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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Why is it that the music being played on the radio or MTV at the specific time you sprout pubic hair is "your music"? Why not Tommy Dorsey? Why not Berlioz? It's merely a chant to get laid or be laid, and any attempt to canonize it into an artform is pure self-serving bullshit.
It is only recently, that the effect has been amplified into an all consuming ethos - all the better to enrich those who suck on suckerdom. Any music needs an audience wealthy enough to sustain it, yet unintelligent enough to seriously question it. The perfect balance, through an horrendous degredation, been struck.
Welcome to the world of minimum wage, if that.
Good to see you on HUFFPOST Jermaine. I don't always agree with you, but I do appreciate your perspective.
Mr. Dupri: I'm in agreement with many of your views, but in regards to the baggy pants ban in schools, I'm not. It is an issue and not completely in regard to its links to hip hop culture. Sure, it may play some part, but that's not the entirety of it. Back in the day, baggy pants were not as sizable as they are today. Now, many almost look like Hammer pants (you know what I'm talking about) or even look like dresses from a distance. That isn't just distracting in a classroom...such pants are specifically a potential safety hazard and can be ruined just from potential everyday nuisances (snag on a desk, science lab stuff, metal shop items, etc). It may sound naive, but I don't think it's all about "generations" and "hip hop culture" here. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of school uniforms because those stifle individuality and become nauseating to see over time, but that doesn't mean that all clothing is appropriate. Baggy pants may not be appropriate for a class setting and it is a school district's right to regulate that if necessary. It might do you some good to actually go visit these affected districts and find out what's going on instead of looking at it from a distance and simply moaning about how bad it seems to be, Mr. Dupri. It might open up your eyes a bit. BTW, I'm not sure if this affects your viewpoint, but some of your contemporaries such as Sean Combs and Jay-Z have hip-hop oriented clothing lines with a major focus on baggy pants. Someone might claim you're working on their behalf in trying to keep baggy pants in schools, but I won't go that far.
Mr Dupri,
You knnow, you bring up a lot of good talking points, and some of the things you have to say are important, no doubt....BUT....here's a tip - please stop bringing up the fact that you discovered Kris Kross in every single post you make, and:
"Music is music. It's not supposed to be this deep."
Yeah....OKAY.
I managed to read until you claimed that it was your generation, not Cosby's that was educated.
That might be the most asanine statement I have ever read. Does Cos' ever "axe" anyone a question? Was it Cosby's generation that ran around like a bunch of idiots shooting eachother over not getting their "props?" Was it Cosby's generation that glorified violence and disrespected women in its music? Was it Cosby's generation that gave us the highest illegitimacy rates in history?
What you call the Hip-Hop culture I call the unhirable culture. No client of mine will ever see some dreadlocked young man with tatoos, a third grade education and a barren ass-crack at my office.
By the way, the whole fad of wearing ones pants around ones thighs started in prison to let other prisoners know that the wearer was ameanable to being on the receiving of some good prison sex.
Being born in 1980 and raised on Hip Hop, I can say that I've really seen the underlying values and messages of the culture change throughout the years. Its definitely NOT at its highest point right now in terms of content. But its completely ridiculous to just dismiss the entire culture as some sort of virus affecting today's youth.
Though I don't get down with baggy pants myself, I think creating some law (and I use that term loosely) to prohibit people from expressing themselves through fashion or style is absurd.
If they are really serious about this, how about outlawing black mascara, leather jackets and boots? And while they're at it, maybe outlaw Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts and fatigued trucker hats? Because we all know Goth kids and Jocks are just as much of a problem in high schools.
Sound ignorant? Yup. But thats exactly the mentality that this BS stems from. Its gotta stop.
One of the only ways to establish some level of understanding is to open the lines of communication between generations so they can understand where we're coming from.
As Jay-Z said.."It's only entertainment"
People need to stop placing the blame on Hip Hop for something that is MUCH MUCH bigger than music.
I'm a new poster to this website and this subject is something that a lot of my friends have discussed for some time now.
I'm almost 50, and so I suppose that would make me part of the generation that are parents (and grandparents in some cases) to this generation. I must say that Jermaine does make a point of the disconnect between the generations - and mine has to take some of the blame for this.
We became obsessed with money and all the things we could get with it during the 80s, and then the crack epidemic came along and drove too many people insane - but not before they had kids they weren't prepared to care for. We made some other mistakes too, that I don't have to time to discuss right now.
However, I sometimes think this generation is entirely too wimpy for all of the badass mentality. Everyone complains about too much racism, sexism, ageism and all the rest, but every generation of black folk in this country has had to deal with those things and some of us managed to suceed in spite of. It wasn't easy and it still isn't easy, but at some point I think one has to decide the hell with it, I'm going to handle my business and get on with it.
