The Sagging Fad

Comfort Obi

I had a need to go to America recently. Using the opportunity, I visited one of my younger sisters, Ngozi. Her relief when she saw me was infectious. She had a basketful of complaints against her children. And obviously had been waiting for me to off-load them. I am the Mummy that the children know. I had barely settled in the car when she started. “Sister, only you can save me from these children. I know they call you to complain, but you don’t know the story." I was enjoying myself at her anger and confusion
My sister, having not stayed with her children for years because she was in school, and wanted to find her feet, always had the feeling that it was easy looking after them. Each time she gave birth to a baby, I would go take the baby to stay with me, and by so doing, take the burden off her. She and her husband were having a blast, while I was having all the sleepless nights. It was a thing I enjoyed doing. For the first time, she was having a real feel of what it is like living with children. And has just found out that there is a huge difference between visiting them for a week, and living with them.
Amongst my sister’s complaints are: The children don’t make their beds when they wake up. They don’t help her wash dishes, or clean the house. She has to force them to eat. She has to force them to go to bed. And in the mornings, force them to wake up. They barge into her bedroom when she wants to rest, after coming back from work tired. She now shares their father’s attention with them! Well, why not. He is their father. The kids are two teenage boys, and two girls aged 10 and eight years.
The first boy, an irresistable good looking chap, she told me, now adorns his left ear with an earring. And the second boy? My sister: "He sags his trousers, and walks like a penguin." I burst out laughing. But that was exactly what I saw when the kids ran out to welcome me. The boy had his trousers well below his butt, and was walking like something was wrong with his legs. For a moment, I forgot where I was, and screamed: "Will you pull your trousers up and stop behaving like an irresponsible? Who taught you this nonsense? You are walking like you suffered from polio."
Until I explained to him why he shouldn’t dress that irresponsibly, he thought it was hip to dress like that. And he is not the only one. Thousands of youths, even those old enough to get married, think it is hip to sag their trousers, pull it down, and thus expose their butts and/or boxers. It is a fad. Along the streets, in churches, in schools and other public places, one is confronted with exposed butts and boxers. One is confronted with the sight of young men who walk as if something is wrong with their legs.
It started, I guess in America. And quickly spread to Africa, especially Nigeria. Females are not exempted. They pull their trousers down so low that one sees their butts. The other day at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, a girl in her early 20's, had her jeans trousers so pulled down that nothing was left for the imagination. As she walked away, I found myself blushing. I was not surprised when some young men looked at her and started booing her. She walked into her mother’s arms. Her mother apparently saw nothing wrong with her. But one elderly woman walked up and told her: “Is that your daughter? Shame!” Some young women, especially those described by Fashion, Style and Soft-Sell magazines as celebrities, have learnt to dress in the same irresponsible manner. They tuck in, and pull their trousers to the middle of their butts, and hold it with a belt! Is that style? Is that fashion? It is irresponsible!
Here, in Nigeria, we copy fashion sheepishly. That is why we are now into the era of tattoos! They put it everywhere. From their breasts to their butts. And they are proud to tell you of their tattoos. They make no attempt to study the background of those who wear tattoos. Some of those American and European characters they are imitating put those tattoos when they were very young, and in High Schools. As grown -ups now, a number of them are paying huge sums of money for surgery to have their tattoos covered up. Nobody gets any responsible job wearing tattoos. Those who cannot afford the huge sums for surgery wear dresses to cover them up. Only those Blacks from the ghetto, or those Whites they refer to as White Thrash wear tattoo publicly. Yet, amongst some of our actors and actresses, that has become a fad. And so has sagging of trousers amongst our young men and women.
I am not very sure they know the history of the sagging of trousers and shorts. Sagging is for prisoners (abroad) who are not allowed to wear belts so as not to use it to fight or strangle themselves. Because of that, their trousers sag.
Recently, in the city of Flint, Michigan, USA, David Dicks, the Police Chief, ordered his boys to arrest anybody seen wearing sagging trousers/shorts, thus exposing his butts/boxers. He is threatening them with jail time and fines. He describes sagging as an “immoral self expression.” To him, anybody wearing sagging pants (trousers) has committed an offence under the Disorderly – Conduct Ordinance, and it doesn’t matter whether the person is wearing underwears or not. He categorised them. Anyone caught wearing pants sagged, but above the butt, attracts a warning. If it is sagged below the butt, the person is charged with disorderly conduct. But if it is below the butt, with exposed skin, the person is charged with indecent exposure. Of course, as is the case always, the Police Chief has come under attack from some quarters. They say he has “basically taken his personal dislike of a style of dress and made it a violation of criminal law.” Why not?
Who wants to see, publicly, an exposed butt? It is obscene. As for my sister’s son, I have told her to reduce his weekly pocket money if he continues. That will straighten him out. The exposure of butts via sagging, in the name of fashion, is definitely a-no-no. It is irresponsible.