Pants Hang Low

We know that this mainly belt-less, sagging pants phenomenon, popularized by black teenage boys, comes from the penal culture. Its antecedent is the popular “do-rag” that’s been a standard in black, inner-city culture for at least two generations.

So many black boys and young men are on the streets, in shopping centers, clubs and elsewhere looking like targets for arrest to law-enforcement personnel, suburbanites and tourists. Generally, people fear black youth – especially black adults who ride the buses with them and live among them.

Sagging-pants-wearing black males who blatantly exhibit their underwear as style are also sending a cryptic message to society to kiss their behinds for leaving them behind. Their uniform tells all that they are soldiers in the army of those who are mis-educated and forgotten: a new nihilistic foreign legion of a sort.

Countless black girls become young adults and mothers of two or more children with different fathers and no husband. Most of these teenage girls enter adulthood living in an extended family situation with their children, usually with a female head of household that is generational – with mother and/or mother and grandmother.

Young girls are taught to exude their sexuality to be popular, to be wanted, often when barely out of adolescence and sometimes before adolescence. Listening to rap and soul-singers, learning the latest sex-driving gyrations called dancing, and seeking the boys tend to dominate the lives of many girls who are not lucky enough to be involved in organized activities. If that’s not the bull’s eye for black teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS, it’s pretty darn close.

Continue Reading the South Florida Times article…

Since the advent of the zoot suit in the 1930s, teenagers have bucked traditional dress codes.

Fads have come and gone, parents have made fusses and schools have passed rules to ban certain styles, but one fashion trend — one that started in prison where inmates aren’t given belts — could carry a stiff fine and jail time in certain cities across the nation.

It’s the sagging of pants, and it’s dropped to all-new lows with some male teens, who cinch their pants around their thighs, leaving their buttocks exposed.

To take a look at the rest of the tracypress.com interview click HERE!

BAKER — The City Council on Tuesday voted 4-1 in favor of a sagging pants ordinance.

Council members A.J. Walls, Jimmy Pourciau, Fred O. Russell and Carlon “Frank” Simpson voted for the measure while Charles Vincent cast a no vote, saying the ordinance possibly infringed on First Amendment rights and specifically targeted youths.

The new law passed by the council makes it unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing pants below the waist that exposes skin or undergarments.

Any person convicted for violating the law can face fines ranging from $100 to $250 and one to four days of picking up trash or performing community service, depending on the number of offenses.

Vincent, a history professor at Southern University, said that after talking to many of his students, he believed baggy pants was mainly a trend or fad that will eventually go away.

To keep reading the 2theadvocate.com article click HERE!

Mae Davis is a regular at Athens City Council meetings. She has brought problems to the council concerning her Brownsferry Street neighborhood, such as overgrown lots and young prostitutes working the streets.

At Monday’s meeting, Davis was unusually quiet. When asked by Council President Johnny Crutcher if she had anything to bring to the council, she said, “If you can do anything about those sagging pants, I sure would appreciate it.”

Davis was referring to a style of clothing worn by many of the community’s youth in which trousers or jean are worn low-slung and appear to barely remain about the hips. Often the style leaves undershorts exposed. To finish up this News Courier article, check it out HERE!