How to resolve it? Well, we can begin by stop screaming at each other, take a deep breath, shut one's mouth and begin listening - really listening to what the others have to say. And we need to apologize - my generation for not only dropping the ball, but in some cases kicking it completely out of the park. On the other hand, the hop hop folks need to step back and try to look at things from our point of view also. Some of you really scare the hell out of us and not all of us are old white people! You have a lot of anger and yes, you have that right, but the violence, the disrespect towards women is tearing up our community and it has to stop
Unlike Wilson33, I completely agree with you, Jermaine.
My husband is multiracial and was raised in San Francisco's Bay Area by his white mother. The baggy look is his style, and he was often treated differently because of it. Admitedly, his style was helped in part, because his single mother couldn't afford many clothes, so the bigger, the longer they lasted. Fortunately, he was a smart student, and after time, some teachers were able to look past the external appearance.
In high school, he was asked to join a selective group of 3 student leaders because he was an "acceptable" representation for minorities in his mostly white school, where only minorities were ever cited for inappropriate dress. Just to mess with them, he would come to school with baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie, and show up in a tailored suit the next for a debate. He wasn't going to be defined by his appearance.
Now pursuing his second college degree in engineering, he continues to wear baggy clothes, and continues to be judged based on his appearance, despite being competitive with the diverse students in his program, including the foreign students.
Apparently, in our great country, it is not enough to have a sharp mind, manners, a clean conscience (and record), be a great father and husband, and pursue a scientific career so you can help impoverished communities. If you wear baggy clothes and listen to hip hop, you must automatically be a hoodlum.
In contrast to Wilson33, I belive my son can be inspired by his own father, who did have the discourse with generations before him, has achieved great things in his life, and has great aspirations. He is proof positive that you can be successful DESPITE you appearance, and once you've got the education to back you up, it really doesn't matter how you dress, people will still look to you to help them.
And for the record, wearing baggy clothes is not a result of being African American, which is, in fact, one of the few ethnicities our culturally diverse nuclear family does not represent.
Nice observations here, Jermaine. I too have been reading your posts because I appreciate the perspective and while I disagree here I don't think the latest fashion trend is doing all that much harm. There are things doin' harm in society, but baggy pants ain't it, but it does act as lighting rod for opinion. War on drugs? Yeah, that's done a lot of harm. Baggy pants...I think there's some other dynamic here that's not being discussed.
You don't have too look very far back in history to find this gap in the generation. It's always here or very nearby and it's there because young people need to distinguish themselves from the previous cohort and instinctively we do it by pissing-off our parents and the social order. Music and clothes are effective ways to do this since our primate brains are keyed into these signals, and we see it throughout history. Sure, the issue of race and drugs and social policy can be overlain onto the present story, but it always has..and it always will. And dealin' with it honestly in the forum of ideas is the way mature discussion takes place. That's why we're here, right?
I think there's a strong case to be made for
having a common dress code at school, because
the whole reason for going to school is that
you want to 'prep' more or less for adult life.
Once you hit the professional monday to friday
world, congratulations, there's going to be
more dress codes. Suits, ties, safety clothing,
military uniforms, dressing for success or
safety, if you try to walk around McDonalds with
your pants around your ankles, chances are you
won't have that job for very long. Likewise
if you were going to try and do something like
sell real estate, or any other instance in
which you were going to have to interact with
coworkers, there's still a dress code, even
if it's not formal. Bluntly spoken, one
person's fashion can be another person's
slovenliness, even if it is carefully crafted.
I also think there's a strong case to be
made for 'rehosting' a good chunk of what
now happens in a school environment onto
the Internets, let kids study from home.
That'd pretty much put an end to a lot of
school violence, no kids in the schools, no
one to shoot at, and maybe the textbooks and
other teaching materials in use would improve,
too, making sure that it's not just 12 years
wasted. Just a thought...
I am against banning anything like this, but over here in brooklyn these kids do look like a bunch of jackasses wearing their pants THAT low...I am also against any speech codes, but it's worth pointing out that these are the same kids (black or otherwise) that call each other "nigger" every 5th or 6th word. so boys will be boys, but they'll get nowhere with that kind of attitude and look.
I wore an American Flag patch upside-down on the seat of my very comfortable, baggy and holey denim overalls while in college.
That was back there in 1970 or so.....
"Ahhhhh youth! Ahhhhh, Bartleby!"
Keep on Truckin'
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wtnu4rAbmCg
Hip Hop I find hard to handle mostly because of the preponderence of homophobia and misogyny littering the lyrics of some of the most popular singers.
But its a no brainer on the baggy pants. I just don't get it, yeah sure I think that baggy pants look stupid on anyone. But who cares, if someone wants to walk around with their pants hanging around their knees then its noboby's business but their own.
I just dont get it, why the fuss? My only guess is out and out racism, why else?
Wow, if you can outlaw baggy pants, make felons-on-demand for the Prison Industries, you can help perpetuate the endless cycle of "mostly blacks" unable to vote in this country because of felony convictions.
Apparently they don't even understand what a limitation this style puts on them, which makes me suspect the origins came not from blacks but slick operators of another color.
"Hands up...pants down" oops, how you gonna run?
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