Haters of saggy pants have been trying to raise waists for years. After complaints from the ACLU (civil liberties) and NAACP (racism) rolled in, and a Florida judge ruled it is unconstitutional to deny people the right to wear pants loose and low, it seemed the saggy-pants side had won. But now Senator Eric Adams, from New York state, has a new tactic: he's put up six billboards in Brooklyn that say "Stop the Sag."
He makes a formidable case with this YouTube video. Calling baggy pants self-imposed degradation, he says young men can raise their image by pulling up their pants. It's not a fashion statement, he says, but a style that rose out of prison culture.
In 2008, the incoming police chief of Flint, MI, announced he'd start arresting people donning slouchy pants. That same year, a baggy-pants ban passed in Riveria Beach, FL, when 72 percent of voters raised their hands for a ban on pants that sit below the waist and expose skin or underwear. That, really, could be anyone on a bad day!
But why is a politician so invested in this? Is this just the same case the Florida judge already called unconstitutional, but with a better argument?
