On dress, speech and social behavior of African-American youth.
Morehouse takes on saggy pants, cursing
The Rev. Al Sharpton, an activist, former presidential candidate and radio host, is among those taking note. Sharpton, long a critic of vulgar rap lyrics, recently told the Chicago Tribune, "You can't be using the b-word, the n-word, the h-word when you have Barack Obama redefining overnight the image that black people want to have.""Obama Won; Now Pull Up Your Pants" was the headline on a post-election column by Justin M. LaGrande, lifestyle editor of The Gramblinite, the newspaper of the historically black Grambling State University in Louisiana. "Obama isn't sagging his pants," LaGrande wrote.
Obama himself said in an MTV interview shortly before the election that he opposes laws and ordinances -- such as one proposed by an Atlanta city councilman last year -- that would control dress.
With the exception of thugs, it would be a shame if the election of the first African-American President somehow discouraged the creative expression of urban hip-hop culture. The art, music and design of hip-hop is as profoundly American as cowboy culture, which has been appropriated by at least two phony cowboy presidents.
President-elect Barack Obama on Hip-Hop & Rap 2008
8 Responses to “The Obama effect”
Finally, a sartorial development most of us can cheer! IMHO. Cheers, JMP
I will say one thing he needs to watch out for is to not seem like he's lecturing black people and doing it as "sista souljaism" or whatever it's called. That offended a number of people during the election campaign, and it's a fine line to strattle.
For example he lectures black deadbeat dads, but would he single out white kids who want to go into investment banking and hedge funds and screw over low income borrowers?
Since when did kids wanting to go into investment banking and hedge funds = a desire to screw over low income borrowers? Granted, the populist in all of us would like to see young folks choose careers that are less reliant on the culture of personal gain, but I think that assertion is somewhat unwarranted.
http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/34/1/82.pdf
Uh huh. So blue collar crime causes only a fraction of the damage that white collar crime does, yet which group do pundits and politicians spend their time talking about "getting tough" on?
While Biden was greasing the wheels on a bankruptcy bill that made the condition of the debt-ridden even worse, he talked a lot about his political capital of "putting 100,000 more cops on the streets."
What do you see more often, poor black people in the news for petty theft or hold ups, or other groups that just raided their company's pension fund?
I am not saying that white collar crime doesn't exist or that it isn't egregious, especially recently. What I challenge is your assertion that young people who do aspire to work on Wall Street and become the future captains of industry do so because they want to stick it to the little guy.
As for your latest assertion, have you not been paying attention to the news? Granted, I haven't watched local news in over a year, but between the blame game in the Wall Street meltdown, to the scrutiny over the Detroit "Big 3", to scrutiny over the Citibank execs, to Kozlowski at Tyco, to Rigas at Adelphia, to Enron, white collars excess and crime has generated a significant amount of press over the last decade. Now, that's not to say that the folks out there who have exploited the housing crisis for financial gain while their lowest subordinates live check by check and become virtually homeless remain unexposed and under-reported, but once again, when their indiscretions come to light, the public will take interest. Just look at all the political scandals these last couple of years. Constant hammering on the part of the media helped destroy the public perception of the Republican Party in 2006 elections, with most of the remaining corruption-plagued holdovers being ousted in 2008.
"white collars excess and crime has generated a significant amount of press over the last decade"
Yeah, and what are we doing? We're writing them blank checks.
We give maximum security prisons to the poor, and to those who give us campaign contributions, gigantic blank checks. Yup.
I thought saggy pants *were* the fashion emblem of thugs? Aren't they meant to emulate the fact that in prison they take your belt away? Oh yes, let's emulate prison garb, and show people our butts to boot! I'm glad Obama pointed out that fashion ordinances are frivolous and dumb, but went on to say that he doesn't want to see some fool's underpants. That's just ign'r'nt.
I have an alternate theory. The pants aren't just beltless, but huge. My thought is that when kids wear pants that are many sizes too large, it's meant to be an indication of an older male in the home. In other words, someone bigger is looking out for me.