writing: Jason M, age 30

"Black Men: Gay. White Men: OK. -- The "Skinny Jeans" Edition"

Fashion is fickle, especially with the number of trends going on at once now. Everybody is or is at least trying to be a trendsetter. What defines a trend exactly is best left to a dictionary, but what I have noticed as I’ve gotten on in years is that certain trends tend to lend themselves to certain races more so than others.

Let’s take the tight pant phenomenon. Back when people wore Adidas and lived life slow, skinny jeans were just something you wore. Back in the 80s everybody wore skinny jeans, no matter what your ethnic or socio-economical background or style was because, well that’s all there was. They were the norm. And they weren’t called “skinny jeans” they were just called “jeans”. The only thing you had to worry about wasn’t really their tightness as much as the label on them. If “Le” was followed by another “e” and it was on my ass, I was in for such ridicule from my peers. They even made a parody song in the hood about it (you older heads might remember) “Shout, Shout, LEE’S ARE PLAYED OUT!” after the Tears For Fears song.

Then something happened in the urban (Black) community. What and exactly when I’m not sure, but baggy pants became all the rage. Not just baggy though, they had to be sizes bigger so that they sagged so far down the seat of them became street sweepers. Some idiots even decided to turn them around backwards as a gimmick. As hip hop music flourished and became less about having fun and more about shooting guns, pants got bigger and baggier, I guess to hide your imaginary “piece”. The tightness of your pants became directly proportionate to how homo you were, even though saggy pants supposedly originated in prison, a place where people get “stuck up the butthole” on the regular. But I digress.

Fast forward to now, with this whole 80s revival hogwash and these 80s babies wearing super tight colorful jeans and creating dances around how tight their jeans are (but they’re still “hood”). Artists like Kanye West have made it cool to wear tight pants again or at least a pair of jeans that fit you properly . . .

But not really.

There seems to be a rift in the urban (Black) community over jean tightness that has everyone spilt down the middle. Because his pants fit him a bit snugly, Kanye is gay and there are plenty of people out there that will stand by this. Just go to any of your favorite rap/hip hop fashion blogs and read the comments on how gay this rapper is or how much of a rumored homo that rapper is for wearing that “fag shit”.

My thing is, rockers have been wearing tight jeans for years and if you pay attention to their music videos, concert footage, behind the scene pics or stories from groupies, they get madd, for lack of a better term, “pussy”. If you go to a punk rock show or a death metal show, predominately frequented by (White) men in skinny jeans and makeup and call one of the patrons a “fag”, chances are that if you even make it to the door, no matter how many people are in your entourage, you’re going to get sacrificed to a pagan god of some sort or at least get your face kicked in. I think back to The Ramones and remember they had the tightest jeans in existence and were not only rampant heterosexuals, they made the hardest music of that era and what some would consider the best fight music ever. And the skaters I know will rip your head off if you dare come up to them with that nonsense.

Punks are no punks.

So where does this leave us? Well as an “alternanegro” (yes, I coined that shit!) that listens to more rock and metal nowadays than I do hip hop and identifies more with the prior despite growing up in the projects, I can’t go back to rocking super tight jeans. I also can’t rock saggy bottoms. I’m too Black and too old for either. I choose a middle ground: a nice pair of fitted jeans with a slight taper or flare that I can roll into a cuff. End of the day it’s all about personal preference, but seriously, when did your jeans become a marker for your sexual orientation? I’m also sure that a true gay person would not be caught dead in a pair of fluorescent yellow skinny jeans sagging half way off of their asses with wallet chains and a bright Kid Robot hoodie on doing the god damn “stanky leg” (I really hate that dance).

(Black) People, you gotta let that stupidness go.