Sagging pants aren’t the reason why police profile black boys.
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In the latest case of respectability politics, a group of misinformed black men have taken to social media to issue a challenge to black boys: “pull your pants up!”
The originators of this challenge believe strongly that black boys are inviting the police to profile them when their pants are worn below their butt, as it “reinforces negative stereotypes,” explains Malik King, who participated in the challenge and landed up on CNN debating Marc Lamont Hill and the Blaze’s Tara Setmayer, who agreed wholeheartedly with King’s irrational critique of young black men.
Not only is there no link between sagging pants and racial profiling – I remember covering the Darrin Manning case and the day he was stopped-and-frisked he was wearing a clean school uniform with a tie – it’s a dangerous and irresponsible message to send; it’s like blaming a rape victim for wearing perfume that smells like peaches and cream.
What Malik King didn’t mention during his 15 seconds of fame – and I didn’t expect him to, because if he knew these statistics he wouldn’t have participated in the ‘Pull Your Pants Up Challenge’ – is that police have a heavy presence in black communities because black people harp on-and-on about what they perceive to be black-on-black crime, and the need for increased police presence – although it doesn’t usually work in their favor.
Furthermore, police – white male officers in particular – stop young black men not because they can see their underwear – which I agree isn’t appealing – but because… “black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime,” says new research published by the American Psychological Association.
Since we’re into challenges now as a society, I’d like to issue one: I challenge the world to view black men and boys as assets to communities and not problems that need to be fixed.
My challenge won’t ask you to donate money, dump ice water on your head or set yourself on fire, it’ll only require you to change the way you see the world and the people in it.
Black or white, yellow or red, we as humans all want the same things: to live safely in a community and achieve goals in order to raise the quality of our life. If we unite on that common value and work together to ensure liberty and justice for all, we will have a better world where people love and respect each other, regardless of their skin color or where they wear their pants.
CLICK HERE to pledge to see the good in black men and share their stories so that others may do the same.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™
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Photo: robby-T/Flickr
I suspect that black men are profiled much more often than black women. There are more incarcerated white men than black women. They are not profiled just because they are black. They are also profiled because they are male. That’s something that somehow tends to go “by the boards”.