Nope, I’m talking about the plain old brown pantyhose a lot of them wear on their heads.
Another token white girl chimes in…
I think the rolled up pants leg is symbolic of the chain gangs that black men would work on. Another thought is that perhaps it has something to do with the (umm… what’s the word?) THING that gets put on some offenders’ legs when they are on probation. Like a tracking device?
It’s my understanding that alot of this stuff is very symbolic of the pight of the black man. No belts, pants hanging around your hips, that sort of thing.
The pantyhose cap thing, though? I think that has something to do with prison – men would cut off their sleeves, tie one end in a knot, and wear it as a hat. But I’m not sure about pantyhose. An armed robbery symbol perhaps? But I don’t know 'bout that.
Plight, I meant Plight of the Black man. Not pight.
Plight, I meant Plight of the Black man. Not pight. Grrr.
When I lived in the Midwest it was also the case that gangs identified their affiliation (generally with a particular side of town) by some sort of ornamentation or alteration to their clothing on one side of the body.
These aren’t pantyhose, white bread. These are called skull caps, or skullies. It’s a tight fitting nylon head cover that got popular again about 5 years ago. I’ve never seen anybody wearing actual pantyhose (and I lived in a very urban area), and I can’t imagine someone would substitute it for a skully since they only cost a couple dollars.
It has nothing to do with prison, nothing to do with armed robbery, nothing to do with anything remotely criminal. monstro was right: they’re simply worn to make their hair wavy.
Will all due respect, you’re just plain flat wrong. What a lot of the blacks around here wear are women’s pantyhose, knotted at the top and stretched over their heads. Sometimes they even leave part of the leg/waistband attached and it hangs off the back. It looks incredibly…stoopid.
Well, gingersnap, perhaps they use pantyhose because they can’t afford the real mccoy. Doesn’t make the trying-to-get-waves-in-your-hair explanation wrong.
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Your explanations are not grounded, girl27. Fads that are popularized by black young guys do not always have to have criminal explanations. I think you’re stretching a LOT, especially with regards to the whole “chain gang” thing. This isn’t an issue that requires psychoanalysis. Just like the whole belt-loop-chain, nose-piercing, purple-spiked-hair fads of the suburbs don’t require psychoanalysis.
…and for god sakes there not PANTY hose they are just HOSE… pantyhose would have 2 legs and crotch with cotton liner. I’ve never seen no crotch liner on no bruthas head!
Though that does bring back fond memories of Nicholas Cage in “Raising Arizona” snorttle
…son… you got a PANTY on your head…
It will pass as new identifiers become popular, but calling it “just a fad” is whistling in the dark in many areas.
The phenomenon is far from exclusive to young black men. The lack of direct incriminating symbolism is part of the game. They depend on the fact that its not a crime to wear a certain colored bandanna or roll a sleeve up. To those who recognize the patterns its no different than wearing a white sheet and a pointy white hood, its a uniform. We deal with plenty of little street lawyers who demand that we cannot refuse them service because of their failure to comply with the park dress code. We found that debating with them was futile and shift straight to “are you refusing to leave”. About 90% of the time the last ditch defense on their part is race, which is funny because we have tossed quite a few of the “pretty fly for a white guy” crowd and they love to pull out the " Man, why you sweatin’ me, we all homies, you’re white too, whats wrong with you, ain’t you got no loyalty to your blood" :rolleyes:
So in a nutshell monstro. Try doing a little work in the biz. If you had you would not dismiss this so casually.
Why is anyone referring to themselves as a ‘token’ white person? There’s nothing ‘token’ about white people on the SDMB.
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I don’t have to do any work in the business, hon. (So in other words, please keep your condescending tone to yourself). I am black, born and raised in an urban setting, and I know the fads and the culture that we’re talking about. I don’t have the perspective of someone who’s watched a little too much COPS or who’s an arm-chair criminologist. I don’t have to find symbolism in things in order to objectify people who I don’t understand.
You walk into any high school and you’ll find kids with their pants-legs rolled up. Hell, I’ve seen the college kids where I go to school with their pants-legs rolled up, many of them white. Are they all gang-members? Or wannebes? No one has cited ANY evidence that shows this behavior is linked to gangs, and yet we’re all supposed to swallow this as truth. I’m sorry, but I’m not. I’m tired of hearing black kids being equated with violent gangs, especially in a thread where most of the posters are “token” whites.
Gangs DO were a uniform, but the pants-leg thing IS NOT a part of it. And I challenge anyone to produce evidence that says it is.
here’s the token white guy who grew up in a barrio with plenty of blacks as well:
the pant thing, nowadays, is just fashion. I know that back in the days (90-94) there were a few black gangs around here that did the pant-rolling thing to identify themselves, but once it became part of the popular culture, they stopped. I dunno, man, I think that the pant-rolling thing looks dumb as hell. It’s got nothing to do with the “plight of the black man,” though. It’s just fashion.
Idiotic fashion if you ask me, but to each his own.
here notice the picture…
Uh ok I am white, and originally from a small very conservative town. So the fact that I talk to these guys and work around them constantly is irrelevent? My safety depends on these cues. Does it mean that every kid with a pant leg rolled up is a gang member, no, and I apologize if I insinuated that earlier. It is one of many signs we look for. Generally we will ask them to remove or conceal the item of clothing or change the way its worn (ex: straighten the hat out, conceal bandannas, conceal gang tattoos or logos, etc)
On a weekly basis we cross paths with one or more of the following:
Fresno Police Dept
Fresno County Sherrifs Office M.A.G.E.C. Team (Multi Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium)
Fresno County Juvenile Parole
They all tell us that its a sign…
I am not BS’ing about the amount of gang presence I encounter. Maybe the pant rolling is more of a local phenomenon here than the rest of the country. In my experience, about 75% of the one rolled up pant leg we see are adverising affilliation or support/sympathy for a gang.
Well, aside from my personal experience which seems to indicate this is true (although colors and various hand-signs played a much more important part in gang identification.)
And apparently it’s not just a Chicago thing.
Plus there are hundreds of other sites that will agree. Look here for a sampling.
Anyhow, I’m not saying this is why they do it now, or this is why they do it everywhere. In my neighborhood, it certainly was a sign of gang affiliation (just as 5- and 6-pointed stars also indicate Folk/People affiliation.)
From the first article cited by pulykamell:
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As I said earlier, most of the kids I know roll up their right leg. This was the style first popularized by LL Cool J. The left-pant-leg thing is something that is definitely more site-specific and I concede that in conjunction with other traits, it is also gang-related. But the pant-leg-rolled-up phenomenom as a whole is not gang-related (just like the body-piercing fad is not related to devil worshipping, even though devil worshippers may have disproportionately more body piercings). It would be horrible for anyone to prejudge a youngster as a gang banger just because he’s got one leg rolled up on his pants. It’s this generalization that I’m protesting.
No, I’m a token white person in my neighborhood—I know SDMB is probably predominantly white.
Re: the “pantyhose on the head phenomenon”
Is it a do rag?
Google on “do rag”; I got shut down out of here when I tried to post the link earlier, and it also took forever so I am loathe to try again.