Once you get away from the groups that associate with inmates (and former inmates), this knowledge becomes less known. Yet the history behind the style exists, but some promote it unknowingly. Absolutely, but many don't associate it with strict racism - it is about rebelling against the man. Thus, the racist historical meaning is lost to many.
There's a second component to it as well: poverty chic. One thing the truly poor don't lack for is clothing. There's lots of second hand clothes given away/donated etc, and the poor will take all the clothes they can get, makes no difference if they fit. My goddaughter's mom still takes clothes for her that are two-three sizes too small. Conversely, they also take clothes that are too big, and if they're nice, they'll wear them.
We touched on this subject years ago on bigsoccer and since it has returned in a new thread and the OP had a real genuine, at last to me genuine, goal to get talk going on where our culture is in 2013 with racism.Cool, let's keep it simple and in perspective of our nation in the past, our nation now, other nation's in the past and other nation's now. We are all association football junkies so underscoring how racist the U.S. is can and should always be contrasted with other nations. But that perhaps is another thread.First and foremost, that song is an honest effort. A simple and composed track by two men, one from Dixie and one from NYC. Good on 'em for coming together. As I have witnessed it with my time on our planet, nothing brings folks of different faces together like music and association football.Where to begin, to me, what was once unthinkable just two generations ago is now occuring all over our nation in race based cross over understandings. Basically, all of us born post intergration (I can only speak as someone from the Gulf Coast South) where we all heard of the stories from our parents or grandparents on "how it used to be", us born 1964 and up (I'm a '76) have no experience with "whites only" water fountains or how cops were all white good ol' boy clubs or how job descrimination used to be rampant in the South. So much has changed for the Gen X and on up folks like us from the Deep South. Personally, I grew up in Southwest Houston where it was 25% black, 25% asian, 25% white and 25% non-white latino and on TV were highly successful black men in the roles of a laundry chain owner and doctor with a black man as a global icon in the music industy that EVERYONE I knew loved. Racism was indeed always there but it was at the same time poked at, if you can relate. Each segement by the other segments in the classroom, the locker room or the mall. You had to quickly grow thick skin cuz once the black guys knew you were sensitive to insults they would come at you with both barrels soon enough. Simply put, it wasn't so much about race as it was if you could hang and be cool with others that didn't look like you. If not you would most likely catch an ass whoopin' after school.Then by the late 80's and early 90's with the return to African pride movement akin to the early mid 70's same push in black awareness. This went down with a lot of my teammates and buddies and that is when we (us whites, Asians and Latinos) noticed a split amongst the brothas themselves. There were the guys that when talking amongst themselves in the locker room as we got ready for practice were like "fuk a Africa, I'm from Houston Texas n****!" and the other half that would wear the African tricolor and the heritage cloth and at every chance they got they reminded other brothas of "the struggle" and "you don't even know what time it is brotha, get rid of that silly dookie rope!". So combine this scenario with the civil unrest men and women of color still felt towards police and their antics (which the other segments in SW Houston had to convince to the brothas that the cops are just assholes like that, that like to harass everyone they get a chance to not just black men anymore) and it was on the rest of us in the neighborhood to become sensitive to what pathos, images, words, sounds, smells, likes and dislikes our peers of color were sensitive to. Everyone not black, we were all on a big learning curve (I figure this occurs in most major cities in the South and back East, and California to this very day) and that was that.The rural communities in the South were at the same time going thru this but I did not grow up in the rural South so I cannot speak to this. However, what happens a lot in the rural South is that men and women of color will have so few peeps like them that you can often meet what can politely be called as black rednecks. They are country dudes that drive trucks, jam out to rock, rap and C&W (that's country and western) and have absolutely ZERO problems with understanding that the Southern Cross is not a flag for the return to the African slave trade but just means you are from the South. Period!So speaking of which, the use of the Confederate battle flag from the song above, this flag is flown in our nation to this very day and it was a flag that flew for people holding to slavery. It was as well a flag for a people that voted and decided to break away from their own government so they could govern their own lands the way they wanted, set up the rule of law the way they wanted and continue the policy of slavery the way they wanted. However, no one ever slams the use of this flag as an icon of racism and slavery.Follow me some more please. Now I am from Texas. Our state governor at the time of secession was Sam Houston, you might have heard of him. He refused to swear an oath to the Confederacy and that was pretty much a career killer for him and his family in the cotton industry dominated Texas in 1861. His paraphrased words were basically that he fought to hard to see what the U.S. had become to sign Texas up to be a part of a new revolution against the U.S. It really made the man sad cuz he was insightful enough to know what was in store for the people of the South. That being a "Rich man's war, a poor man's fight". Death and destruction for the break away South.Which is point number two, "the cause", "rebellion", it sucked! I will get that off my chest as a proud Texan. If alive back then I would be in the boat with Sam Houston. I love my State. State pride is a cultural trait to us in the South and Midwest, but the Union is what I would like to stick with...yet damn it Old Abe, you didn't have to come down here and have Federal troops kill my livestock, burn my house, witness these men rape my mom and sisters and expect me to not take up arms eventually.Which leads to point number 3. The United States held to slavery from 1781 to 1863. So once 'Sesh was defeated the biggest and most unfortunate fall out of the U.S. Civil war was the focused and determined subjugation by our Federal government of our American Indian population out West. The so called Indian Wars from 1866 (the year right after Confederate surrender) to 1886 and the last