Sagging pants
Yesterday on my way home from work, I was stopped at a light. There was a group of young men crossing the street. They were taking their own sweet time getting across when eventually the timer on the cross walk ran down to 0. The light was about to change in a couple of seconds and they barely managed to get half way across the street. Now they had to run. The big problem was that they were sagging their jeans so low that they couldn't take a running length stride. In fact, one of them had his jeans so low that he had to hold on to them to keep them from falling off as he waddled across the street.
I don't really understand why these kids do this. I did a little research on the subject a while back and the information I found on the origin of the trend was rather disturbing. Back in the 80's gangs like the Crips and the Bloods from East Los Angeles used to wear Blue (Crips) and Red (Bloods) to represent their gang affiliation. Gang members that would become incarcerated would be forced to wear their standard prison issue uniforms which were the same color for all inmates but they were allowed to wear their own underwear. They would get sent from the outside underwear that was in their gang colors and in order to make sure that everyone knew which color underwear they were wearing and their gang affiliation, they would sag their pants to proudly display them. When these inmates were finally released they continued to wear their pants like this. Soon it became the style of the hip-hop culture.
Today's youth now emulate this style often without knowing it's true origin. Some will argue that it comes from a more deeply rooted African tradition from back before Africans were brought to the US as slaves. I highly doubt that Shaka Zulu or some other African warriors from the past ever wore sagging jeans showing off their underwear but if it makes people feel better about themselves, so be it. It's more likely that this style originated in prisons.
I have a few issues with this style. I personally have no problem with baggy jeans. In fact, I wear rather loose fitting jeans myself because I feel their allow me more freedom of movement and are more comfortable. But I do have a problem with displaying your underwear. This is not something that should be publicly displayed. And if you believe that this style originated in prisons as I do, you will see that by sagging your pants, you are emulating criminals. Not only will you be emulating criminals but you will emulating bad criminals. Criminals that were caught and locked up. If you want to emulate a criminal, try emulating ones that were good at what they did and never got caught like D.B. Cooper.
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