Bridging the Gap
Last night the Atlanta school board voted unanimously to ban students from wearing baggy pants. This has been goin' on all over the South lately, in Louisana and other parts of Georgia. It's been on the radar in New Jersey, Oklahoma and even Yonkers, New York. They also talked about outlawing baggy pants in Baltimore, until they had the good sense to drop it. It's some of the dumbest shit I have ever heard and now it's in my backyard. It's time for me to speak up.
This is basically all about the older generation hating on hip hop. They can't ban it, so instead they're gonna try and turn kids into criminals just for being themselves. Kids have been wearing this look for more than two decades. Since before I first discovered Kris Kross, and they wore their oversized pants backwards, kids have been dressing this way, and all of a sudden local governments and school boards all over America are deciding it's "indecent". So why now?
Well, I have a theory.
Have you ever noticed how if a teenager tries to have a conversation with a grandparent or someone much older than they are, the conversation seems to go left or get misconstrued? The reason why this happens is because the bridge between the older generation and the younger generation - i.e., our parents - was broken.
What do I mean? When I was growing up in the 70s, right at the time of the birth of rap music, my mother and father were there with me to see hip hop come into my life as something positive and not a negative. They saw it touch me like the new wave that it was, which sparked the baggy jeans, the sneakers with no shoestrings, and all the trends that exist today.
When I came home from touring on the New York City Fresh Fest I was wearing Lee jeans with permanent creases and shell toes with no strings. I got sent home for not having shoe strings in my shoes. When the principal called my mom and told her, she couldn't believe it. In my defense she cussed him out and explained to him that what I was doing was no different from his era of high water jeans or, as you may know them, flood pants.
She reminded him that all kids throughout history experiment with their look and challenge convention. Ya'll heard the expression, "everything you kids wear today is the same thing we wore back when I was your age"? That's what my mother told me. Thanks to her intervention, I continued to work my look and never heard another word about it again.
But I was lucky to come up when I did, and to have parents who could relate to my world. By the mid 80s, the biggest epidemic hit the black communities ever...CRACK! And for some reason this older generation that came before the crack era - our parent's parents --seems to not realize how hard it hit our community. These people, the gatekeepers and lawmakers who are in positions of power now, are the parents of my mother's generation, and they just don't seem to get it.
You could say there's some racism in this whole movement to outlaw baggy pants. In people's minds that look is typical of young black kids. There's been a wave lately of nooses, burned crosses and swastikas, popping up all over the country. Bill O'Reilly and Don Imus can get away with being the biggest ass bigots in the universe and still have careers because people don't bat an eye.
But that's not even all of it. In my mind this problem goes beyond race, because it's not just old white people who hate our culture, and it's not just young black kids who wear baggy pants. To me what's going on here is all about the generations. Older black people, folks our grandparents' age, are the ones criticizing us the most. Me and the Bill Cosbys of the world need to sit down and have a conversation.
It's not all their fault. They haven't been educated. But I don't see them asking people like myself to be a part of these boards, councils and committees that are making all the rules. They need to talk to young, hip-hop minded people who understand both worlds. Guys like me need to fill them in, because this last generation hasn't done its job and been the bridge between their kids, and the generation that came before them. They haven't been there, acting as that buffer in the middle. So what we're left with is one of the worst generation gaps in decades, with understanding on both sides getting less and less.
That bridge generation disappeared in the 80's and early 90's, when so many families were destroyed by the crack epidemic. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying all black parents were on crack. But plenty of families got messed up, especially in poor black neighborhoods. A lot of 'em are STILL messed up! The R&B singer Mario and his mom are another perfect example of this. Mario's 19, and his mother's addicted to heroine. He did a show on MTV, where he talks about this, and how he's trying to get her off the stuff and save her life.
Probably the majority of kids in the projects were and are being raised by grandmas and older aunties 'cause their parents were either strung out, in jail, or dead. It's kinda like this generation of black kids now in their teens and early 20's got left on the doorstep, with no one to teach them, and no one to speak for them.
