Forgive me if I've been innoculated with a little Coz, but young brothers, you have to start pulling up those pants! If you want to slink around the house in your flip-flops with your boxers ballooning over the way-too-low waistband of your jeans, right on, be free. But when you step out in public dressed like that, you're sharing a little bit too much of your personal information. I don't want to be treated to a big slice of your Calvins, your Fruit of the Looms. Really. I'm not a fossil; I can deal with an inch of boxer peeping out over the waistline. I know that for some reason this is the fashion and has been for years. But just as I'm not wanting to see young ladies dressed elegantly in evening gowns and tatoos (sorry, Mary J, Eve!), or with dresses so short they show their "possibles" (Kim, Kim, Kim….), I'd lalso love not to see so much of your behinds. I get baggin as camouflage—in some neighborhoods, you'll be targets if you don't bag at least a little. But our black celebs don't have that problem. And since we live in a celeb-see, we-do society, I'd consider it a personal favor if some young, successful black men would lead by example and pull up their pants. So for those of you who've decided that walking around with your Ed Hardys and Rock and Republics slung mid-thigh is not the example you want to leave for young brothers to follow: kisses and bouquets. For those whom Cedric would call "grown-assed men" who still have that crack habit: PULL 'EM UP! Karen Grigsby Bates is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times (Doubleday).
is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times (Doubleday).