GRAVITY: Oppositional Fashion and the Politics of Sagging
Fahamu Pecou ©2014
…Fashion, like capitalism itself, is so contradictory, it
at least has the potential to challenge those
ideologies in which it is itself enmeshed… - Elizabeth
Wilson
“Don’t Ask Me Out if Your Ass is Out”
Poet, dancer, and activist, Tracy V. Pierre, founder of the organization Ghetto Getup,
has been circulating a petition for the last few years. This petition claims to encourage
young women to wield their influence over their male counterparts by demanding that
they pull their pants up! Her campaign, provocatively titled “Don’t’ Ask Me Out if Your
Ass is Out” asserts that young Black men who wear their pants sagging have low
standards and that women who fail to demand that these young men wear their pants
“appropriately” are complicit with these lowered standards. Pierre, who organizes
events at schools, churches and cultural centers promoting her message, is but one
voice in a symphony of disdain around the fashion trend of sagging.
Sagging (or saggin’) is the trend of wearing one’s pants low on your hips so as to reveal
your underwear. In extreme cases, this could manifest as a totem pole of layers of
underwear, basketball shorts, and jeans. Sagging is extremely controversial both within
and outside of the black community. In addition to objections to the look of the style,
there is also great controversy around its origins, its perceived implications as well as its
persistence as a popular fashion choice amongst young black males. I argue that this
chorus of disgust reiterates a pervasive narrative that punishes black bodies for
offending the visual sphere. It also contributes a politics of deviancy to a politics of
respectability that narrows the possibilities of self-elaboration for black men. What
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would happen if we were to re-envision sagging through the lens of oppositional
fashion? What are the implications of sagging as a politicized statement of resistance?
Despite her efforts to be uplifting, Pierre, like many critics, links the spectacle of
sagging to negative and debilitating ideas about black masculinity. Historically these
narratives have served to justify the enslavement, lynching, and even today, the
extraneous policing of black males. Countless studies and statistics1 list black men as
outperformed academically and professionally in nearly all facets of society with the
exception of sports and entertainment. These studies go on to show disproportionate
numbers of black males entangled within the prison-industrial complex, unemployed,
or murdered at the hands of other black males.
It is however false, unfair and shortsighted to attribute these shortcomings to being
evidence of some inherent, problematic nature of black males. To really engage in a
discourse with black male comportment, one must consider the historical and social
factors that contribute to our ideas around black masculinity. There exists a cruel irony
within the experience of being Black and male in American society. The black male
body is historically revered and reviled, desired and disgusting. By the age of twelve,
childhood has already become a fading privilege and distant refuge for black boys.
One’s physical presence, incipient, and becoming is suddenly heavied with the weight
of one’s own skin. This skin as a spectacle of labor, resilience, power, regalness,
violence, and death, becomes an obstacle to overcome rather than a legacy to grow
into. A physical burden as such is not without its psychological baggage as well. The
resulting neurosis is often manifested as enmity and resentment with society. And like
1
For examples of troubling statistics on black masculinity, see: “Fact Sheet: Outcomes for Young Black
Males, ” Accessed December 12, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/too-important-to-
fail/fact-sheet-outcomes-for-young-black-men/
“Troubling Statistics for African –American Males in the Classroom”, August 10, 2014,
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/10/troubling-statistics-for-african-american-males-in-the-
classroom/
“The Silent Genocide- Facts about the Deepening Plight of Black Men in America”, Accessed December
12, 2014, http://www.blackstarproject.org/home/images/facts/deepeningplightblackmeninamerica.pdf
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the same skin which becomes impossible to mask, so too is the nihilism and despair
often experienced by Black males.
