LYNWOOD, Ill. – Be careful if you have saggy pants in the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood. Village leaders have passed an ordinance that would levy $25 fines against anyone showing three inches or more of their underwear in public.
Eugene Williams is the mayor of Lynwood. He says young men walk around town half-dressed, keeping major retailers and economic development away. He calls the new law a hot topic.The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young men of color.
Is it just me, or does the ACLU’s comment sound incredibly racist? Last I knew, no single race had the franchise on bad fashion. Seeing how low you can drop those droopy drawers is an equal opportunity sport.
Good for them… constitutional rights aside, as a young man myself, it’s completely ridiculous to let your boxers hang out.. I’m pretty sure the only people that find that attractive are the skanks that are the only people that would associate themselves with such people…
Is it just me, or does the ACLU’s comment sound incredibly racist? // Yes, its just you. Take out the word “incredigly” and you make an honest point—to a point.
Race and culture often team up to do thing unique from other teams. Rap Music==are you gonna say its mostly white? Or racist to say its mostly black?
So, I’d be curious==knee jerk unthinking liberal==or do you have any “facts” to claim this is a race/culture based fashion attack?
BTW–seems to me its unconstitutional to prohibit anyone from wearing anything in public, racially favored or not, fashion challenged or not. Its not free speech, but is —- what?—a “privacy” issue, or the right to be left alone? Can’t quite put my finger on it right now. Little help?
IMHO the government does not have the right to dictate how you dress. And the lame excuse of low riding pants keeping away development. More likely violence and gang activity is keeping away development. Clean up the streets first then bitch about what kids wear. Don’t dictate the way people live.
Cops Love baggy clothing and belts below your but. Try running way like that in the pic above. No law this will cause a increase in crime.
Could we get congress to assign uniforms? All these colors people wear drive potential business away.
I don’t think this is about color any more. White boys have decided they want to show off their boxers too. Why do we ask or want our government legislating what we can or can’t wear? When did this happen? What’s next? Listening to our phone calls, reading our email…oh wait never mind. I’m going back to bed. I’m depressed.
This must be what is fueling the recent trend for young women (twenty somethings) to explore bi-sexuality. There is nothing more visually appealing than a pasty white guy who is 6’2″ and 158lbs or 280lbs, showing his drawers in public.
That being said, it really isn’t any more pathetic than some other recent fashion trends by both sexes. Either way, I think that local government has got better things to do than enforce these kind of city ordinances. On the positive side, at least they are fining the individuals involved rather than threatening them with jail time.
>>Is it just me, or does the ACLU’s comment
>>sound incredibly racist?
No, it’s just you. Look around, and see how many white boys have their Joe Boxer-clad butt cheeks hanging out of their pants. “Bad fashion” is equal opportunity, but this particular bit of idiocy is not.
>>I see an awful lot of white suburban kids
>>sporting the same look.
I live in a city, but I have occasion to go to a lot of lilly white suburbs, and I can’t ever recall having seen a single white boy with his pants pulled 1/2-way down.
Could be like dreads; once in a while you may see a white boy sporting them, but pretty much not.
I’m glad they allow up to three inches…
#4–Bryan==you say “I see an awful lot of white suburban kids sporting the same look. So yes, ascribing that look purely to “persons of color” is quite racist.” == gosh, I hope you don’t actually “think” this way. What you may have seen certainly does not form a “statistic” upon which to form your conclusion.
The ONLY thing your statement supports is that:
1. You are very impressionable.
2. You can’t count.
3. You can disprove the statement “No white boy wears his pants down.”
You see the leap of illogic you make?
They really want the young black males to stop hanging out and scaring off customers. Dress is a neutral item they could act on.
Just another extension of the nanny state. Next they will be measuring the length from knee to skirt. And you can forget about ever seeing cleavage again. The ACLU is right on as usual.
“The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young men of color.”
Really? Young men of “color” are genetically unable to pull up their pants? Hmmm… I’d like the ACLU to site that scientific study…
It’s not a race issue. Similar proposals & bills have come up in the past and have been enacted into various laws. When people try to take action against a racially diverse group of females showing their thong in too-low jeans, people shout ‘sexual discrimination’ instead.
