The Uphill Battle Against Sagging Pants

The fight over the sag is back.

A New York state lawmaker in Brooklyn has purchased billboards urging residents to stop wearing their pants below the waistline. The billboards, sponsored by Sen. Eric Adams, scream: "We are better than this!" Doesn't Adams have better things to do than worry about pants?

Likewise, Florida is trying to criminalize the sag. These efforts target an urban, mostly minority population and they extend the unequal reach of our laws into poor communities. If white suburban dads chose to sag their pants, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

It was one year ago yesterday that I last wrote about the racial undertones of sagging pants laws — apparently these unjust campaigns and laws targeting sagging pants are a spring ritual. For someone like Adams, they seem to be part pet peeve and part political ploy, but it's a slippery slope and it's not hard to see how these campaigns can take on a more sinister tone.

Yesterday, a Florida Senate committee approved a bill that would require school districts to punish kids who wear their pants below the waist. It's an annual effort by Sen. Gary Siplin, the state's self-appointed fashion policeman. We can stop this ridiculously excessive and unequal law in its tracks — take action today and send Sen. Siplin a letter urging him to drop his support for the bill before it gets too far.

This is where a cheap ploy threatens to become an ugly law. Criminalizing a clothing decision favored by African-American men increases their contact with the system and tramples on their right to express themselves. What's stopping us from criminalizing do-rags next?

Personally, I think sagging pants look ridiculous, but I'm not about to pass a law banning them. I'm not a fan of those striped shirts with white collars favored by bankers — maybe we should criminalize those, too? Not so likely.

As long as body parts aren't exposed, I don't see the violation. It's not against the law to wear boxer shorts in public, so why would it be illegal to expose them under our pants?

Russell Simmons says, accurately, that the Brooklyn campaign is "wrong-headed and a waste of time." After all, as he puts it, "Why would kids want to dress like Sen. Adams? Just look at what buttoned-up America has done to the rest of the world and each other. Why can’t kids be different?”

Photo Credit: robby-T