Ta-Nehisi Coates rips into a fairly stupid piece by Mary Battiata on the hope that Obama offers the black community--a hope of a future filled with snugly-fitting jeans:
Lately I've been wondering what an Obama White House might mean for the future of bling. For the fate of heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit. What if January 20, 2009 turned out to be not just a cultural and clothing pivot point for adults -- a return to the minimalism of sleek, 60s-era sharkskin suits, the containment of golf-ball sized Barbara Bush costume pearls -- but a watershed fashion moment for teenaged boys? Picture it. On Inauguration Day next year, thousands and thousands of young men and boys from city street corners to suburbs, look up from their X-Boxes and catch a glimpse of the impeccable President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama climbing the steps of the Capitol and suddenly feel... unfashionable. Out of it. Old. What if they are overcome by the same stunned, something's-happening-here feeling that teenagers in the early 60s, their closets full of sock hop regalia, felt when they first laid eyes on The Beatles in 1964, on the nationally televised Ed Sullivan Show. For adults, this kind of moment is, at most, something to take note of. To a teenager, it's a gale force warning of imminent social tsunami, an urgent prod from the eyeballs and the amygdala that to everything there is a season, and now is the time to change, change, change. Ask not what you can do for your closet, but what your closet, if ignored, can do to you.This week in the nation's capital, Washington Post's Metro columnist Courtland Milloy wrote about the street scene in the mostly African-American, inner-city neighborhood of Trinidad, where D.C. police have set up a Balkans-style traffic checkpoints in and out of the neighborhood in an effort to stem a recent spate of drug related murders. Sitting on the front porch of 67-year-old Willie Dorn, a retired corrections officer, Milloy noted the antics of a group of teenaged boys "shirtless, pants below their behinds," who, as Milloy and Dorn watched, launched a plastic bottle at a passing scooter, nearly causing an accident. "Maybe a President Obama could help restore some pride in the black community," Dorn said.
The relationship of clothing to behavior is real. Clothes may not "make the man," but they shape the mind in ways large and small. Ask any stay-at-home parent, freelance writer or invalid who has spent one too many days in baggy sweats and stained T-shirts and begins to notice (in a semi-alarmed, detached sort of way, of course) a dwindling of discipline and energy. The well-known Rx for this condition is a shower and a change into grown-up clothes, the kind with seams that may pinch the body, but can help focus the head.
One doesn't even know what to say. Start with the bizarre assumption that black teenagers have never seen a black man in a suit before--as Coates aptly notes, suits are even a part of the degenerate hip-hop culture that Battiata is worried about. Then ponder the equally bizarre idea that teenagers want to dress like the president. Obama inspiring suits among black teenagers seems about as likely as McCain inspiring Goth kids to scrape off the black nailpolish and put on a cardigan.
I don't know where Battiata grew up, but in my high school, anyone who had come in dressed like Barbara Bush would have spent the next few years ruing this decision at their very own cafeteria table. I wore . . . well, baggy jeans. Also ratty sneakers, tentlike t-shirts, and flannel shirts about eight sizes too large that used to flap around my girlish figure like a shroud. Nonetheless, I seem to have managed a rich and fulfilling life.
The freelance effect that she notes is real, but that's not some magical property of the clothes--I felt perfectly stylish and adult in baby doll dresses in the early nineties. It's a reflection of the fact that all of your friends are dressed differently from you. If pajamas were the new work uniform, you'd feel like a natty professional even in the privacy of your own couch-cave.
Teenagers don't want to be like adults. If that's a fault of society, it's a general fault of all America, not some special, pernicious feature of inner-city culture. But frankly, I'm kind of creeped out by sixteen year olds who dress like adults. A nervous breakdown must lurk somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Put down the purse and stick some anarchy stickers on that jacket, young lady.
Even the "bling" phenomenon has a considerably more benign explanation than that attributed by moralizing whites. As Erik Hurst has shown, members of groups with low average socioeconomic status tend to spend much more of their income on visible signals--cars, houses, jewelry, clothes--than members of higher-status groups. This is not unique to blacks. Poor southern whites do it, people who live in poor neighborhoods do it, single mothers do it, hispanics do it, etc. And it makes perfect sense for them to do this; otherwise, they get whatever unkind treatment society metes out to the poorest of the poor. Assuming arguendo that "bling" is bad, it will take much more than a black man in a suit to eliminate the phenomenon. That will only come when blacks fully join whites in the economic mainstream.
It is my fervent hope that Obama does not inspire young people to begin wearing suits. Men's suits are the most evil form of clothing ever invented.
I remember very early in the Democratic primary campaign that the African-American community accused Obama of not being Black enough. Other than a fist-bump with his wife now and again, what's to say they won't make that accusation once more?
Megan,
Can I ask you where found those shirts that are 8 sizes too large for you? Or where they custom made? =)
John McCain will inspire white yoots to stuff cotton into their mouths and wear adult diapers.
@Michael: Could you link me to the press release that the African American Community released on Obama's blackness? I think I missed it.
Could you explain this to me? You seem to be saying that by buying ostentatious displays of wealth they don't have, which clearly identifies them as poor people since people with money tend not to wear diamond-crusted watches or scads of gold rings and necklaces, poor people somehow manage to trick society into not noticing that they're poor?
So if a poor person dressed in a reasonable fashion society would treat them worse than it does a poor person blinged out rolling in a '93 hundai with $3000 spinning chrome rims?
Am I missing something?
I'm also curious about this part:
When you say "more of their income" do you mean a higher percentage or a higher absolute amount? A poor person living in a small apartment might already be spending a higher percentage of thier income on housing than a rich person without trying to be "blingy" about it.
On the other hand, it isn't just that poor people and rich people spend roughly equal amounts of money on rims and grills and diamond pinky rings, it's that lower-socio-economic folk spend on these things and higher-folk don't at all, much. In other words, in a lot of these purchases, the poor folk are singling themselves out as poor folk through these displays.
I suppose an argument could be made that the multi-thousand dollar suit or understated patek-philip watch is just as ostentatious and the poor people are merely substituting in ostentatiousness that they can afford, but your statement seems to be saying that poor people buy ostentatiousness that they can't afford and that this makes sense because society treats them better for having done it.
I was kinda skinny in high school. A men's XL shirt made a nice caftan.
Mary Battiata's idea doesn't seem any stupider than Andrew Sullivan's idea that everyone in Africa and the Muslim world will see that America has a dark-skinned president named "Hussein" and start loving us.
Uh, Andrew's been pushing that meme based on anecdotal evidence from readers and papers abroad. He's merely pointing to indicators that there is excitement brewing out there, and it's positive.
Geoff, if that's the test, then no problem, and Mary Battiata is probably right on track. I am highly confident that I can find any number of African-American authority figures (local pols, prominent clergymen, etc.) who will be happy to declare, sententiously, that electing Obama will make black youth feel connected to the American polity in way they never have before, dramatically reduce their alienation from mainstream American culture, etc. Which, if it were true, would certainly reduce the affection of said black youth for bling and gangsta rap. I just don't believe it.
Gangsta Rap will only go away if Obama shuts down the government program which created it.
Megan, I think you are remiss in not linking to Postrel's latest article where she talks about conspicuous versus inconspicuous consumption amongst the poor and the rich.
Could you explain this to me? You seem to be saying that by buying ostentatious displays of wealth they don't have, which clearly identifies them as poor people since people with money tend not to wear diamond-crusted watches or scads of gold rings and necklaces, poor people somehow manage to trick society into not noticing that they're poor?
It's very simple. Imagine 3 different people.
Two of them grew up in a ghetto. They have ghetto language, ghetto mannerisms, and ghetto level education. But one has drunk and injected himself into absolute poverty, and is scrapping by on $5000/year by collecting aluminium cans. The second got a decent job as a mechanic, and now lowers cars for $30 000/year.
