Dress and American Youth
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America today is an imitative society. To some extent it always has been, with people imitating those in a social class or group to which they themselves would like to belong. With the proliferation of media images through film, television, magazines, and the like, America has become even more imitative of certain cultural icons. The youth of America is perhaps the most imitative class of all because they are at an age when they feel a strong need to belong. Gang styles have become accepted across class lines by young people because they are imitating rock singers, television actors, and others they admire, and in the process of adopting different clothing styles, much of the original meaning is either muted or lost, transformed into a lower level of rebellion than is intended by the gang members themselves. One problem this creates, though, is that the clothing itself carries a statement easily misinterpreted both by society at large, which may judge young people by their dress alone, and by true gang members, who see gang styles as having definite meaning and who treat those wearing such styles accordingly. Yet we cannot simply say that we should not judge people by their dress because how people dress does convey something about their attitudes. What we should point out is that we need to be careful what dress we adopt because we know that such symbols do have meaning. It is clear that individuals choose clothing as a way of showing their social position. Some so
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ify with their peers. Such behavior serves a number of purposes. Aside from the obvious show of group conformity, gang members also have practical reasons for adopting this image. Clothing is usually the first signal that novitiates send out to advertise their new social and personal identity (Vigil 571).
Of course, as Vigil further indicates, there are a number of other signs that consolidate the first impression and assure that the individual is a member of a given group, and he cites everything from speech patterns to posture. Most of these additional signs are unknown to outsiders, who get their idea of a person primarily from their mode of dress. When non-gang members sport the same dress, then, they are lumped together with gang members by most of society. A member of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department notes how many young people imitate gang members because they see such behavior as cool and want to be identified with the gangs. Sgt. Wes McBride states,
They start out thinking it's real cool to be a gang member. They are "wannabes" with nothing happening around them to show them it's real dangerous, until they run afoul of real gang members, and then they end up dead (Mydans 589).
This points up the real dange
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Approximate Word count = 1363
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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