few tribal warriors like Geronimo to surrender to Federal authority. Yet the Federal polices learned in the years engaging the rebel Southern where brutality in tactics works, the U.S. military under our U.S. flag sent troops in to kill livestock, burn te-pees, rape moms and sisters and expect the men to not take up arms. So again, the United States flag in the eyes of those survivors and their ancestors alive to this very day will perhaps speak of the racism, bondage, pain and anger they feel when they see our U.S. flag, yet again it flys today everywhere.With all this said to put into perspective about flags from our nation's past and how they are viewed today by certain people in our society or for fuks sake when it is a lyric in a LL Cool J with Brad Paisley song, the Confederate battle flag, the Southern Cross, it is odd that it is a flag that flew over oppressed people of color and thus is an eternal symbol of evil that cannot be tolerated and yet somehow the U.S. stars and stripes is the flag that flew over oppressed people of color and thus is a symbol of evil from their point of view and yet is always to be tolerated.Simply put, it appears that for one flag some people are supposed to just "deal with it"/"get over it, it's in the past" and yet another is branded an eternal status if waiving it of "you are a bigot" and "take it down" it is offensive to some even though IT IS IN THE PAST.So my answer to racism today is that it is unfortunate there is a double standard and as far as the younger folks have come to push past old views, come so far as a culture. There are some folks who would be outta work if they couldn't piss and moan about how bad their ancestors had it in the past while at the same time never taking the time to reach out to other folks who had it way worse and see a flag every day.If the past stings or reminds you or racist past times in our nation, that is part of most nations on Earth. Someone, somewhere got done wrong and said group had to move on.If anything, just go to Spain for some really terrific racism! They are hands down the most racist culture I have encountered. There are folks I met in Madrid that are so taken in with white pride that they don't like me and other whites. Whites not from Europe that is. They told me I was born in the Americas and thus a part of the mud races of the planet and not white like them from Spain. I say this to highlight that there are dumbshits in every nation that hold to very narrow minded points of view. I think the flying of a flag in a nation that seeks tolerance should be the least of someone's issues with mankind. It might frustrate you but in a land of so many freedoms it just might occur. What you left out when telling folks that are not in the know about the jail and saggy pants is the sodomite culture associated with the saggy pants in prison. i.e. the lack of belts for inmates (so they can't hang themselves, no shoe laces as well) creates what you mentioned but as well the lowering of the pant line for one inmate is a signal to the other men on the yard that said inmate is open/ready for anal intercourse. See above on President Lincoln sending Federal troops to restore the land to Federal rule.Not so much rebelling against the man but finding the day in a man's life when picking up weapons cuz Federal soldiers are about to rape your little sister even though your county in Tennessee voted to stay in the Union and your father is a dirt farmer who is too poor to ever own a human slave...that awkward moment in life when it wasn't about race but defending your home.
tl;dr, other than to say thanks for the opinion, white man. Are there any blacks who think that the Conferderate flag is an acceptable symbol to represent the South?
False. There are many, many ways to advertise, but purposefully wearing saggy pants is not one of them.
Fukcing-A right, man. This here's a symbol of my southern pride & shit. Now somebody break out some lines!
Why? Being less racist than, say, Spain doesn't count for anything if you don't live in Spain. Your idea turns what could be a discussion about putting maximum effort toward a goal into a discussion about being able to say you've put forth more effort than (or are "ahead of") the other "competitors". Trouble is, the less effort they put forth --and some (many?) of them ain't putting forth a lot-- the less effort it'll take us to stay ahead.
Huh, learn something every day. I knew saggy pants were associated with prison, but I thought it was because prisoners often are not allowed to wear belts because they might hang themselves. I didn't know it was because prison pants have elastic waistbands, which eventually lose tension and become baggy.
Which BS poster made that quip about the real Southern flag being a white flag, because they got their asses handed to them? I remember it being a very LOL-worthy post at the time.
To be fair, the Union flag also got their asses handed to them in multiple occasions; the Union just had a much bigger ass to take all that pounding.
I think that was a Warmth post, but I could be wrong. Which is why the Rebs shouldn't have started it. Nothing but cotton, slaves and arrogance.
The lack of belts in prison was always my understanding as the source of that style as well. But the basic point remain the same -- sagging pants were initially a neighborhood signifier that you had done time. Then, it was adopted as a general symbol that you were hard and a person with whom one should not intercourse. Which then became associated with gang affiliation. All of which was then eventually reflected by hip-hop artists -- and then co-opted into the mainstream. I'll never forget seeing a huge newspaper ad in the early 90s -- it was for a Warner Brothers branded youth clothing line at JC Penney's or Macy's or some major retailer. The clothes were baggy jeans and do rags and giant T-shirts. And the illustration (again: huge) was Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, etc., in full gangster poses -- kneeling, arms crossed, huddled and all scowling. And -- I swear to jeebus -- several of them were making nonsensical shapes with their chubby little cartoon fingers. Basically, throwing gang signs. Sure -- non-existent, unknowing gang signs. But gang signs. And this wasn't like Jay-Z's "Roca" sign or even in the mold of the Vanilla Ice / TLC / MC Hammer's rapper gestures / peace signs. These characters were literally in a classic pose for gang group shot photos, with their fingers making cryptic shapes. It was one of the most mind bogglingly ignorant, blind semiotic appropriations I've ever seen. I would have given anything to be in those design discussions to see where those ideas came from, who suggested them, what sources were used, who approved them -- and if anyone in that chain was actually aware of what they were doing.
Wow. I bow down to your Google-Fu. ...although, even that example is less insane, as it's referencing the totally krossed out style of Kriss Kross.