Think about it. In every era of music and culture, your parents taught you what came before. My generation, babies born in the 70's, is like the last generation to have had that benefit. My mother used to tell me about the shit she used to do when she was growing up -- sneaking out to parties and listening to rock music and Motown - and how her mother didn't approve. My mom would lay down the law and keep me out of trouble. But she also explained me, and what I was doing, to my grandma. And when she related what I was doing to her own time of rebellion, and reminded my grandma of some of the stuff she was into when she was younger, it smoothed the way.
Hip hop's no different from any other movement. When kids grew their hair long in the 60's parents got upset. When Elvis sang black music and shook his hips, the older generation hated it.
But unlike rock, hip hop has been taking the place of the missing parents. The only thing kids are paying attention to these days is rap culture, and hip hop is getting blamed for this. People are putting it on us to be better role models because kids listen to our music. But that's not really our position. Music is music. It's not supposed to be this deep.
Banning baggy jeans ain't gonna solve anything either. Kids will just get mad, rebel even more and go and wear them somewhere else. The ones already at risk will turn away from school and get into something else.
I think the Atlanta school board needs to revisit this issue. I think somebody from the city needs to get on the phone and talk to me. We need to fix the bridge. Creating a law like this is only gonna add more miles to the generation gap, and that won't help our kids.
Jermaine Dupri, who was named the most successful R&B producer of all time by the Guinness World Records 2007, is a Grammy-award winning music producer, president of Island Urban Records and author of Young, Rich and Dangerous: The Making of a Music Mogul (Atria, October 2007). For more information about this blogger log onto http://www.themostaccess.com/index.php?s=Jermaine+Dupri/
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Well, with all those kids out there juicin' you're going to need some oversized drawers to fit all those muscle heads imitating their favorite sports hero.
What Dupri does not want to talk about is that the fact that the baggy pant fashion faze (which is the longest “faze” on record…..he mention Kriss Kross, that was 15 years ago) comes from prison culture. Hip Hop dress essentially stigmatizes, if not limits children of color-it criminalizes them. And as a native New Yorker, one must judge appearance purely for survival reasons. Conversely, if I noticed that a person was wearing a Klansman’s uniform (and that person wasn’t a racist and was wearing the costume for humorous purposes) on sight alone, I would think the individual was up to no good. Whether we care to admit it, our society judges its citizens on appearance and if one has the criminal look, he or she can expect to receive corresponding treatment. And as some of the previous commenters duly noted, the hip hop music of yesteryear which had moments ranging from innocuous fun, artistic substance to socio-political commentary is a far cry from the neo-minstrelsy that can be seen today. Time to fess up Jermaine-the criminality exhibited by the artists themselves, the hypocrisy of the stop snitchin’ movement on wax and the disrespect of women displayed for the world’s consumption is wearing as thin as the pants you’re trying to keep from slipping of your behind. Stop the excuses!!!
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What is going on at Huffington Post? Why are the majority of comments on this post short-selling black teenagers, particularly black teenage boys? All of you "progressives" who are so dead-on with your opinions about the corrupt government and immoral war are so dead wrong here. Is your fear of black people so blinding that you can't trust an individual to differentiate between hip-hop world and real world? Some can't, and that's a shame. But in your broad generalizations you demean the intelligence of not only black young people, but all people who grew up with and love the entire hip-hop culture. Your future is in our hands, baby boomers. There are 80 million of you and only 47 million of us. Be nice to us or you're screwed!!
I'm a parent & this is a difficult issue, but it is the COMBINED responsibility of parents and schools to teach children, but the bulk of the responsibility lies with the parent/s to teach their children that what they see on TV is an IMAGE- not real. 50 Cent doesn't let his own kid listen to unedited versions of his music. Kids today have things so unbalanced that it's ridiculous. They have little education (even in school, it's not enough & not practical) & HUGE responsibilities to live up to. They have neither the experience nor the wisdom to make many of the major decisions they unfortunately HAVE to at a very young age. It is OUR responsibility as parents to raise them into adults- not to be their friends & make sure they like us. My kids know this because I teach them this everyday. I'm so tired of music, video games, movies and other societal influences being blamed when the big picture is in front of us all & we're too busy/lazy/just don't care- to look! There ARE rules & responsibilties- period. My concern with dress is this, do you respect the way you look in the mirror? If so, then let the judgmental idiots come to their own conclusions. But if the judgmental idiots are the ones holding the keys to the door you want to walk through, then you had better be smart enough to get them to let you walk through. That's the deal in society. If you can get through the door, get to a position where you can implement change- power to you! If you have too much pride and want to blame someone else for your position in life, then wake up and get an education. There are racial, economic and geographical barriers for all minorities, including women- the trick is, to get through the doors and implement change. No one said it was supposed to be easy.
I was in a supermarket parking lot in Bishop, CA, several years ago on a sunny but cold day in early October, sitting on the tailgate and watching the shoppers. I like to people watch, and I don't think I do so obtrusively. A car drove into the lot and parked. A cute girl exited the car dressed in a short skirt, red and white striped knee high socks, and an over-sized varsity-style blue jacket zipped to her neck. She had on yellow high-top tennis shoes and a straw cowboy hat atop her long black hair which fell beneath the hat almost to the small of her back. Then the driver got out. He was dressed in baggy shorts of some kind of glossy red and white fabric which came down to his knees, an over-sized silver colored tank top and a baseball-style cap with the bill stuck over one ear and black cowboy boots on. The girl went into the store and I kept looking. I guess my fascination with the kid became too apparent, because he turned around and shouted at me: "What're you lookin' at, PUNK?" I was so taken aback that I had no response, and he proceeded to follow his passenger into the market.
It wasn't so much their unusual style of dress that caught my eye. It was the INDIAN POWER and CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS stickers on the car and the fact that these two kids were clearly Native Americans. I have wondered ever since just who those kids were modeling their fashions after, and if the clothes gave the young man the moxie to address an older white guy in the manner he did. Or, was my people-watching somehow a breach of the tribal cultural mores or of today's youth. And I wondered what his parents thought about his public costume. I'm a retired high school teacher, and similar questions always ran through my head when some kids came to school wearing all the other fashion horrors described in the previous posts...
"That kid wearing baggy pants with his baseball cap on crooked might well be the president of the Student Council in your local high school, on the Honor Roll, and producing a hip hop show to benefit a local charity in his spare time."
Now that's REAL science fiction. My hat's off to you.
'Banning baggy jeans ain't gonna solve anything either'....
But, it's a start. It's a start to let kids know that you can't go far - unless you want to be a hip-hop star - dressing like a clown....no offense. However, I have to wonder IF this type of dress is okay for some, then should it be okay for the girls to dress like the video hoes as well? How far can a girl get in life scantily clad?...an appropriate job and not one that involves literal or 'behavioral' prostitution?
I remember my mother cussin' my brother out for not wearing a belt (he kept pulling up his pants because he didn't have one). She was spittin' mad because she said during slavery, the master would take away a slave's belt to humiliate him and to make him feel dumb. And honestly, I think the whole baggy pant thing is just dumb. It is also synonomous with prison behavior to let other inmates know that he is available!
You see brothers pulling up their pants or not walking 'correctly' (walking like a duck with feet pointed out) just to keep their pants up. And most brothers who are sportin' these styles usually demonstrate incoherent, slurred and lazy (sorry, but it's true) speech: wha-chew-tryin'-tuh-say-necka (necka = Nigg*r). It's like reading a book about slave life and the author (black or white) portrays the slave's speech as such!
I'm sorry if this sounds offensive, but I doubt you see black boys in private to higher-ranked public schools sporting this fashion. This fashion may be fine for the white kids, because their emulating this 'gangsta/black lifestyle'. However, they'll take that sh*t off when they go for interviews (whether college or jobs)...and get the job. And the brothas sportin' this style? Where are they? Are they interviewing for college? The brothas with the dropped down pants, these are the ones I worry about. It's not rebellion for black youths, it's simply style. And, the pants are usually worn by our high-risk boys, which is fine if your plans are aimed at being a hip-hop singer - you're already dressing the part. However, if this fashion is your uniform and you can't separate fashion from appropriate, professional attire then what? And, unfortunately, the school system has to intercept, step in and play parent and enforce appropriate dress codes since the parents deem this appropriate and okay. I agree with the school board - cut that sh*t out.
