A black bandana can literally be defined as a piece of cloth that is wrapped across the forehead or wrapped on the bottom half of ones face. However, the term has a wide range of meanings depending with regional location and groups.
In the United States, the term has widely been used to refer to members of a violent criminal gang that is referred to as MS 13. In addition to wearing black bandanas, members of this violent group are also said to have very heavy tattoos, with inscriptions that are done with Latin. The black bandana gang is said to have wreaked havoc in most parts of the country.
The same gang extends to Tottenham, England. Here it is said to have caused several atrocities and managed to get away with it. They are mostly infamous for having murdered police and civilians who stand on their way. Their label is black bandana, which is accompanied by thick tattoos that extends to the other parts of the body. Still in England, the term is used to refer to another gang that perpetrates criminal activities in Nottingham. They carry similar criminal activities to those of gang members in Tottenham and United States.
In the world of sexuality, wearing a black bandana in the back pocket and round the belt loop is a method used by gay members to express their sexual urge. This trend is most evident in south America where immigrants from other parts of world introduced it during the gold rush period. Their immigration in turn caused a shortage in women and majority of people turned to gay sex. To differentiate straight people from gay people, the gay came up with the trend of wearing a black bandana in the back pocket and round the belt loop.
However, this trend is long gone and the gay community uses other sexual signs to communicate their sexual signs. They wear a variety of bandana colors to communicate among themselves. The types of bandana color used by lesbians are determined by where one hails from. In San Francisco for instance, wearing a black bandana in the right pocket, depicts masochism while wearing it at the left pockets implies that one has a sense of sadism.
For other bandana colors used in the gay world, a white bandana color at the right pocket indicates that someone is a beginner or a gay member who is so much into beginners. These are just but a few colors among dozens of them, which are used by gay members.
In the world of entertainment and rap music in particular, musicians wear black bandanas to identify themselves with other fellow rappers and fans of rap music. This partly because rap music advocates for what is popularly known as the “gangster “culture among other negative things it advocates for. When many rap musicians claim that they are gangsters, it doesn’t mean they are ordinary gangsters but rather they are gangsters on the virtues of dressing and talking in the manner that hip hop music demands. It is also well known that some prominent musicians wear bandanas as their trademark. This helps them in winning the hearts of their fans who are so much into the so called “ gangster” life.
As the world is quickly turning to becoming a liberal society day-by-day, other meanings of black bandana are also expected to emerge. Probably one day there will be a universal meaning of black bandana, a point that many would disagree.