Being Frank
By: Frank James
Special to the Milwaukee Times
The sharpest dressed people on the planet. The trendsetters when it came to fashion. The people who wore clothes and made others wish they could make the clothes look so good. The people who took overalls and made them look like Sunday service worship clothes. All of the previous fashion statements were once associated with African American people. In 2019 the only fashion statement the African American can be associated with is Hillbilly/ Trailer Park Sad.
I know people will say, “Clothes don’t make you.” The previous statement is true. I always say, “You wear the clothes, don’t let them wear you.” In 2019 African Americans aren’t doing anything but letting themselves be dictated to by designers whose sole purpose is to dress/ assimilate them similar to the lowest level of white society. “How so you say?” Read on.
Everyone who attended a school in the 1990’s and 2000’s that had both African and White American students knew about the burnout crowd. The burnout crowd consisted of the people who smoked cigarettes and hung out outside of the school on the patio or football bleachers. These people usually wore hoodies and jeans with some form of t-shirt. This style of dress has become the fashion for African American youth in 2019.
Every day I go into a high school and look at the modern burnout attire worn by African Americans. The hoodies and t-shirts on the males are mirrored by the hoodies and legging worn by females. The young men wear their jeans or sweat pants tight and not pulled up. The hoodies worn by both male and female are like the ones worn by burnouts except for the price. Many African Americans wear hoodies by True Religion or Polo so they pay big money to look tacky.
Oh don’t let me skip the main part of the 2019 African American burnout swag, footwear. The white burnout wore cheap tennis shoes or engineer boots. The 2019 African American burnout wears Jordan gym shoes that cost $150.00 or better. These shoes are alternated with some form of slide shoe either PINK or Nike that is worn with dingy socks. The previous statements go for both male and female African Americans. I am not making this up. This is how African American youth go to school. In all fairness the African American youth had to learn from someone, the adult.
The African American adult either follows the youth in dress or sets the example. The way I described how the African American youth dresses is almost identical to the way the African American adult dresses. I do not mean when they are working at a 9 to 5 but in their free time. Many African American females wear leggings or workout clothes as if they were mink coats and Jones New York power suits. The men dress in baseball hats and gym shoes just like the youth as if they were heading to NBA tryouts. What in the world happened to the best-dressed people on the planet?
The hairstyles are where I think many racists are laughing at African Americans. The way many African American males come out of their houses with their hair nappy or uncombed is a stark reminder of Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. The excess weave/ wigs of every color worn by African American females in 2019 are similar to the wigs worn by streetwalkers in the 1960’s and 70’s. Add these hairstyles to the clothes and you have something that would have had African Americans protesting if Hollywood had of depicted them in such fashion in the 1990’s. Yet, in 2019 African Americans pay big money to look like the refuse from a trailer park.
This is assimilation at it’s finest. I guess the Klan is happy because if they want to lynch an African American couple and the female has braids there is no need to find a rope.
Frank James IV © 2019 beingfrankwithfrank@gmail.com
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the writer and not of the Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper or NCON Communication, its staff or management. “Being Frank” is a bi-weekly column exclusive to the Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper.