In my Martin Luther King Jr. class, we discussed the evolving social acceptance of sagging. As it turns out, sagging became socially acceptable around the Civil Rights period. That period was a time when the black population was fighting for their equality and their rights as citizens, and it was when Martin Luther King Jr. became a prominent leader for the Civil Rights movement. King encouraged nonviolent resistance in the form of peaceful protests, sit-ins, boycotts and marches. He knew that people would inevitably have to go to prison and serve jail time for standing up to white supremacy.
As more and more blacks were sent to prison for fighting for their rights, individuals who went to prison were no longer seen as criminals and menaces to society by the black community. King, himself, went to prison multiple times simply because he was fighting the moral evils of racial injustice. What this created was a mixture of inmates: those who were there for civil disobedience and those who were there for other, more serious crimes. However, from the outside looking in, one would not be able to tell which inmate was in for what crime. A brave, black man who was imprisoned for protecting his daughter against white teenagers was equal to the black man in jail for violently damaging other people’s property. When kids pass by the jail and see half these men sagging, they assume it is the men their community has been praising for their bravery. The appreciation and attention those men received made them heroes and role models to the little boys in their community.
While society sees sagging as an unnecessary action that makes the wearer look like a thug, someone notorious for his or her violence, perhaps society should look at it as a sign of heroism. Sagging was a form of idolizing the participants in the modern civil rights movement; therefore, it helped to promote and encourage people to participate in nonviolent resistance. Sagging aided in getting more people to take part in the movement, which led to more people sagging, which led to even more participants. It created this cycle of gaining support for black civil rights, which would then make the movement more successful. While society looks down upon sagging and those who partake in it, maybe they should see it as a successful means of achieving racial equality during the Civil Rights era.
In your post, I’m assuming that the inmates in jail for the violent crimes were the individuals who were ‘sagging’. I like how you addressed the initial acceptance of sagging, but what’s more intriguing to me is how it started, that is why did the inmates sag their pants in the first place? I briefly “Google’d” the birth of sagging pants, and aside from the usual unrelated information, most of the research pointed towards inmates in jail. But even in jail, the sources listed various reasons for the sag – to represent ownership, sexuality, and to serve as a visual reminder of the need for a belt as to later use for self-inflicted violence and defense. Aside from its origination, I personally consider sagging a fashion trend, particularly one that I am not a fan of. However, that leads me to wonder what other fashion trends were initially influenced by unexpected sources. And, with fashion moving the way it is today, I wouldn’t be surprised to soon see Lady Gaga carrying around a cotton-bushel basket as a purse.
ReplyDeleteI greatly appreciate you posting this. Personally, sagging always just seemed to be an avante-garde movement against arbitrary white construct of "appropriate dress," but this story provides a much more meaningful explanation that I think more people should hear. Yet even assuming that this concrete origin did not exist, I really do not understand why saggin' is such a big deal. Someone in class cited "indecent exposure" as its violation, and I have to disagree. I have never seen a guy sagging both their underwear and pants enough to expose their actual genitalia or butt-crack. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky few. Regardless, girls of all races and probably 90% of female Rhodes students wear these trendy low-cut jeans which I promise are way more exposing than the guys' sagging. In fact, the truth of the matter is that these low-cut pants that girls wear are directly intended to be sexually attractive, making it far more "indecent" in my mind.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I read this a few months ago and thought it was quite humorous:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/may/09/sagging-pants-hamper-rape-suspect-fleeing-memphis/