"Pull your pants up." How many times have we heard this admonishment directed at young Black men? Even Barack Obama, in a 2008 interview with MTV, said, "Brothers should pull up their pants."
Mind you, he did preface that saying "creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq" were the real issues and that laws against sagging pants were "a waste of time."
But what he did not say was that laws criminalizing sagging pants were fully intended to give the police more reasons to stop Black men in a country that has, shall we say, a long history of criminalizing Black skin. The laws were more than a waste of time: they were fully intended to increase the criminal justice system’s ability to waste Black men’s lives.
So I doubt...
Mind you, he did preface that saying "creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq" were the real issues and that laws against sagging pants were "a waste of time."
But what he did not say was that laws criminalizing sagging pants were fully intended to give the police more reasons to stop Black men in a country that has, shall we say, a long history of criminalizing Black skin. The laws were more than a waste of time: they were fully intended to increase the criminal justice system’s ability to waste Black men’s lives.
So I doubt...
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