The American culture was injected with Rap music and this hip-hop style clothing trend in order to make the middle and upper classes hate the lower class (and vice versa) and have no pity for them and to make the poor enjoy being poor because they think it makes them cool and "gangsta". If poor people dressed like the rest of the people in America and they didn't subscribe to the rap music culture then more people would feel sorry for them and want to help them. As long as the poor are going to go around dressed in clothes that only they can wear and feel cool and sell crack as a fashion statement, the middle and upper class wont care about them. The U.S. government wants to keep the poor poor, quiet, and hated and to sell their CIA run drugs for them. That's my guess. Granted, there are a bunch of middle to upper class white kids who try to imitate the ghetto culture (which makes them feel like wannabes and gives them an inferiority complex), but they usually grow out of that.