I find it interesting that you accuse Bill Cosby - a man who has spoken out for people to be personally responsible for themselves, and for the children they create, to speak proper English, and present themselves in a way that people will take them seriously and respect them - as "uneducated". I think that speaks volumes as to why so many people do think hip hop is dangerous - we have rappers bragging about living a thug lifestyle (some of them actually being murdered because of it), abusing women, being arrested constantly for drugs, guns, assault, etc. - and you think Bill Cosby is the one with the problem??? Obviously, hip hop has deviated from the original art form that it was. I mean, look at the names rappers are giving themselves now - naming themselves after famous criminals (Gotti, Seigel, Noriega)... if hip hop fans don't want to be thought of as criminals, they shouldn't dress like the people that are portraying themselves as such - and sometimes ARE. I don't think it's right that people are judged for wearing baggy pants, but at the end of the day, people judge you based on how you look, whether it's right or not.
Wearing baggy jeans and showing your underwear makes a kid look like a dumbass. It shows a lack of respect for themselves and is a big F*** You to everyone that has to look at it. If kids want to look like a dumbass on their own time, that is their parent's responsibility. But schools have every right to institute dress codes.
What's ironic is that most of these kids demand respect on their own terms without doing anything to deserve respect.
Adults have been criticizing young people ever since time began. A Greek philosophers (I forget which one) said that young people don't show respect and run wild in the streets.
When I was young, it was Elvis, then the Beatles, tight pants (!), short skirts, and even blue jeans, which were banned from my school for boys. Girls, of course, had to wear skirts or dresses.
When my older son was in high school, almost anything was acceptable in dress during the late 70s and early 80s. But there was still a whole lot of that "kids aren't like they used to be" nonsense going around.
Then my younger son became a teenager 10 years later. Dress standards were beginning to be imposed once again, as if the generation before had somehow learned less due to some lack of dress codes in the schools.
Now dress codes are getting really, really strict, although they haven't gone back to "no jeans for boys, dresses only for girls" like they were in the 50s and 60s - thank goodness. School handbooks are full of "no sleeveless shirts, no short shorts, no holes in the knees" kind of things. Even "no chains of any kind including watches." It's absurd, just as the baggy pants rules are.
Kids have always been contrary, rebellious, and trying to find their identity. They want to be different from their parents, just like everyone else.
It doesn't matter where their dress style comes from, prison, TV, rock stars, street gangs, or some idolized super skinny model. What matters is that they should be entitled to their own generation's particular form of expression.
America is supposed to be founded on the principles of individuality and other freedoms. But kids are routinely subjected to all kinds of oppression that do not necessary (or usually) have anything to do with education or the need to maintain discipline. It's much more likely that they come from the adult need for control and fear of change.
Ok , Droopy pants are not a fashion statement. it is stupid, obscene. and remember where it came from! A prisoner would show he was available by walking with his pants halfway down. Great way to show our children a "Fashion" trend..Maybe if we stopped glorifying Prison life. Maybe if prisons accomplished something other than making children into hardened criminals. Regardless of race, creed or color. crack,and powder cocaine is still illegal. and,any change of law except making the penalty for powered coke stiffer will send the wrong signal..
Jermaine, did you mother REALLY have to "cuss" the teacher? That was disrespectful. I believe the schools have a right to regulate/dictate school dress codes.
I don't think the school boards should confer with you about these issues. Instead, they should maybe call Bill Cosby. On the other hand, Bill Cosby offered his unsolicited advise, and they still won't listen... It is indeed a sad day for the so called "hip-hop" generation. This mind-set will be around for many generations...and that is truly unfortunate.
It's par for the course that the elder generation feels the younger, up and coming one, is going to hell in a hand-basket, yet somehow life goes on.
Whether it was integration, rock and roll, disco, hip pop, girls wearing pants, women getting an education, girls getting their ears pierced, kids getting everything pierced, etc., etc. Some are convince that it's going to lead us to the path of destruction.
The fight to ban baggy pants is the same argument different rebellious fashion.
What I still don't get is how group can ban non-violent, non-obscene behavior exhibited almost totally by one particular racial group and still claim that it's not a racist decision?
I think baggy pants are ugly, but there are a whole host of other fashions I find objectionable. However I am not recommending that my tastes define the younger generations any more than my parents preferences defined mine.
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