Today in class, after I had a mini-tyrade yesterday about the way the boys in my all boys class carry themselves and reminding them of dressed for success Tuesday, I had the schools best dressed African American male in the building come in to talk to the boys about proper attire and making first impressions. (He's our football coach and a school aide but by the way he dresses you'd think he was still working on Wall Street).
He reiterated my explanation that the concept for wearing pants hanging off butts originated in the prison system. That when criminals and convicts are initially sent off to jail they have to relinquish their belts and shoe laces causing them to have to make their entrance into prison an awkward gait where they have to hold their pants up. My boys have heard this explanation a dozen times.
Well, today I got an interesting surprise from one of them:
Student: "Mrs. E, do you want to know why none of us should ever wear our pants saggin'?"
Me: "Aside from looking like criminals going off to jail?"
Student: "Yeah, the number one reason we shouldn't wear 'em like that is cuz saggin' spelled backwards is niggas"
Myself and the speaker were rocked speechless. I told him I had never noticed that or even made that type of connection before. I thought it highly profound because my boys know how strongly I oppose the use of the word, and work hard at trying to get them to stop referring to themselves as such. We then got into a discussion of the true definition of the word, the negative connotations, and the failing attempt to make it a positive term (in my opinion).
Ironically...the student was showing off some bright purple boxers as he made the statement!
At least he got his classmates thinking, right?
