Best Posts in Thread: Where Does The 'Pull Up Your Pants' School Of Black Politics Come From?

The pull up your pants mantra is respectability politics. Respectability politics might mean well but it has limits to it. Its not really a new idea. A lot of the ideas formed after slavery when organizers and thinkers were trying to figure out how blacks could move forward and be successful. Obama is the epitome of it and tends to mention in his speeches to black audiences. Sagging and Baggy clothes have a long history of being criminalized because poor people of color wore them and people didn't see it as proper attire. The only reason people really wore them is because many could not afford tailors or new clothes so poor kids just made them trendy. It goes all way back to the 1930's zuit suits now we call them Steve Harvey suits lol.

 

We used to sag when I first started high school for no other reason than it was the style at the time. Now that we're older, I don't know any dudes who I grew up with who still do it. Let kids do dumb things. If they choose to do it as adults, that's on them. People only make a big deal out of it to stigmatize young men of color. The whole "pull up your pants and racism will be solved" is bullshit.