Another challenge going viral on social media, "Pull Your Damn Pants Up" challenge, which aims to help black community, evoked a heated debate amongst a CNN panel on Sunday.
Alike the "Ice Bucket Challenge", Charles Johnson introduced "Pull Your Damn Pants Up" challenge, which was then took forward by Marine Malik King. The challenge is basically pointing to help the black men, which encourages avoiding racial profiling by improving their appearance.
On this, CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill and Blaze's Tara Setmayer, a participant of CNN panel, got into a fiery debate. The television news channel made the panel to discuss about whether the challenge is right or wrong.
Hill claimed that the challenge was pointing out on black men's dressing style for attracting police attention. He said, "Before black people pulled their pants down, they were still being locked up...If we continue to tell young black men that they can behave or dress or otherwise demonstrate their way out of police oppression or police abuse, then we're blaming the victim."
The conversation heated up when Setmayer disagreed with Hill's perception. She said," I find it hard to believe that Marc would be as educated as he is and as much as he has contributed to the black community and trying to overcome the negativity that's in the community that he would actually sit here and try to justify emulating bad behaviour."
The debate triggered fire between the two and Hill apparently agreed that he himself doesn't appreciate sagging pants but then he surprised other panellists saying, "I'm nearly 36-years-old, so no, my pants aren't sagging. At 16 they were and I think I turned out okay. I still got an Ivy League PH.D"
In King's challenge video, he demonstrated about the motive behind "Pull Your Damn Pants Up" challenge. He said, "We're quick in our [black] communities to talk about racial profiling, about how the cops are targeting young black men. But what we don't want to focus on is what we're doing to contribute to the problem – even if just a little bit."
According to King, black youth, who wears pants exposing their underwear and carries themselves in such way, are "beneath any person with dignity". The challenge is to change the clothing and lifestyle of black community so that the perception of other people especially of cops changes. The challenge does not focus on raising money, else focuses on spreading awareness and a message for the black men.
