“Yep In My White T”

The style that shook the world, starting from the streets of the south in the early 2000s the “White T” was a symbolic symbol that you were “on.” Meaning that you were somebody, somebody with the ability of making money without having a job or going to th NBA, and even finishing school. Making money isn’t everything but it is the only thing and the ”White T” stood for that. A lot of the older men in my neighborhood had always stayed with one on, I remember walking five blocks with my little brother everyday for school wondering ho did they keep a fresh one so I had asked

“Hey how y’all get them “White T’s?”

“What theses? You gottta have cheddar little man?”

“What you mean cheddar?”

“Money, lil nigga.”

I remembered that fat wad of cash he pulled from his pocket it made me feel a sense of respect for the White T that he had on and I had wanted one just like it. I can remember going home and trying to find the cleanest white t-shirt that I could find, almost all of them would be stained ,slightly ripped, or have a hole in it. There was one that belonged to my stepdad that somehow got mixed into my clothes that made my eyes light up like it was Christmas Day, I said to myself that I need this shirt and it was far from the real thing but close enough.

The next day there was a new music video that aired on national television called “Laffy Taffy,” it was sung by a group called “Down For Life” and they had dance to go along with it, same for the group “Dem Franchize Boyz”. These were people I seen in my everyday neighborhood who dressed the same way and it mad me proud, proud to be black in America. When I saw the video i ran to find my brother to let him know that the guys up the block was wearing the exact same thing and he said that I have to have money to by that shirt. But that was the problem being a kid living in the ghetto in the fourth grade, money was hard to come by.

My mom would walk into the house around 6am everyday and everyday I would ask her to by a White T but should never exactly knew what I meant. She would bring home the fruit of the loom t-shirt pack and I would constantly tell her this wasn’t the right one. I never wanted to tell her where I had seen the shirt I was describing to her because I knew I would get a lecture for talking to strangers on the stree, so I just kept it to myself.

The bigger and lengthiness of you shirt then the better, you couldn’t be caught wearing a tight shirt or something because people would laugh at you. You had to make sure everything was flawles, the shirt with the fresh pair of jeans with the crease, fresh pai of all white Air Force 1s, a sports cap to go along with it and a expensive chain with a iced out pendant to top it all off. What I am saying is that you had to let everyone know you were somebody.

A few months later and my brother and I are still at our daily walk from school, I had worn the White T under my school shirt just to show it off when I was on my way home, We began to come up on the street where I had met the man in the fresh White T and I was looking forward to show him that I to had a fresh White T. But when we approached the same exact spot where he was standing the only thing that was there was teddy bears, flowers, ballons, and a picture of him smiling in his “White T.”