[Wikipedia]
In 2004, Louisiana State Representative Derrick Shepherd proposed House Bill 1626, also known as the Baggy Pants Bill that states, “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing his pants below his waist and thereby exposing his skin or intimate clothing.” Violators, according to the bill, are to be subject to three eight-hour days of community service and up to a fine of $175.
In Opelousas, Louisiana, wearing low slung pants that reveals a buttock cleavage or undergarments is considered a misdemeanor and carries a maximum penalty of a $500 fine and up to 6 months in prison.
I wonder if it would be so “in” if the little turds knew that in prison its a signal for butt sex.
I love it…
Let them HANG…
can you see someone TRYING to run in them…
I don’t give a rat’s ass who wears their pants like this, I simply will never get “why”? What’s the attraction? Do they seriously think it looks good? That women are attracted to that sort of thing?
On the reverse (gender), WTF is up with low riders and thongs hanging out, I actually think that’s WORSE! Again, same issues, WHY?
#17 – DWY
At least with the ladies, it’s pleasurable to look at (if done right). I can’t believe ANYONE (including women) thinks looking at the Joe Boxer-clad badonkadonk hanging out over pulled-down pants is attractive.
Dude, keep your ass in your fucking pants. That’s what they were made for.
Personally, I think there are better solutions to this than passing a law. For instance, you could put a guy outside with a hose who can squirt these losers in their 3+ inches as they pass by. You’d get the message out much faster without wasting the police’s time, and it would be a lot more fun.
That guy would get shot.
Just yesterday I saw a young knee grow walking along the road struggling to keep his pants up. If that boy had any idea how goofy that looked.
I sometimes let my boxers hang out like the black face. I like the black face much better than the Jew.
Are there really going to be fashion police? If they’re going to do this why not include fat people in spandex, dudes in golf or bicycle clothes, guys in cars with Harley-Davidson shirts, those shirts for women that bag out dramatically around the middle, or muffintops caused by too tight jeans.
Now that I think about it we finally have something to talk to Iran about besides the price of oil. We are becoming a fashist state!
#25 – Chris
None of the offenses you noet looks as stupid or is easily fixed as having the pants slide down over the badonkadonk.
Personally, I’d rather use massive public ridicule as a solution, instead of a law. But given the other things people do to themselves imagining that they look “kewl”, I’d say that will never happen.
Who cares?
The boxers in the pic could be passed off as shorts without the jeans. Would they fine him then?
This reminded me of all the uproar over zoot suits. Anybody remember them? Anybody care?
Or, when I was a kid, all the BS about men having long hair. I seem to remember a lot of fulminating about that non-issue.
@Jagermeister… a 10!! Delicioso!!!
@Dvorak… Yes it’s you. Why?
Here’s an analogy if you know how to code SQL.
I can query the desired rows from any relational table by the attributes which are arguably irrelevant. I do not need to set my WHERE clause predicate to the obvious, offensive criteria. Secondary attributes if there is any positive correlation, will work just fine to snag many of the rows I want to snag.
SELECT notprofilinganyonehonest
WHERE pants=’baggy’ OR wearsbigjewelry=1 OR rimsdiameter>20 OR age < 25
FROM citizens
Notice my results will include a much higher percentage, and nobody said 100% accuracy is necessary, of the desired tuples, without explicitly filtering by the incriminating criteria.
#28 – Geoffrey
The goatse.cz guy is caught by the rimsdiameter>20. 😉
It seems most communities have public decency ordinances, don’t they? The problem is where to draw the line in such a fuzzy area as fashion. I agree the best way to combat this ugly fashion is with ridicule. Everyone over the age of 50 should sport this look for two weeks and rave about how ‘phat’ or ‘def’ it is. Let’s see… I have a tee shirt that’s really long; if I stretch it a little I can get it almost down to my knees. Then some big boxers, and I can wear my belt right at the ankles! Word!
Does the ACLU conside hispanics “men of color”? Because I always associated the term “low riders” with their penchant for low to the ground autos. The baggie and drooping pants fads has more to do with how pushers hid drugs. They must have gotten the idea from watching “The Breakfast Club” movie.
What about Plumbers who expose BUTT CRACK ??? Are they on the hook too, or is it only Teens in the Cross-Hairs ???