Saggin' on the Down Low?

The Bryant Park Project
October 26, 2007

A new campaign by the city of Dallas targets the hip-hop style of wearing your pants low enough that your boxers are showin — and part of your posterior, too.

The campaign has a signature song, "Pull Your Pants Up," by Dooney Da' Priest, that links so-called saggin' with being gay. After the BPP blogged NPR's original report on the public service announcement, listeners objected to lyrics they consider homophobic.

Mark Anthony Neal, professor of black popular culture in the Department of African American Studies at Duke University, parses the lyrics and explains why they'll hit some young men hard.

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