"Back-to-school necklaces" in the "Urban Dictionary"
Fall fashion or else a garrote in a back alley somewhere
That is a rough crowd of thieves and robbers, and the old adage about casting your pearls before swine applies.
What Is a ‘Back-To-School Necklace’? All About This Disturbing Trend That Parents Need To Know About
Urban Dictionary
The term seems to have a South African origin, and, not so coincidentally, South Africa is a place where gold and diamonds are mined.
Pumza FihlaniBBC News, Port Elizabeth
The reference is to forcing a rubber tire over a victim's shoulders, dousing it with gasoline and setting it afire. The horrible practice is illustrated by Michael Armitage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The artwork exposes the lie, however. If the South Africans are mining gold and diamonds and "necklacing" people, they're doing nothing other than selling jewelry, and again, that's a rough crowd, so it wouldn't be unheard of for thieves or robbers to grab a gold chain off someone's neck or some other valuables or money and strangle or immolate the victim.
They don't care, and they couldn't possibly care if for example a man is "gay" or not for wearing a gold necklace. They just want the necklace. Crime has to have a motive. Being "gay" in this case would mean showing visible wealth and living an extravagant lifestyle, and the motive is greed, not hate.
I have to assume extortioners, blackmailers, burglars and murderers are after the gold jewelry or valuables. It might be something as simple as a kid's lunch money or a house key on a string around a schoolkid's neck.
Gangsters are wearing gold chains on their necks and stealing your kid's lunch money — it's not useful to invent new meanings for common terms in the English language.