggy pants myself, I always respected this trend on some level, thinking the kids were making a political system. I am shocked that half these young guys out here don't know even know or care what's going on in the Corporate America's prison 'industry' -that they sag to follow a crowd of other people, who care even LESS. When Trayvon Martin was stalked and killed in an upscale gated community, the entire World expressed its outrage by putting on hoodie coats; the sagging pants could be an equally potent political statement for political prisoners all over the world. What a waste.
ReplyDeleteWay to fall into the hype of the media with the Trayvon Martin shooting. This blog is not about that. Sagging pants originated in the prison system by men who were willing to have anal sex. Their reason does not matter seeing how it became universal. I think that the young men should know where their fasion statment came from before they start doing it. Maybe, that would change their minds and I wouldnt have to look at their underwear while they feel opressed.
ReplyDelete