There was a time when having your underwear exposed might have caused great embarrassment. Today people show their underwear on purpose and with pride because it's deemed fashionable. And it's called saggin', wearing pants below the waist so that underwear is in full view.
The fashion actually transitioned from prison culture, said author-youth advocate Judge Greg Mathis of the "Judge Mathis" show.
"In prison you aren't allowed to wear belts to prevent self-hanging or the hanging of others," said Mathis, who at 17 once served eight months in jail. "They take the belt and sometimes your pants hang down. The same with no shoestrings in your shoes. You aren't allowed to have shoestrings. Many cultures of the prison have overflowed into the community unfortunately."
Saggin' also has s*xual connotations in prison.
"Those who pulled their pants down the lowest and showed their behind a little more raw, that was an invitation," said Mathis. "[The youth] don't know this part about it. I always tease and tell them that they better be careful because some man who has been in prison 30 years who comes home and doesn't know any different may think it's an open invitation."
Pastor Dianne Robinson of Jacksonville, FL, is a crusader against the saggin' look. "I think it is a very disrespectful act," she said. "Sometimes they have on two and three pairs of underwear and most of the time it's not clean."
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The 64-year-old Robinson, founder of the Nanas and Papas Raising Grands Organization, has launched a campaign to end saggin'. She has started a belt collection for young men called "Pull Up Your Pants--Need Some Help, Here's A Belt!" On June 4, she plans to collect belts at the Ribault Family Resource Center at Ribault High School in Jacksonville.
"It has gotten out of hand. People want to say something, but I think they are complacent," she said. "It's like a fad, but they don't understand where it came from. It was easy access in prison and it let the rest of the population know they were taken. It came from being connected to someone. A lot of guys don't know this. Every time I see a young man with saggin' pants, I wonder, 'What are you up to? What are you really up to?'"
Robinson isn't the only one fighting the fashion. Last year a Dallas school trustee recommended a ban of the fashion at a City Council meeting. In 2004 a Louisiana lawmaker proposed House Bill 1626, also known as the Baggy Pants Bill.
It would have fined offenders up to $175 or given community service. The Virginia Senate considered imposing a $50 free on people who reveal their underwear to the masses. None of the bills passed. A Florida senator is currently trying to sponsor legislation to ban saggin' at public schools.
Mathis said the style is part of a destructive subculture.
"Young people have given up on society as a result of the obstacles they face. Instead of fighting back, they join the subculture of drugs and crime as a means of what they believe will uplift them from poverty. So you have this inner change of what is cool and hip in the 'hood and what is cool and hip in prison. You have a rotating door."
He added, "I want to challenge our Brothers to pull up their pants and lift up their head ... We're no longer slaves. We are free to fight back, and that's what we must do."
By Margena A. Christian
JET MAGAZINE
COPYRIGHT 2007 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group
Posted By: WILLIAM W. HEMMANS III
Wednesday, August 15th 2007 at 3:23PM
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