So it is my first day of 7th grade (1997) and I am trying to figure out the best “fit” to wear. In the hopes of being cool, I decided that my “code” (dress code) needed to be different than it was the previous year. This year, I have decided to sagg like the rest of my male counterparts. I look through my closet and ensure that the jeans that I pick, will be just as big and as baggy in order to ensure they sagg just right. I accompany my jeans with my polo shirt, and timbs (timberlands), and proceeded out the door. Right before my foot hit the pavement, my grandmother yells “bring yo red ass back into dis house and pull up dem damn pants. No Grandson of mine is going to be owt there in da streets lookin like a fool wit does damn paints down under their ass”. Just to appease her, I rushed back into my room and temporarily pull up and restrain my paints with a belt. With my freedom being obtained through compliance, I escape her grasp and make my way to the bus stop. Before I hit the corner, I quickly adjust my “altered” appearance to its original stance and proceeded on my way. Things were going good and I finally felt “accepted” by my male counterparts and then…..it happened…someone ruined my moment by coming behind me and pulling my pants down to the ground and thus exposed my boxers. When I turned around to “check” whom had did it, I discovered that it was indeed my mother, cussing me out for having my pants so low. “If you wanted to show yo ass, then you shouldn’t mine me pulling them down all the way so that they can see everything”. Though this was the most embarrassing day of my life, it made me not want to ever sagg again because of the fear that my mother may be close by.
When I was a little order, I learned that the phenomenon was once a unspoken signal that denotes sexual availability by inmates in prison, but has been converted into an urban fashion statement. The 90s enlisted the perception that doing it promotes a statement of “hoodness” and the more fly you sag, the “more bitches” you get supposedly. African American youth have once again adopted something else that started out so negative and ushered it into popular urban culture. Youth try so hard to emulate the famous, while the famous try to emulate their muse. In the African American Community, rappers try to emulate thugs. Thugs are housed in the jails and therefore, sagging has and will continue to thrive.
