I guess they must not have any actual crime to deal with there...

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First of all, pants saggers are not showing their backsides. Their backsides are covered. That means it's a matter of style not substance, and probably not subject to legislation, really. The whole ordinance is kind of silly, but so is the practice.

Young men and boys who sag their pants around the butts need to know how developmentally retarded they make themselves look.

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You might think it's a generational thing too, and you know, not just white people being horrible racists always against anything and everything black. You could ask a lot of white people about the trouble they got into with hairstyles and clothes older people didnt approve of. Have any of these kids wearing baggy pants gotten beaten up or thrown out of school for it? Funny how people can get more pissed about this issue than the fact that jobs a lot of people wearing baggy pants work at dont pay shit. Im thinking specifically of jobs I have had. I tell you they would be ready to strike if you tried to take away baggy pants. Fight the power! Something worth remembering is the fact that baggy pants are worn by a lot of white kids and it is not just a black thing -and nor is it considered, anymore, white kids just copying black kids.

I any case jail time for an ugly, stupid fashion is ridiculous, obviously. That goes without saying.

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It's just plain revolting to look at. It's a passive-aggressive way to show contempt or hostility. Ugly. Find a better way to "make a statement". Find a better "statement"...golly knows there's lots to pick from.

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I read of a similar ordinance being proposed in Georgia somewhere. I don't recall any such laws being drawn up when women started wearing lingerie as shirts and boldly flaunting their bra straps with sleeveless shirts and tank tops. I guess it's okay to see women's underclothes, but not men's.

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like Jung asserts, although admitedly, black males originated the style. There are plenty of white males doing this too now-a-days. If we could look into a crystal ball, it probably all started with poor inner city kids who couldn't afford belts...and someone saw them and thought they were making a fashion statement. But I disagree with Jung that this is equated to the corn-row hair style issue...that was not pushing the local 'decency' standards and WAS probably race based.

I don't know any older white folks who think that this show-your-butt fashion is attractive, but hey, the boys doing it aren't trying to attract old white women, but rather, young girls of all races. I am a 56 year old white male and I know it would look pretty silly if I wore my cargo pants down over my butt, even though my body (and ass) is far better than most kids these days. Still, I don't think that I would be attracking young girls if I did it...or I might try it. No, not REALLY!

Most of this reaction from the old guard is probably a bad case of 'butt envy', since most of these old geezers have long since lost any semblance of an attractive posterior. It probably was the same thing when I was growing my hair long in the 60's, come to think of it.

I grew up in the hippy generation of the late 60's and early 70's, when young men including me were growing their hair long, and I know all about this kind of discrimination. Red necks gave us a pretty hard time, especially in the south, which is known for intolerance for a reason.

The kicker is that if we are talking about 'decency' standards, what about all of those overweight women who are wearing hip-hugger jeans and shorts allowing their 'fat flap' to hang out over them...now THAT'S disgusting! But it shouldn't be illegal either.

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Yes, like many people lacking color :), I tend to think this is a dumb fashion (unlike cornrows for example which can look really good). My beef with it is it looks like it would be hard to walk, and if I did it I would be worried about my pants falling down. However, of course it is ridiculous to make it illegal.

And I think it is probably race-based-- even though many white kids are doing it too now, the people behind this law are probably both looking for a new way to charge people with Walking While Black, and also looking for a way to discourage the white kids from adopting black styles. It's probably a bit subconscious but it's still there.

dw

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I suppose someone is obligated to hire them the way they look because that is their right. By the way white suburbs like the look also. Of course if they don't want to work they don't have to wory about getting hired. When they get too old to walk around with their pants falling off they'll find another way to be obnoxious. Then blame the rest of us because being an arrogant little creep doesn't pay very well. C'mon, grow up. Thanks, ANNA

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Wow that will eliminate most of us old geezer from getting up and leaning over. Guess I will just have to stay on the couch

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I saw a kid the other day walking down the sidewalk with his pants almost to his knees, he was holding one side with his hand and he looked like he was going to stumble at any moment. but he thought he was way cool. Now if he showed as much determination to excel in school ,he would really be doing something. Now back in my day. boys wore tight jeans that barely covered the top of the butt and rolled up t shirt sleeves. with a pack of Lucky Strikes in them. All of them were white. I remember the nuns calling them delinquents. One was killed in an auto accident, two went to Vietnam and one became bank president. I have pictures, somewhere of them. It is a teenage fad a that will go away if we just try to ignore it. It is a form of rebellion against society. Remember that concept folks? They will have to grow up soon enough.

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It's a sign equivlent to "kiss my ass, I don't care what the hell people think any more!"

But more so it's a sign of absolute disrespect to all of society, whether they be civilized or not.

Saddest though it is a sign of a personal lack of respect, as if they personally dispaying their ass disregards their own dignity among their friends and family.

Society needs individuals to display as sense of personal dignity as examples to younger children. Not examples mean and selfish disregard for the well being of others.

But the sick part of this alleged fashion statement is that the garment industry leeches off this deviant behavior and promotes it by creating britches that are actually ment to be worn that way.

Then too it evolved because parents can't afford to keep buying britches that actually fit right and can't afford to keep buying pants as fast as young people grow. So they inadvertantly buy them too big to begin with hoping they will shrink or eventually the young kids will go into them.

Jezzzes what he hell am I wasting my time for writing about a stupid thing like this. We live in a world of friggin misfits!

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I actually wrote about this on my blog here, but Georgia is also trying to enact a similar law. To address some comments from above, yes this law also includes the showing of any undergarments (such as bra straps or thongs - what will they do about bathing suits? oh my!). This law does help racial profiling, although people of all races wear this style, it is the young, black men that are stopped most about this. (Some areas already have the law on the books.)

The most important thing to remember however, is that by passing a dress code law, law enforcement no longer needs any kind of reasonable suspicion to stop you and check you. All they need is to say you were showing some undies. And WHAM! they've circumvented the fourth amendment.

Regardless of your tastes and if you like the style or not, this is a slippery slope if you ask me.
Anok.

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Sagging pants isn't just for black guys anymore. And the white dudes who "get their sag on" aren't just pathetic wanna be rappers who are pretending they're ghetto.

Many young collegiate athletes have adopted the style - both males and females. Our little Kansas college has plenty of examples of both genders, multitudes of ethnic groups who consider the sag a fashion statement rather than a fashion faux pas.

In one class session I asked a young basketball player (white) to help move some furnishings. He picked up the fake fika and before he got out of the room with it his outer drawers were down around his ankles. Laugh!

Haven't had a young woman lose her pants in class yet. The time is coming.

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I know a cop who said it's so much easier to catch a guy who's trying to run while holding his pants up.

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SHould be more of it!

Guys who deliberately walk around wearing pants that are too small that don't even _reach_ their arses make retards look like Nobel Prize winners. They look utterly and completely childish and like morons who can't dress themselves and who need to be sent back to primary school. (at the very least)

Seriously. And girls whose pants are so small you can see straight down their butt-crack when they sit down...make me want to put money in their slot just to shame them into learning how to dress themselves.

Fashion? No - more like ovine mental illness - Mad Sheep Disease, if you will.

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is the ones whom looks like they're part of the system, when in fact they're the threat to the system..I one of them. I don't dress like that, or don't fit the sterotype, and don't even have a criminal record, and that makes me very, very dangerous to the system!

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One poster commented about women's bra straps showing as though it was comparable to the exposure of most of one's under pants. I think that visible bra straps are in bad taste but I have yet to see a comparable amount of bra showing as what shows with the underwear & the baggy pants.

What irritates me about the baggy pants crap is that most young men walk around grasping them by the crotch to hold them up. And on more than one occasion I have seen young men clutching at their crotches in a manner that made it appear that they were either mastubating or making obscene gestures at anyone who happened to be looking their way.

It is my understanding that this fad was copied from "the hood"..... from gangsters.

When monitoring a day's session in a local family court, I had to congratulate one judge who walked in just as a young white teenager entered the court room with pants around his thighs. The judge immediately ordered every one in the court room who had on these disgusting pants to leave. He then turned to a deputy and told him to find belts or suspenders, rope or whatever to hold their pants up to where they were supposed to be.

One by one as they approached the bench for their day in court, with pants held up by pieces of rope, they were told that if they ever again entered his court room dressed in saggy pants they would be found in comtempt. Bravo to that judge and anyone else who speaks out about this vile fad.

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Before I retired I came to rely on an African American in my office who often demonstrated personal balance and good sense. His mode of dress exceeded the office standard – though not exceedingly so. We often discussed issues of the day and we had rapport, mutual respect and much in common. Then one day he complained about police profiling: his older brother, who was more successful than my office friend and I, loved to go out in his free time dressed up like a drug dealer. Sagging britches, open shirt, hair style (dred-lock wig), lowered driver’s side car seat with only his head showing above the door - the works. Problem was, the police kept pulling him over. (Surprise, surprise) Normally I am quick to empathize with the trials of being black in white America. But I could not understand why a successful, law abiding man liked to spend his free time dressed up like a criminal? My efforts to express my bafflement and to elicit some explanation that fit the norms of human behavior I have come to expect were met with frustration. He became irritated with my density. Our camaraderie suffered. Alas, he suddenly retired before we were able to heal it. I suppose we could have healed it by agreeing we could disagree? But – like O. J.’s acquittal, I have come to believe that some things between my African American brothers and me are beyond bridging. Sad.