The media’s portrayal of black men contributes greatly to this perspective and
ultimately shapes and informs the performance of black masculinity. Psychoanalyst
Jacque Lacan suggests that the “ideal I” is constituted in the recognition of one’s
reflected self (mirror image). This recognition of one’s self (reflected image) often
precedes recognition of our own physical body and certainly precedes the I which
develops in social interactions with others. 2 In other words, psychologically, we first
identify with and define ourselves via our reflected image. That is, we begin to shape
our identities through images we recognize as “our self” before we recognize our actual
self. These reflected images may take the form of media representations that purport
to be authentic articulations of a particular identity.
For young black men, that image is often troubled, obscured through a racist gaze.
These images are dark, desperate, fear-filled, ominous and lacking humanity. Black
men are often imaged as violent, irrational thugs. In 2013 NFL cornerback Richard
Sherman caught headlines after he gave a testosterone-charged interview to Fox
Sports’ Erin Andrews3. Fresh from making the game-winning play, Sherman, a Stanford
Graduate, was anything but calm during the 26-second interview. Within minutes,
social media sites were flooded with tweets and comments labeling Sherman as a loud
mouthed, class-less thug. Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Times called the
controversy “racial profiling at its worse”. In an article titled “Controversy around
Richard Sherman exposes an ugly truth”. Bonsignore continues to highlight obvious
racist double standards at work in the media,
2
Lacan’s concept of the “Mirror Stage” examines the development the formative functions of the I
3
The video of the controversial Sherman interview can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjOkTib5eVQ
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“White hockey players drop their gloves and trade punches with one another
and go tumbling to the ice and we applaud them for being good, tough players
doing their jobs.
Clean-cut Tom Brady screams at a coach on the sideline and we laud him for
being a passionate winner.
But a black player with dreadlocks screams with bravado after the biggest win of
his career and he’s described as nothing more than a thug.”
The only hope to be accepted in mainstream society appears to be in conforming
blackness to model a hegemonic white authority, ultimately rendering any trace of
blackness or difference invisible, which in many ways is a fantasy of postracialist
ideology.
I refer to the conflicting discourse around black male visibility and performativity as
gravity. Gravity is defined in two ways. In physics, gravity is the force that attracts a
body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass.
Most often one imagines Sir Isaac Newton’s experience with an apple, or more
colloquially, the notion that ‘what goes up, must come down’. Contrary to popular
belief, gravity is not a pull, but a push. It is a pressure that forces matter together. But
gravity also relates to the seriousness or importance of something. This too can be
understood in terms of its relationship to a conceptual ground, or grounding, the
bottom-line, or the fundamental root of a cause or issue.
The grave and desperate language with which we recognize and discuss black
masculinity and black male behavior is like the force of gravity, pushing down on black
men, restricting their movement, tethering them to negative ideas of themselves. In
order to defy gravity, we must redefine the way we read black male bodies, which
includes how it is fashioned.
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For my purposes, sagging becomes an allegory to talk about this idea of gravity and the
state of Black masculinity, fashion, self-expression, and respectability within popular
culture. The controversies surrounding sagging contribute to the weight or gravity of
black masculinity. Through engaging with the motivations behind the trend we might
form new vocabularies for discourse around black masculinity, as well as the
contemporary and historic spectacle of race and resistance.
“That might get rid of some of the crime on the
street.” – Florida Commissioner Timothy Holmes
TO JAIL AND BACK
It is not a stretch to recognize that prevailing narratives around fixing the “sagging
problem” betray a more insidious reading of black masculinity. The visual spectacle of
the black male body continues to trouble racist hegemonic visions of society. As such it
is imperative to address negative readings of black males and then examine how
fashion might be viewed as a site as well as a performance of resistance to prevailing
understandings of both black male bodies and both how it is viewed and chooses to be
seen.
