“Following a pattern of past fashion bans, the sagging prohibitions are seen by some as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.”
Wow.
They love stating the obvious.
Let’s break it down…
A. Did we incarcerate young, white, 60’s-era hippies for their sartorial styling — for their ponchos and long hair and counter culture, drug-championing aesthetic? (Or, even more, did we put them in jail for low-level drug offenses and create draconian sentencing policies based on an unfounded and unscientific fear? …present day crack/powder disparity…)
B. Can we move beyond simply tracing it back to “prison fashion”? Really. Can we please step deeper into our mention of incarceration, and open the door on the prison industrial complex, and walk back out talking about the 2.2 million people in prison, less than 30% of whom have committed violent offenses, and the 5 million either on parole or probation?
C. Please, can we give Dr. Dyson a better quotation?
D. There’s just so much wrong with this article. It doesn’t even start with the right question.
But, in NY Times style, it does leave us with some hope that people are getting it right. Like Dr. Chavis: “The focus should be on cleaning up the social conditions that the sagging pants comes out of,” he said. “That they wear their pants the way they do is a statement of the reality that they’re struggling with on a day-to-day basis.”