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I think wearing your pants like that is its own punishment. 1. You look like a tool 2. It's gotta be uncomfortable.

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Wearing your pants down by your knees will be something the kids of these people will tease them for an eternity - just like flares,mohawks and paisley shirts for other generations.
Sure you look like an idiot, but where do we get off legislating against fashion. O.k. I joke about calling the fashion police ( admitedly often when seeing someone with their pants wrapped around their knees ) but I dont mean it, its a joke!!!
Anyone who doesnt think its racially motivated is kidding themselves.

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Talk about conservatives abusing big government.

Most of the pants saggers I've seen are young white boys. The punishment is looking ridiculous, a lot of those silly boys are even ridiculed by the girls they know. The cops love it, so easy to catch ya. Teen rebellion has humor in it too. Remember the mods-- you could catch 'em by the coat tail, hippies by the hair, but with pants sagging, running will get you falling.

A lot of black dudes think you really show your stupidity by wearing that. Respect is important, and ridicule ain't all that much fun. Now, gang colors or bling might be in fashion in some places and for some folks that's even just a survival issue in certain territory, but looking respectable is also fashionable. If you look respectable, you get respect and if you respect yourself, you're on your way. But looking dumb is just looking dumb.

Is this a problem needing legislation? Yes, because global warming, corporate crime, lack of health care etc. are not really important, but your appearance as a moral issue is.

So where is the move to legislate this coming from? That would be good info. Is it from the neighborhood Phyllis Schlafly Con moms worried about teen morals, or is it some national clamp down? What up with that? 'Cause it's really dumb.

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Ok...I have lived in the south. Will this law also apply to those gross fat guys of all colors who are so fat that their work pants ride low and when they sit at the counter in a restaurant or a bar their crack shows??? Now that is really gross...as well as fat chicks with thongs and stuff. We don't need a law for this. Let them all look ridiculous. Except for the fat guys at the bar...most morons grow out of this phases of rebellion or stupidity.

Get a cause...get out of Iraq and don't wory about underwear.

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I donot believe there is a war at present because if actually people were dying for their Fatherland, no responsable people would make laws about pants.
Maybe you should realise that the lawmakers are mentally insane or sadistic or racists..
very clear is there is no climateproblem, no mortgageproblem,no problems about health etc.
in the past the best description of the american character was Donald Duck...

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Now I'm certainly not arguing in favor of the law, despite how utterly moronic people look dressed like that. But when the writer claims that this law is racist because the people who dress like this are "young black men," then the writer is making the same kind of generalization that bigots hang their small-minded hats on. (Please note I am not calling the writer a racist - making generalizations is not racism, it is merely the kind of intellectual shorthand that too often turns into the tool that racists (and other bigots) use).

As fara as the claim itself - that the people who dress like this are young black men and thus are the law's true targets - I'm a teacher in suburbia, and you can believe me that this kind of sartorial idiocy knows no color boundaries. Black, white, Hispanic, it doesn't matter. Any teenager who thinks himself sufficiently big and bad will have no problem showing the world his underwear, as he is just THAT cool.

I'm not trying to argue against the law or for the law - philosophically I can't abide a law that seeks to regulate something so trivial, and yet the reason we shouldn't need such laws stems from our assumption that a basic standard of human decency would prevent such asinine behavior in the first place, making such micromanaging unnecessary. Of course, dignity has long since emigrated from here, it seems. (This is where I begin to realize I'm turning into a crotchety old man!). Oh well. My only real point is that, too often, people looking to classify certain policies and statements as racist in intent do so by making similarly inaccurate generalizations in order to make their case, and we'd all be better off, I think, if we were a little more careful in that regard.

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A Cycle
By MICKEY Z

white cop
from the suburbs
busts
black men
from the city

prison population surges

black men inside
invent new slang
new styles
Gangs inside and out
adopt it all
designers
co-opt it all

white son
of white cop
in the suburbs
ends up talking
and dressing
and play-acting
like the black men
his father
sends away

Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net

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There were better things that the city could have been doing than debating the current taste in fashion.

There was no need for this law; showing the world that you have the means to afford designer underwear doesn't merit a police presence. The first time (or six) that someone who doesn't know how to dress himself or herself shows up for an interview and gets the famous, "we'll call you if you something comes up", they would have gotten the hint...by looking around at what the rest of the employed, working people were wearing.