In a 2007 interview with Jet Magazine, reformed gangbanger and television personality,
Judge Greg Mathis claimed sagging jeans as a derivative of prison culture. He says:
In prison you aren't allowed to wear belts to prevent self-hanging or the hanging
of others. They take the belt and sometimes your pants hang down. ... Many
cultures of prison have overflowed into the community unfortunately… Those
who pulled their pants down the lowest and showed their behind a little more-
raw, that was an invitation. [The youth] don't know this part about it. (Margena
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A. Christian, “Saggin’ Pants: Prison Style to Mainstream Fashion”, JetMagazine,
May 7, 2007, 16)
Mathis’ isn't the only voice tying sagging to prison culture. The origin myth of sagging
evolving from the scores of black men who’ve served time (or are serving time) in jail is
pervasive. In fact, many cities and municipalities across the country have used this
perspective in adopting laws and ordinances which view sagging as a fineable—even a
criminal offense. In such cases, sagging is used to justify further racial profiling by
suggesting that a person who is sagging is more likely to commit a crime. In presenting
the legislation to the Opa-Locka City, council in Opa-Locka, Florida, which was voted in
unanimously, Councilman Timothy Holmes argued that curtailing sagging would help
cut down on criminal activity4. Organizations like the ACLU criticize the “fashion-
policing” of citizens arguing, “Laws like this disproportionately penalize African
American youth, increase contact between youth and law enforcement and will impose
overly harsh penalties for victimless behavior”.5
The criminalization of sagging works to reinforce the idea that black masculinity is
inherently criminal and that the presence of black males is counter to standards of
decency and respectability. Despite the fact that many young white males have also
adopted the sagging style, they are less likely to be criminalized or demonized in the
same way. In an article published on the website USPrisonCulture.com, the author
argues:
“Once again society is inscribing [Black Youth] as 'criminal' above all.
Young white suburban men will not be the ones receiving these fines
even if they too come under the gaze of law enforcement for wearing
'sagging pants.' Their identities are not synonymous with criminality and
4
USPrisonCulture.com “Sagging Pants, Criminality, and Prison Clothing”. Accessed December 4, 2015.
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/12/14/sagging-pants-criminality-and-prison-clothing/
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IBID
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as such they are afforded the right to wear such clothing as a marker of
'style.'" (USPrisonCulture.com “Sagging Pants, Criminality, and Prison
Clothing”. Accessed December 4, 2015.
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/12/14/sagging-pants-
criminality-and-prison-clothing/)
In addition to the troubling image of criminal deviancy implied through the prison
narrative, there are undertones of homophobia and the desire to emasculate black
men. In her presentation, Tracie Pierre asserts that if she approached a man with her
pants sagging she is declaring her sexual availability and that as such she is giving up
any agency over her own body. By implying that sagging suggests sexual availability,
and particularly access for anal sex between two men, both Pierre and Mathis strip the
black male of his own sexual agency through language that reeks of homophobia. Their
suggestion that sagging provides or at least invites access to the male backside should
be considered an assault on black masculinity and an insult to those who are in fact
homosexual. This type of thinking reifies the notion that blacks and homosexuals are
deviant bodies, in need of control and reform, or at least bodies that deserve to be
hidden from view. The implication that homosexuality is the logical outcome of sagging
is an attempt to instill fear and disgust around homosexual behavior. Additionally, such
logic assaults the credibility of a potent black masculinity. In suggesting that men who
sag are not authentically masculine – as rigidly defined by the standards of a white
patriarchal masculinity – these kinds of narratives continue to place a specific imagining
of Black masculinity within the lower strata of a racial hierarchy. In other words, white
males or those who adopt white male standards of decency are seen as or considered to
be more manly, respectable, and socially acceptable than those who do not.
FASHIONING POLITICS
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Herbert Blummer offers a thorough and insightful examination of the sociological role
of fashion in his essay “Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection”.
Blummer argues that many sociologists have done a disservice to the role of fashion by
not engaging with the deeper implications of fashion choice by individuals as well as
within specific groups. According to Blummer, most sociologists have viewed fashion as
socially inconsequential or irrational and therefore have overlooked significant data
around the ways society informs and is informed by fashion’s evolving style.
