bro. greg brandon sent me this via email today:
A friend came to my dorm room just to chat while her laundry was drying. As we were chatting, two young freshman came by. One of the boys wanted to “talk” to my friend (as in date). She asked him how old they were, and both of the boys replied 18. My friend and I both laughed hysterically because we are both 22 years old. After my friend left the young men were still hanging around and he wanted to know how he could gain the interest of her.
The first thing I told him to do was to pull up his pants. He asked why, then said he like saggin’ his pants. I told him to come over to my computer and spell the word saggin’. Then I told him to write the word saggin’ backwards.
S-A-G-G-I-N
N-I-G-G-A-S
I told him the origin of that look was from prison. Men in prison wore their pants low when they were spoken for. The other reason their pants looked like that was because they were not allowed to have belts because prisoners were likely to try to commit suicide.
We as young black people have to be the ones to effect change. We are dying. The media has made a mockery of the Black American. Even our brothers and sisters from Africa don’t take us seriously. Something as simple as pulling up your pants and standing with your head high could make the biggest difference in the world’s perception of us. It is time to do right by ourselves. We need to love and embrace each other. No one is going to do for us.
It all comes down to perception. What people perceive, is what is reality to them. We have to change not only the media’s perception of us, but we need to change the perception of ourselves. Remember all eyes are on you Black Man. All eyes are on you Black Woman. All eyes are on you Black Child. People are waiting for us to mess up. We have let not only the media, but the government and the world taint the pure essence of us. They have stripped our culture down to the point where we only believe we can become rappers and sports athletes. We are so much more.