Kids look stupid as a rule; I used to roll up my jeans and leave my shirt-tails untucked, and I've no doubt the adults thought me and my fashion-minded buddies looked like a pack of court jesters. They grow out of it when they get old and hungry enough to start looking for work.

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I don't believe in government controlling what we wear, say, or do. If the pants are sagging a few inches or so, and yeah you can see the boxers it's not that big a deal, so they look stupid-their problem, not mine. But I can't tell you how uncomfortable and inappropriate it is when I'm standing in line at the movies or the grocery store with my 13-year-old daughter, and there's a much older guy in front of us with his pants completely below the butt-cheeks- you can basically see his entire ass! And the boxers really don't hide much. I have seen it go to this extreme many, many times. This just mortifies me, I'm pretty short too, so it's really no fun. I shouldn't be forced to stand in close proximity to other peoples bare asses just to buy groceries. I just think that there is a point where it does become indecent.

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...to handle this sort of "fashion statement" is to mainstream it. Nothing will make my kids stop their sagging faster than for me to start sagging my flabby ass outside of my dockers...

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Why are the young men emasculating themselves on such a populous scale? Is it because it subconciously reflects their very real feelings of despair in a world where so-called 'men' of position in America are nothing more than hypocrites? I associate 'pants down' with shame. Is it shame for what has happened to the idea man as HERO? American men sure ain't no heroes, where is the man who is not driven by greed in today's America? Thousands of companies and corporations in America are currently profiting HUGELY by the infinite riches gained by Iraqi genocide. Our very own 'president' has no qualities of a hero and yet miraculously, is our leader. These pants down are yet another expression of pathetic spiral down of our society in the face of our current SOUL-LESS American leadership. These boys are showing America that they feel helpless in their abilities to chose someone to look up to. Where are the role models? Certainly not in the highest office. The 'pants down' is also remarkably similar to grafiti, in that it is an expression of rage and helplessness.

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I prefer to think of the baggy pants style as the "pampers look." With all that material dragging around the rear end, it's as if the person is wearing a huge diaper. However, legislating the sagging pants style with jail time and fines is a total misuse of the justice system. Styles come and go, and this is just another aberration.

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I agree it is NOT an attractive sitght to see baggy pants or a young man's boxers while shopping or taking a walk, but do you want our young men taught a better way, or just punished for their way of life. Why not make a mandatory class (charm school if you will) as 'punishment' not jail time. By placing our young men in jail you are affecting their future adversely when in a few months, years or a decade (depending on thier age) they may grow out of sagging pants. Does society really care about the future of our young adults or just their own presence?

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Controlling the way someone dresses means that the government and cops have too much time on their hands to deal with something that is nothing other than a dress style. People dress indecent and shocking all the time, but people don't cover their eyes and cops don't fine or arrest them. No private body part is being exposed with sagging pants, no more than wearing a bikini. The backside is covered with clothing. Yes, it is supposed to be clothing unseen, but how is it any different than women whose bras show through? That is indecent. We like to call these pants-sagging young men "punks", "hoodlooms", or "thugs" who dress gangster, but if they aren't physically harming anyone, it is more of a race issue. Cops or the local government can't say they are trying to stop crime because of a clothing style. Even gang related colors are not enough to fine someone or throw them in jail. There are worse problems going on that aren't being addressed.

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What it boils down to is you have no sense of self respect, neither I nor anyone else will hire you and you'll just end up as a statistic someday.

When you decide to grow up and join society, at least at a basic level, then you can stay in your misery and receive the criticism.

Go ahead and imitate the rappers and listen to DEF Comedy Jam, whatever the hell at the Apollo and believe everything you see on B.E.T. nobody really cares what the hell you do but stop blaming everyone else for YOUR PROBLEMS AND MISERY.

Not to turn this into a black and white issue but your adoration of the hip hop and rappers 1% of success and dumb ass black leaders who's cause ended in the 70's yet have to push racism in order to keep their miserable self made jobs. How about positive black role models and imitating them? Bill Cosby, Oprah, Lavar Burton, Will Smith to name a few.....ohhhh but you want to call them sell outs so you imitate a looser on stage with gold teeth and his underwear hanging out....OooooooKaaaaay, so what do you do? You pull your pants down to your cracks and walk around town.

Wow, what self respect. I take it that your current fashion statement must be comfortable for you to maintain the airing out of your crack because why else would you look so foolish? How do you actually pay for those XBox 360's? Do you work for a living and dress like that? Is your job even legal?
I hope to god that the latest evolution of hip hop artist/rappers starts cutting of their thumbs so you mindless dumb asses walk around with cosmetic amputation.
KP

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