Blummer writes,
Where fashion operated it assumes an imperative position. It sets sanctions of
what is to be done, it is conspicuously indifferent to criticism, it demands
adherence, and it by-passes as oddities and misfits those who fail to abide by it.
(276)
According to Blummer, fashion emerged as a signifier of class. As such its movements
and changes are fluid and most often unpredictable. Its elusiveness should not be
viewed as irrational however. According to Blummer fashion operates through a trickle
down effect. What is deemed fashionable is first articulated within the upper class as a
way of distinguishing themselves from the lower classes. These trends are then seen
and adopted by the aspirational class in an attempt to be like the bourgeois. As the
trend trickles down, it forces the upper class to adopt new styles and so on. In this
regard, a style does not necessarily die, it simply yields to ever evolving tastes.
Since fashion is a form of social order—as in, one identifies through fashion socially—
specific identify politics may also be implicit in particular fashion choices. In the same
way fashion helps to distinguish the elite, it may also be used to distinguish those who
wish to distance themselves from prevailing social forms. Another way to think about
this is that fashion helps to differentiate groups from one another and mark its wearer
as a member of a particular collective.
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OPPOSITIONAL FASHION
In Adorned in Dreams, Elizabeth Wilson argues that fashion has long served as a site for
embodied resistance to the status quo. In the 19th century, as class stratifications
broadened, fashion became a way for one to either identify with or distinguish
themselves from society. Dandyism6 emerged as a site for men to resist the social
trappings of the aristocracy. The dandy’s style was flamboyant and narcissistic, boastful
and deliberately offensive. According to Wilson, dandyism is the first iteration of
oppositional fashion. She defines oppositional fashion as an “aim to express the dissent
or distinctive ideas of a group, or views hostile to the conformist majority” (184). By
fashioning themselves—through both clothes as well as lifestyle—dandies marked
themselves as oppositional rebels, at once participating in and operating outside of
capitalism.
Oppositional fashion then acts as a response or reaction to acceptable and hegemonic
styles. Over the decades, oppositional fashion has mutated along with the dominant
styles, both working symbiotically, informing one another. During the late 19th century
as the aristocracy chose dark knickers and stockings, the dandy wore long, fitted pants.
In the 1920s when the flapper7 style saw women wearing short skirts and bejeweled
embellishments, women in the counter-culture chose to wear more modest, long-
flowing fabrics in muted colors.
As fashion initiated and contributed to a greater consumer culture, oppositional fashion
also took a more significant role. It became not only a mere rejection of bourgeois
society, but also a way for youth to identify within specific peer groups. What you wore
became as much a signifier of who you were as what you did—professionally and
socially. Speaking on the role of fashion and British youth in the 1950s, Wilson writes:
The styles have been a form of resistance to the straitjacket of snobbery, but
6
Dandyism was “a reaction against the English country house style of dress…” (Wilson, 180)
7
A style popularized amongst affluent followers of the jazz scene of the 1920s
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they may be experienced subjectively by those who flaunt them less as a class
rebellion than as an assertion of youth against age, or the hip versus the
straight. (190)
Wilson also argues that similarly, black fashion aesthetics sought to express dissent
amongst an oppressed population. With earlier fashion trends, such as the zoot suit,
there was a measure of rebellion against the dominant trends but also an aspirational
edge, an attempt to acquire some “joy and glamour.” According to Wilson, “…counter
cultural dressing is usually most distinctive when it expresses hedonism and rebellion
simultaneously” (200).
Black people in Europe and America have historically sought ways of externally marking
their bodies with the autonomy they have desperately sought internally. This was
achieved through posturing and posing in combination with fashion. Monica Miller
explains in Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity
that Black men have long used fashion to assert their humanity and dignity in a society
that views their bodies as less than human. Black Dandyism in late 18th century London,
for example, allowed Black men to style “their way from slaves to dignified human
beings.” More recently, Black male style has followed a path of resistance against
conventional fashion and social norms as articulated through white patriarchal society.
