“Saggin’ “

Saggin Pants

This was passed onto me by an old HS friend. While you have probably heard this story (the backwards spelling of the word), I have seen other than black men sporting what they call this “fad”.

The message is as follows….

Pass this on to Our Youth, Our Parents, Our (not only) Black Men and Women
Letter from a college student

The other day, a friend of mine visited me in the lobby of my dorm just to
chat while her laundry was drying. As we were chatting, two young freshmen came
by. One of the 2 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 one wanted
to know how he could gain her interest.

The first thing I told him to do was to pull up his pants! He asked why, and
then said he liked 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 centuries ago. It was the intent
of slave owners to demoralize the field workers by forbidding them to wear a
belt as they worked in the fields or at any other rigorous job. In addition,
men in prison wore their pants low when they were “spoken for”. The
other reason their pants looked like that was they were not allowed to have
belts because prisoners were likely to try to commit suicide. And, saggin’
pants prevents you from running.

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 held 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 that
for us. It all comes down to perception. What people perceive is what reality to
them is. We have to change not only the media’s perception of us, but we
need to change our perception of ourselves.
Remember all eyes are on you Black Man. All eyes are on you Black Woman. All
eyes are on your Black Child. People point the finger at us and expect us to
engage in negative and illegal activities, to manifest loud, boisterous
behavior, to spend our hard earned money in their stores, buying goods we
don’t need, or really want. We have allowed not only the media, but the
government and the world to portray us as a ‘sub-culture. ‘ They have
stripped our culture down to the point where the image of Black people is
perpetuated as rappers, athletes, drug users, and consumers of junk food,
expensive tennis shoes, expensive cars, expensive TVs, cell phones and not
investing in homes for our families.

We are so much more!!!!!!!
To all our Black Men : It’s time to stand up. There are billions of
Black Women who want to do nothing more than worship the ground that you walk
on. We are so in love with your potential. We want to have your back, we want
to love, support20and cherish every ounce of your being. But with that you have
to show that you are willing to be the head of our households. You have to
prove yourselves worthy of our submission. We need you to be hard working…Not
a hustler. We need you to seek higher education, to seek spirituality. We need
you to stand! And trust us; we will have your back. We know that it gets hard.
We know you get weary. Trust and believe that there is nothing that a Black
Man and a Black Woman can’t handle with GOD on their side.

To all our Black Women : It is also time for you to stand up. It is time
for you to stop using our bodies as our primary form of communication. It is
time to be that virtuous woman that Proverbs spoke of. You cannot sit by the
wayside while our men are dying by the masses. You are the epitome of Black
Love. It starts within you. You need to speak with conviction to let not only
our Black Men know, but the world, that you are the Mothers of this world. You
are so powerful. You are so beautiful. You need to love and embrace every
blessing God has given us physically, emotionally and spiritually.

For all our Black Children : We need to love them. We need to teach them.
We need to stand up for them. We need to protect them. We need to show them
that there are no ‘get rich quick’ schemes. We need to tell them that
they WILL die trying if they submit to a life of crime and deceit. We need to
teach our children that no one will love them the way we can. And being a
basketball player, a rapper, or a drug dealer is not reality. It’s not
realistic and only a small percentage of people ever make it as a rapper or
professional athlete. We need to teach our children that we can be more than
rappers and athletes. We can be the owners of these sports teams. We can be
the CEO’s of OUR fortune 500 companies. We need to believe in literacy.

Please Keep This Going & Have a wonderful day