Emasculating inmates: forced to wear pink

**Incognito** · 17th-January-2009

Music Blogs > Hip-Hop Media Training > DMX Adopts Pink Prison Wardrobe
DMX Adopts Pink Prison Wardrobe

Posted Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:05pm PST by Billy Johnson, Jr.

Looks like Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has come up with the cure for DMX's addiction to jail. The hip-hop star and repeat offender, like all of Arpaio's other inmates in the Maricopa county jail, must wear pink t-shirts, underwear and socks. The girlie wardrobe colors caught DMX by surprise. "This is ridiculous, this is disrespectful," DMX said with a sarcastic laugh during an interview with My Fox Phoenix. "Why the pink?"

Arpaio told Fox & Friends he has had the pink policy in place for 10 years with success. He said the inmates were stealing the white underwear so he dyed them pink.

(Click photo below to view DMX's interview clip.)

According to Arpaio, DMX is serving time for charges of animal cruelty, drugs and fraud. Arpaio did not express any sympathy for the hardcore rapper, adding, that jail was not supposed to be fun.

DMX misses the good ole days. "This is not where I want to be man," DMX said. "It used to be, I'll go there, I'll be the life of the party, and ... it's nothing."

Requiring male prisoners to wear pink undergarments is emasculating, but listening to DMX talk about going to jail as if it is a hangout spot is not fine either.

Maybe Cam'ron can give X a pep talk. Cam'ron and other Harlem MCs have always been fine with the springtime pastel color.

**Percy** · 17th-January-2009

Ridiculous, on both sides: the 'doing' of determining an 'emasculation' policy on such a dim basis; and seeing pink as emasculating at all.

Up until the end of the 19C, pink was a men's colour. Small boys were dressed in pink and small girls in blue. It was just another 'theft' of 'male stuff' by women who decided to take pink for girls and have boys dressed in blue.

A man is not the colours he wears.

If a prison decides to have male prisoners wear frilly knickers and a dress, a man will be the man he choses to be. If he is emasculated by it, it is his view of himself.

**paul parmenter** · 17th-January-2009

Quote from Percy

Ridiculous, on both sides: the 'doing' of determining an 'emasculation' policy on such a dim basis; and seeing pink as emasculating at all.

Up until the end of the 19C, pink was a men's colour. Small boys were dressed in pink and small girls in blue. It was just another 'theft' of 'male stuff' by women who decided to take pink for girls and have boys dressed in blue.

A man is not the colours he wears.

If a prison decides to have male prisoners wear frilly knickers and a dress, a man will be the man he choses to be. If he is emasculated by it, it is his view of himself.

Agreed. Defining yourself by the clothes you wear is an essentially female characteristic; men should not indulge in such nonsense. And if a man is forced to wear a particular type of clothing, that tells us absolutely nothing about him apart from the fact that he is being coerced.