In the 1960s, black activists and subsequently many in the black community adopted to
revolutionary chic made popular by the Black Panther Party. Black leather jackets,
black gloves, and black berets symbolized black solidarity but also nodded towards an
undeniable cool. The Panther’s style echoed of the streets and youth. The look
deliberately opposed the more traditional and paternal look of the suits worn by clergy
members at the helm of the Civil Rights struggle, and contrasted greatly with the rural,
working class, utilitarian fashions of groups like SNCC. The BPP ushered style into
politics and successfully appealed to young denizens of black and brown
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neighborhoods who sought to distinguish themselves from the shortcomings of what
might be considered the moral conservatism of figures like Martin Luther King.
In the 1990s, oppositional fashion continued to evolve amongst the hip-hop generation.
Following the flamboyant styles of the late 70s and early 80s, younger hip-hoppers
began to resist the tight leather pants and shell-toe Adidas shoes made popular by
groups like Run DMC and Kool Moe Dee. The pimped-out suits and flashy costumes
worn by the likes of Big Daddy Kane and MC Hammer had also become campy and
cartoonish. Scholar Ivory Toldson recounts his experience with sagging as a teen in an
article on AlterNet.com from 2010:
Drug dealers were the most popular people at my public school in the ‘80s and
your attire easily made you a ‘mark.’ We all know that ‘nerds’ are known for
wearing their pants high, even above the waist, so the counter of that would be
to wear pants as low as you can.8
By the mid-1990s, large, oversized jeans and sports jerseys comprised the uniform of
young people who wished to fashion themselves in hip-hop style as not only fans, but
also as members of a community which sought to distance themselves from their
forebears and predeccesors while claiming their place in the world. The absurdly baggy
styles were viewed with contention by scores of older folks attempting to disavow the
burgeoning cultural movement. Bright flamboyant colors accentuated with African
medallions and geometric hairstyles were as much an affirmation of hip-hop and
youthful black pride as it was a dismissal of the conservative conventions of everyday
fashion. This contention appears to be carried through, albeit with an even more
defiant and confrontational edge in the contemporary fashion trend of sagging.
8
Kirsten West Savali, “Sagging Pants: Prison Uniform Represents Wreckage of Black Communities?”
Accessed December 9, 2014,
http://www.alternet.org/story/156354/sagging_pants%3A_prison_uniform_represents_wreckage_of_bla
ck_communities
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One of the first and most visible spectacles of sagging can be seen in the performances
of rapper 2Pac. Born Tupac Shakur, son of two members of the Black Panther party, but
raised primarily by his mother Afeni Shakur. 2Pac provided us with some of the most
conflicting, powerful, and transgressive images of black male youth rebellion. Pac
developed and lived by what he termed the THUG Life9 philosophy. A brilliant thinker
and expressive artist, his politics were an ever evolving snapshot of black male angst.
2Pac was politically insightful, charging that the government, and society at large were
to blame for the social conditions negatively impacting the black community10. His
mother, a once proud freedom-fighter, became a drug addict during his childhood.
Growing up in abject poverty, Tupac saw firsthand the extreme desperation and
destruction in the black community. After launching his solo career as a rap artist and
actor, he began to articulate his THUG Life philosophy. Throughout his career, he was
constantly in some sort of conflict: he had several run-ins with the law, including
spending time in jail for an alleged rape charge. After having the words “THUG LIFE”
tattooed across his belly, Pac could often be seen shirtless, pants worn low, boxers on
display, throwing up his middle fingers as a curse to the world. His was an attitude of
defiance. Through his music as well as his style, he spoke to the same angst
experienced by countless young black men who felt/feel routinely victimized,
marginalized, criminalized, and generally unwanted.
Pac’s style, similar to that of the Black Panther Party, appealed to a subset of the hip-
hop community and contradicted the flashier images projected by other popular rap
artists of the time, like Sean “Puffy” Combs. Additionally, though he often rapped
about parties and women, Tupac’s music was less indebted to capitalist aspirations and
spoke directly to the frustrations many young men experienced. Songs like Keep Ya
Head Up (1993), Me Against the World (1995), Ghetto Gospel (2005) can be viewed as
9
T.H.U.G. in THUGLIFE is an acronym for “the hurt you gave,” meaning we’re thugs because you made
us this way, and now you are forced to deal with us.
10
In an interview titled “The Rapper’s New Rage” Tupac illustrates the rage and frustration of the black
community. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBWjhEax3g
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hymns for the disenfranchised. Like many of Tupac’s songs, they bottled young, black
angst and offered messages of hope through defiance of the politically incorrect
systems of oppression. As such Pac endeared himself to the so-called thugs and
deviants, offering them a voice in an otherwise voiceless reality.
In 1997, Tupac was gunned down in a drive-by on the Vegas strip. If his iconography had
not already been cemented by his bad boy antics and THUG Life reality, the swirling
conspiracy theories, scores of unreleased music, and post-humous appropriation of his
image and concepts helped position him as a model of resistance and a pillar of black
dissidence. With the iconization of Tupac also comes the imitation and
commoditization of his image. Soon after his death, his THUG Life philosophy was
stripped of its politics and made to reify a thug behavior more complicit with racist
ideology.
RISING DOWN
Despite dulling the edginess of 2Pac’s political voice within hip-hop, the spirit of
dissidence within Black culture persists. As the baggy, oversized clothes of the mid to
late 90s gave way to designer couture, names like Cross Colours, Karl Kani and Fubu
were replaced with Ferragamo, Versace and Louis Vuitton. What did not change was
the spirit of rebellion. Even with the more high-end, affluent brand names, hip-hop
artists added their own style. Baggy morphed into sagging. Though rappers wore $500
dollar jeans, they were worn lower to give more slack, revealing at times, layers of
branded underwear and basketball shorts. Ironically, though today’s hip-hop artists—
many of whom are multi-millionaires, successful entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists—can compete financially with their white counterparts the majority of black
youth still face forms of oppression, poverty and marginalization similar, if not worse
than in the 70s and 80s when hip-hop first emerged. Unemployment rates among black
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youth remain disproportionately high while economic, educational and other social
gaps widen. The causes of 2Pac's angst remains.
For black boys in particular, this remains painfully true. In 2013 President Barack Obama
announced the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. The program is designed to empower
non-profit and private sector organizations with tools and resources to help reform and
uplift young black men through training programs, education, rehabilitation and, yes,
even elocution. Some programs such as Alex Ellis’ Tied To Greatness organization
asserts that learning to tie a tie is a fundamental skill all men need in order to be
successful in life: "I tell young men all across the country you don't need a tie hanging
on the corner, you don't need a tie in prison, you don't need a tie just hanging with your
buddies, but you need a tie when you're ready to take care of business.” (“Mentors
Show Youth ‘Ties' to Success.” CBN NEWS, July 2009,
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2009/June/Mentors-Show-Black-Youth-Ties-to-
Success/. Accessed December 9, 2014)
Ellis’ program and others like it suggest that only “positive, educated, well-groomed,
articulate men of color”11 are successful or worthy to be respected. But like Pierre and
Mathis, Ellis fails to recognize the politics inherent in youthful rebellion—particularly
black male youth. The automatic assumption of criminal deviance tied to black male
bodies who do not wish to conform to society must be redressed. Despite its well-
meaning mission, programs like Tied To Greatness seem to cosign readings of black
male youth as problematic and in need of reform. Rather than engaging with the youth
and hearing them express their concerns, doubts, challenges, frustrations, or desires,
these programs seek to "rehabilitate" black men into an image deemed acceptable by
society. Some argue that a black man is no more respected in a suit than he is in jeans
and a t-shirt because after all, his skin is black.
