Wearing saggy pants is gross

The fashion of wearing saggy pants began in prisons. It could have been because in some prisons, the inmates weren’t permitted to have belts and their pants kept slipping down. Now the saggy pants craze has come full circle – low-slung street strutting in some American cities may soon mean run-ins with the law, including a stint in jail.

By the late 1980s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then it went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and finally to high school hallways. It is mostly black youths in high schools who wear their pants low. Perhaps they are making a statement such as “We will do what we want.” I have seen such youths wear their pants where the crotch of their pants in almost to their knees. In some instances, I have seen the upper crack of their buttocks. The young people think wearing such pants is fashionable. As a clothing fashion, it looks absolutely stupid and gross. It's part of a growing North American wave to crack down on youthful crimes of fashion - from hooded sweatshirts and bare midriffs to backward baseball caps.

Unfortunately, when anyone bends over, their pants will slip down to some degree and sometimes, the upper part of their buttocks can be seen. That can happen even when wearing normal pants. And sometimes, the top of one’s underwear will show above the belt line when pulling up one’s pants. I don’t see any crime being committed if this happens.

Wearing pants low enough to show underwear or part of one’s bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 (U.S.) fine. A crackdown (now there is a play on words) is being pushed in Atlanta. In that city, a law has been introduced to ban sagging and punishment could include small fines or community work – but no jail time. The penalty is stiffer in Delcambre, Louisiana, where in June, 2007, the town council passed an ordinance that carries a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing underwear in public. Several other municipalities and parish governments in Louisiana have enacted similar laws in recent months.

Benetta Standly of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia said about the law in Atlanta. "It's going to target African-American male youths. There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed. We see this as racial profiling” The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

I don’t see it as racial profiling simply because it is mostly blacks who are wearing their pants low. The law would apply to whites also. However, I do think that making it an offence to wear such pants could be contrary to their civil rights if no part of their buttocks show in public while they are walking or sitting down or kneeling.

I believe that schools should have the right to dictate to some degree as to what their students can wear and if they don’t want students attending their schools wearing sagging pants, then so be it. However, It shouldn’t be against any law if they wear sagging pants on public streets providing no part of their buttocks are showing. Making it a crime if the tops of underwear shows is ludicrous.

Everyone has the right to look stupid and if those young people want to wear sagging pants, let them do so. I for one however, would never hire a young man who came to me for a job if he was wearing such pants.

I think the craze will die out eventually, just as the zoot-suit craze died out in the 1950s.

Picture yourself walking down some street through a dark corner of Georgia, or Louisiana, when some pot-bellied sheriff in skin-tight chinos moseys up behind your behind, then his eyes focuses on your sagging trousers and he drawls: "Ah say, Ah don't like the look of your bum, son. That's 15 days in mah jail for a rear-end violation." Now there’s a bum rap for you.