Where the sun don't shine: Sagging pants trend hangs on (barely)

by Allen Johnson, Greensboro News-Record, April 13, 2014.

I found a pair of old jeans in the back of my closet the other day.

They were cut extra baggy, from an era in which everything was baggy. And they were at least two sizes too large, a roomy reminder, in size 36, that my love affair with apple pie will go to my waist if I’m not careful.

So I decided to try an experiment. I put them on and let them fall below my hips. Then I tucked them into a long-tailed shirt.

I threaded a belt through the loops, to keep the pants from falling any further.

And I tried to walk a few feet.

It wasn’t easy.

That must be what it’s like, I thought. This is how it feels to be one of those guys whose pants droop so low so as to reveal their undershorts. Or worse.

Why anybody thinks that’s stylish, I’ll never understand. Then again, I’ve committed a few fashion crimes of my own over the years: platform heels, double-knit leisure suits, shirt collars so big they’d flap in the wind. Let he who is without sin ...

But I’ve gotta tell you, droopy pants would even look stupid in the notoriously tacky 1970s.

So, why won’t they die?

Why do they keep hanging on (just barely), stalking us like Jason Vorhees, Freddie Krueger, “Rocky” sequels and “The Real Housewives of Wherever”?

Yet, even in this era of tapered suits and skinny jeans, some youth and even some young men are still pulling their pants low and keeping them that way, for all to see.

So, I get the desire of one City Council member to say no to any city transit passenger whose pants are too low.

Councilwoman Sharon Hightower was inspired by citizen complaints to press for an ordinance that would ban the practice on all city buses. “It’s really turning out to be a decency-type policy,” Hightower told the News & Record’s Kelly Poe.

Such a law probably also would do these young men a favor. How they manage to walk escapes me, much less how any of them could run for a bus that was about to pull off without embarrassing and/or injuring themselves.

How this bizarre fashion statement endures also is a mystery. Usually these trends burn themselves out in a matter of months. But, by my count, pants have been drooping for more than a decade, and are especially prevalent among African American males.

I get the freedom-of-expression angle, but this type of over-exposure does none of these young men any favors, and only adds another layer of stereotyping and marginalization. Try to get a job or to keep one dressed like that.

To their credit, most of the college students I see — at N.C. A&T and UNCG — don’t wear their pants this way.

One caller told Kelly Poe last week that he likes the style because it gets him dates. Really?

When I asked them about the practice last week, my African American Studies students at UNCG shrugged. A few even sneered. We don’t go for that, both the males and females said. But a white male admitted that he has worn his pants low on occasion and knows others who have.

Some cities and towns have sought to outlaw sagging pants altogether. In 2012, I interviewed Dunn Mayor Pro Tem Carnell Robinson, who pushed an ordinance that would have outlawed sagging pants in that city. The ordinance would involve two warnings and then a fine of up to $200.

Robinson, who, like Hightower, is black, was greeted with fierce opposition from parents who saw its an affront to civil liberties and an act of discrimination against African American males. The city attorney questioned the constitutionality of such an ordinance. And Robinson’s efforts failed.

It’s hard to legislate fashion. Or common sense. And maybe even harder to enforce it.

The Greensboro ordinance would follow the same 3-inch rule as Dunn’s and also would require that shoes and shirts be worn on city buses.

The law could ban scofflaws from city buses for up to 30 days but who would enforce it and how?

Would drivers stand in the doorways of GTA buses?

Would they call police if a passenger were denied access and insisted on boarding anyway? And how would the appropriate authorities know who is and isn’t banned?

This is where the push for a law in Greensboro might be more trouble than it’s worth.

I worry that it might put undue pressure on bus drivers and distract police from more urgent matters.

We’ve already added noise, panhandling and, for a short while, at least, a teen curfew to the city police officers’ workload.

But I do wish these guys would pull up their pants, for God’s sake.

And for their own.

http://www.news-record.com/opinion/columns/article_ef339dca-c1cd-11e3-9331-001a4bcf6878.html