A steady drizzle of stories often detail the mainstream’s revulsion to the fashion atrocity called “the sagging pants” so fancied by many young black men. The country’s abhorrence towards brothers’ propensity to flash their underwear was crystallized when 62-year-old “General” Larry Platt penned the infectious rap tune “Pants on the Ground” before American Idol judges during auditions held in Atlanta.
General Platt audaciously gave voice to what many Americans — especially older African Americans — question and seethe silently about for fear of violent reprisals. It’s a question that many features on the topic do not answer. Dr. Michael Pratt, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based psychiatrist, provides a glimpse into young men’s line of thinking on the subject.
“[What] I will say is that I think African American males have struggled to establish an identity in this country. And that this particular uniform, or outfit, or style of pants is something that they can own. So what I see in the embracing of this style that [it] is something that is unique to them,” says Pratt, who works in St Joseph’s psychiatric emergency room. He forwarded the theory that, back in the day, rap music was exclusively black-owned before its influence bled into larger society in the 1990s. “So they’ve lost ownership of that. And so what is, in fact, theirs? Not property, not respectability, not Wall Street, not really anything, except for style.”
Pratt says the sagging pants offers induction into an unofficial fraternity that provides identification and solace, similar to white biker gangs. “If you look at bikers and how bikers dress, it’s unique. But they own that. They have a sense of pride and identification for them and gives them a sense of belonging and a sense of value.”
Dr. Darryl Townes, a Savannah, Ga.-based licensed psychologist, says he’s discussed the social phenomenon with colleagues inside the Association of Black Psychologists. He calls sagging pants youthful rebellion against the status quo. “[The] style has been transformed into something that represents counter-culture,” Towns told www.thegrio.com. “It’s in our communities. It’s in the hip-hop culture.”
Some clinicians and social scientists also believe young blacks’ gravitation towards the sagging pants fashion statement is them responding to a faulty sense of identity that is “prescribed by our culture”, something that we have to “redefine”, Pratt says. “I speak clearly and I try to behave … in a certain way and people say ‘well, you’re not really black’. –terry shropshire
