2 Why they Sag

By: Marvin DeBose

"I just don't understand why they wear their pants like that."

Well, that's the point.

Many people don't understand it, they complain about it, they don't like the way it looks, and that's a big part of the reason why many young people are going to keep wearing their pants like that.

It seems as if these days, sagging pants has become one of the most controversial issues in America. There has been discussion about the issue of people sagging their pants and there has even been laws enacted in some cities against the common practice.

Many people talk about the origins of sagging. 

"It started in the prisons, people sagged their pants to show that they were 'available'" , they'll say.

Others say,"The rappers made it popular."

But those theories don't touch on the 'why' of pants sagging. 

The reason why many young people sag their pants goes much further than a fad. It is rooted in cultural rebellion and protest.

Similar to the way in which many people wore their hair long in the late 1960s-early 1970s as a form of cultural rebelliousness, popularized in the anti-war/counter-culture movement.

"Get a job, you long-haired hippy freaks!"
They both did get jobs, I hear they went into politics...

It's similar to the "zoot suit" controversy of the 1940s in which oversized, flamboyant suits were popularized in the African-American, Latino and Italian communities as a form of rebelliousness. They were even by some to be deemed to be unpatriotic because their suits "wasted materials that should be put toward the war effort".

Sagging pants is just another middle finger to society and to what is deemed as being "acceptable". It's a subtle, unspoken form of rebellion from a largely misunderstood, miseducated, unheard generation basically saying, "So what if who I am and the way I wear my pants makes you uncomfortable, the conditions of society makes me uncomfortable."

That's the root of it all, and I don't think necessarily everyone who sags their pants thinks this, but this is what it is rooted in.

It's a gesture popularized by (but not restricted to) youth of the inner city, a place which rapper Tupac Shakur once referred to as the "outer city" because he felt that the people who lived there were largely left out many of the things which society has to offer.

Now I know some people may think, "Yeah, but the sagging pants just looks stupid,"

But what we also have to understand is that this also reflects a lack of community leadership because cultural rebellious energy, which is a big part of pants sagging, is usually channeled and molded into more productive, organized use by leaders and social movements. 

However, when leaders don't exist and social movements don't channel this rebellious energy, as well as to make productive use of it, that's where we get forms of rebellion like pants sagging.

"Yeah well, I still think its stupid.", some might say.

Yeah well, maybe it's stupid to that people but so much energy into criticizing everything that the youth does but do hardly anything to try to understand them, mentor them and help them grow.

Or maybe it's stupid that out of all of the things going on with America's inner city youth, including the closing of public schools, lack of jobs, crime, incarceration and police brutality, the main thing which outrages people and forces them into action is the way that they wear their pants. 

So who really looks stupid? 

I'm not saying that young people should sag their pants, but I understand why they do it.