The third grew up in the nice middle class home, then made the classic error of doing a university degree in marxist analysis of feminist literature. He is now living on $5000 year as a part time video store clerk.
Now the first and the third guy are on the same income, but within seconds of meeting them you will be able to tell them apart. The third guy is articulate, dresses in middle class clothes (except they are several years old) and basically when the cops stop him on the street they have a chat and then let him go with a "Have a nice day".
The first guy, on the same income, is clearly the sort of guy that nobody wants around. He will never get that job in the video store, the cops will give him a hard time, his social interactions are all very negative.
Now let's get back to the second guy. Above all, he does NOT want to look like the first guy. He sounds like the first guy, he has the mannerisms of the first guy, so he has to prove that he is NOT a "bottom of the pile" guy on $5k/year. So he wears a thousand bucks worth of bling. A poor ghetto dweller can't do this, so this lets everyone know that he is NOT the bottom of the pile. He still gets relegated to below the "poor but middle class" guy, but at least he is clearly distinguished from the bottom rung.
Cardigans are as bleak, barren, and cold as their Gothy little hearts, Megan.
The cardigan sweater is the hallmark of true Gothic despair and ennui. Only the hardest-core of Goths can stand to wear one; the poseurs cannot tolerate the horror and depression involved.
(Did you know that John McCain was the first pick for a lead singer for Bauhaus, and that Peter Murphy was only chosen when McCain refused?)
Anthony: Your link doesn't work, which is a shame, because I bet its contents are hilarious.
Peter: Suits are grand, if properly fitted and made of proper materials. Of course, at that level they cost more than most of us are willing to pay.
(I don't wear my cheap suit very often, but I'll be damned if it isn't actually quite comfortable, when the weather's appropriate for it - and if one has enough suits, properly suited for the weather in one's area, that isn't a problem.)
I freelance. And I wear jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweater in the winter, and some sort of capris or skirt with a knit shirt in the warm months. Coincidentally these are the same as my at-home mom clothes. They are different from my going-out-for-the-evening clothes, which I enjoy wearing but from which my husband (who must wear professional clothes every day) gets no thrill.
I don't think it's quite a freelancer problem but an alone-and-not-trying-hard-enough problem. The same thing can happen with food, if you need to feed only yourself and discover you've just had peanut-butter-and-jelly for all three meals. When you notice that happening, you should take a little more care with your diet, and when you notice you aren't making any effort for your clothing maybe a little is required. If she thinks I'm going to wear panty hose and a tailored suit to type at home on my computer she can think again, even though I find those clothes perfectly acceptable for a meeting or when I worked in an office.
I do think that one could win some votes in Obama's hardest demographic, old people, if one claimed that his election would cause the youth to forsake giant pants.
Yeah Peter,
What's wrong with a men's suit? I think men's suits are a near perfect answer to the question: "What can everyone wear, comfortably, without too much effort and everyone look at least "fairly OK" and in many cases "good"?
After thousands of years of searching, the mens suit was invented in about the 1600s, and has stayed much the same ever since. Transfer a 1690 man in a suit forward to 2008, and he'll need to take the buckles off his shoes, lose the hat, and change the tie before he'll fit right in.
Sure women might tell that the suit is a totally different cut from normal, but no normal guy will notice the difference.
Women have yet to find ANYTHING that is comfortable and appropriate at most times, let alone suitable for everyone. When they eventually do, maybe they too will stop changing clothes every 6 months and stick with something for a couple of centuries.
For a good explanation of the lure of bling and name-brands in poor neighborhoods, read Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's [i]Random Family[/i]. It's similar to what doctorpat laid out, with the added kick that making sure your girls look cute and your boys have name-brand clothing are viewed as signs of good mothering.
Doctorpat, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you wore baggy knee breeches with your suit, even the men would notice. :)