11
“Mentors Show Youth ‘Ties' to Success.” CBN NEWS, July 2009,
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2009/June/Mentors-Show-Black-Youth-Ties-to-Success/. Accessed
December 9, 2014.
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I don’t want to suggest that every person who chooses to identify with this style is
armed with a political manifesto to support their wearing of it. It may very well be true
that most young men will not have a political response or any definitive response to
their choice to sag. In fact ask any young man on the street why he chooses to sag his
pants, and you’re more than likely to get the following response: "It’s just a style. It’s
cool."
However, I argue that what makes sagging “cool” and attractive to young men is not
simply fashion or peer pressure, but the spirit of rebellion. Blummer asserts that fashion
shifts from “fields of class differentiation to the area of collective selection”.(282) That
is, a fashion’s participants are a part of a “collective process that responds to changes in
taste and sensitivity”. (282) These changing tastes are informed by and contribute to a
complicated social reality that must not be simply ignored or dismissed because so-
called decent society disapproves. To force a politics of respectability on black youth
equates to the elimination of blackness from the visual sphere. So-called decency
imposes hegemonic, white patriarchal ideals of acceptability on black bodies. Ideals
which are historically blind to the myriad of social, economical, classist, racist, and
otherwise restrictive experiences that are unique to Black men. Ideals which have
historically served to eradicate the black man’s existence. Saggin’ for many young men
becomes a way of demanding visibility, to force recognition in a society that is invested
in their erasure.
Tommy Curry writes, “[Embracing amorality] is not to pretend that revolution, or
simply 'talking about' oppression is meaningful activity. It is to realize that any attempt
at moral engagement with whites that requires their recognition of Black humanity is
ultimately an impossibility, necessitating Black death to preserve social order.”12
Curry’s assertion echoes sentiments of 2Pac’s THUG Life philosophy. This attitude, and
12
Tommy Curry, “You Can’t Stand the Nigger I See!: Kanye West’s Analysis of Anti-Black Death," Society
for the Advancement of American Philosophy, 2014.
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if we allow to read sagging as oppositional fashion, is political, it is obstinate. It troubles
the visual because it is meant to. It appeals to youth because it is disruptive. It forces
our engagement because we must learn to not only see, but recognize those members
of our society who have been rendered invisible and inconsequential.
CONCLUSION
Fashion is not irrational or inconsequential, but instead an often deliberate dismissal of
social norms as a means of differentiating oneself from hegemonic oppression.
Oppositional fashion emerges in contrast to social norms which help various groups of
people organize and identify around specific social and or cultural politics. Hip-hop’s
dissidence has long been expressed not only through music, but also its visual culture
including art, dance, performance and fashion.
Tracie Pierre’s initiative to force young men to pull up their pants is shortsighted and
ignorant. A man sagging his pants does not automatically equate to his exhibiting a
lowered self-image. Nor does it mean he is inherently criminal, sexually deviant, or
doomed to be a non-productive member of society. Understanding fashion and the
politics associated with groups who are attracted to certain styles and trends can help
us learn new and more productive ways of engaging with things that may at first appear
foreign or confusing–even disruptive.
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Bibliography
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams. Place: Virago Press, 2003.
Blummer, Herbert. "From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection." The Sociology
Quarterly (Vol.10, No. 3) 1969.
Curry, Tommy. “You Can’t Stand the Nigger I See!: Kanye West’s Analysis of Anti Black
Death.” Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, 2014.
Graham, Efrem. “Mentors Show Youth ‘Ties' to Success.” CBN NEWS, July 2009,
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2009/June/Mentors-Show-Black-Youth-Ties-to-
Success/. Accessed December 9, 2014.
Savali, Kirsten West. “Sagging Pants: Prison Uniform Represents Wreckage of Black
Communities.” AlterNet, July 2012,
http://www.alternet.org/story/156354/sagging_pants:_prison_uniform_represents_wre
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