When the use of the word "boy" was no longer the term of common reference for Black males by whites, Black males began referring to themselves as "baby." For until most recently, with the changes in dress and clothing styles, most black males deeply resented any reference to themselves as "girl" or "woman." But the recent style changes towards high-heeled shoes, curled hair, hair curlers, braids, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pocketbooks, midriff tops, cinch waisted pants, etc., that many Black males have adopted now suggest that there is a developing tendency, widespread amongst Black males, to not mind (consciously or unconsciously) being mistaken for a "girl" or a "woman."...
Thus it is clear that the origin of this specific pattern of speech begins with the perhaps unconscious recognition that within the framework of the white supremacy power system and it's reflecting culture, power rests only in the hands of whites, more specifically, in the hands of the white male. And relative to the white male, the Black male is a powerless "baby."
"In childhood male children learn- whether at home or at school- that they make mothers and female teachers happy (and they will shower you with smiles and affection) when they act like "females" rather than like boys...The braided and curled hair, the earrings and bracelets, the midriff tops, the cinch waisted pants, the flowered underwear, the high-heeled shoes with platforms and the pocketbooks are all behavioral answers to the above. They say in a loud and clear language, "White man, I will never come after you. I cannot run in my high-heels - you know that. And I may mess up my hair." The white-run clothing industry is all to pleased to provide the costumes of feminine disguise for black male escape.
The Isis Papers (1976,1974)
When I first saw the pictures of Kanye West and his crew; some of whom were wearing some outfits reminiscent of the 80's, Cameo, and of questionable taste, I laughed and moved along. Artists will be artists and I really wasn't going to waste brain cells on whether Kanye's particular choice of clothes and friends were indicative of his sexual proclivities. However; I saw a twit from a friend of mine to a blog post and a coincidental article in the NY Times fashion section which got my black man alarm going and immediately brought to mind the quotations above. Some pieces from the blog entry:
What's so funny to me about it , is that we dress like grown men. We are all approaching, or in our 30s, and we have style, money, and a vast knowledge of fashion. Has this hip-hop, street sh!t made everybody forget what a man REALLY is, or supposed to look like?
Grown men (and a woman?)
I'm not entirely clear as to what he means by "grown men." It seems they are dressed as they see fit but to declare that the above is how grown men dress is quite a stretch. Really. But see the undertones, well actually overtones of the comment? We're rich and we know more than you do about clothes, so everything we do is so beyond what you street niggas would know. You know that's really familiar to me, I've heard that said about black folks from not a few white people. You know, we poor country, jungle vine swingin' coons don't know or have nothin' that we rich and civilized white folk haven't done better at.
Lest you think I'm being too harsh in this critique, continue reading the blog post:
Every show that we walked into, the escorts wanted all of us to be in the front row because they honored the style that we brought and respected our presence. And the thing is, what we are actually doing, is showing the fashion world that American men, let alone Black Men, know how to really get busy when it comes to the fashion game.
Yep, that reminds me about that part where Dr. Welsing discusses how black men get rewarded for being non-threatening. Here's a nice translation: These white folk love us non-threatening negroes who spend the money our backwards street negroes provide us through album sales on high dollar, high thread count, name brand "couture" with names these ignorant negroes can't pronounce let alone wear first hand. They so approve of us aping their styles, that they put us on display for other white folk to see and talk about: "Oh those negroes dress so well!" Besides, what is with these rich negroes who apparently have a need to be validated by white folk? Seriously.
The blog continues:
>Everyone in the fashion world thinks that Black, American men can't dress because we wear everything baggy and boxy and our clothes just straight up don't fit right. It's the truth whether you like it or not. There are only 3, truly respected American men in fashion, and they are Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs. Kanye is on the path to being the 1st American Black Man that high-end fashion buyers will be wearing with his Louis Vuitton collaboration, following Pharrell's collaboration with the fashion house for the LV "Millionaire" sunglasses that he designed (sunglasses are accessories, not clothing).
Wow so rich, ethnocentric, largely gay, European fashion designers, who think rail thin women are "ideal" have deemed American black men as fashion abominations. Boo hoo! First of all why is someone I assume to be black even repeating racist bullshit like this in the first place? Seriously. Some cracker in "high fashion" makes a blanket statement about African-Americans and instead of calling them out on such a clearly racist comment, they post it on a blog as fact. Methinks someone clearly has spent way too much time around these people. But in case the blogger in question has forgotten, for those of us who don't have record contracts and fat bank accounts, we have to buy the vast majority of our clothes at retailers like Walmart and Target, where clothes are factory made to generic sizes. so if, like me you are tall with long arms, you have to buy clothes that are large in order to not look like you have a 3/4 sleeve shirt on. A great deal of your black record buying customers buy their kids large clothes so that the kids can grow into them and therefor spend less money on clothes so that they can do things like pay rent, eat, etc. You know those things we lowly, not rich and clearly less intelligent than you.
Of course many of us don't do baggy pants when we are grown. But still don't have the cash to drop on $5,000 custom suits. so forgive us if our suits don't drape as well as yours. Lastly though, in terms of baggy clothes, well you know where that stuff comes from: Jail culture that made it to the streets. In either case who are these people in "high fashion" to tell Black Americans what they ought to be wearing given their clear penchant for dressing black men like women?
Of course for those in on there history would know that the baggy clothes phenom. also had it's roots in the Afrocentric undercurrent of late 80's-early 90's Hip hop. You know those high top fades were taken from fellows in Ghana? YOu know those Hammer pants have roots in West African clothing? Seen a Batakare? Huge and baggy dude. And colors? the Cross-Colors designs that were the rage and that track, Chris Cross will make ya Jump! Jump" which was a direct rip of the Massai jumping dance. So once again, accepting the blanket statement by European so called "high fashion" about the lack of taste of black Americans, smacks of a total lack of the cultural influences of such styles. But then again, anyone with their heads so far up Europeans asses clearly would not have such respect for things African anyway.
So you'll have to excuse me when I don't bow down to people who think dressing men in women's clothing is "fashion." if a man has questionable sexual proclivities or wants to wear women's clothes 'cause it makes him feel better about himself, I could care less. When people start running around calling it "high fashion" I call the queer fool out.
Fact is that people in high end fashion are allowed to put clearly junk pieces out there and not have it called what it is simply because a lot of the industry is full of egos and back talking people who self congratulate. It's like when BMW redesigned the 7 series to look like a Buick. It stank. It got play for the simple reason that it was a BMW. Had it been a GM vehicle people would have called it what it was and it would have been a dead product like so many other GM cars.
So hey if these fellows want to dress in an eccentric manner. More power to them. For the record I think Kanye was the best and sensibly dressed out of the group. The rest, in my opinion dress to be seen. Their business though, but enough with the condescension and repetition of clearly racist and ethnocentric stereotypes, it's low...class.
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