You are sitting at home, watching the afternoon news, dozing off slightly. Suddenly, the phone jangles noisily and you jolt up and shake yourself awake. “Hello?” you say groggily into the receiver. A few seconds later, “Excuse me? Who is in jail?”
“You’re son, ma’am. Please bring at a minimum of 150 dollars with you to pay the fine.” The officer says.
“Jacob is in jail?” you ask incredulously. “What did he do?”... “His pants were sagging?”
What is our world coming to when lawmakers spend their days discussing hip-hop fashion? Sagging pants have become a criminal offense in the town of Mansfield, Louisiana. The New York Times quotes, “pants warn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat to the public and they (Mansfield’s legislature) have enacted indecency ordinances to stop it.” The newspaper goes on to talk about the reasoning behind this. “Critics say this style is warn as a badge of delinquency, with its distinctive walk conveying a thuggish swagger and a disrespect for authority.” So, the question is, is this law invoked for indecency reasons or to attempt to put a stop to this “thuggish delinquency”? According to Andrew Bolton, the curator at the Costume Institute of Metropolitan Museum of Art, “fashions tend to be decried when they challenge the conservative morality of a society.” Yet many people argue for personal freedoms and self expression. This movement is reminiscent of the reaction to the zoot suits in the 1940’s. Latino males distinguished themselves with "zoot suits" - wide-brimmed hats, broad-shouldered long coats, high-waisted peg-legged trousers and long dangling chains. This dress was associated with gangs. Eventually a riot broke out in Los Angeles between the “zoot suiters” and the American sailors due to racial problems. "The zoot suit had become a badge of hoodlumism," explained Councilman Norris Nelson in the L.A. almanac. A similar instance took place in Alaska. Mindy Gobler, a friend, told me they encountered this on her recent cruise. A dock in Ketchikan made high heels off limit in an effort to stop prostitution on the pier.
To me, the idea that wearing saggy pants makes you a disrespectful thug, or high heels makes you a hooker, is a very broad generalization. Clothing does not always define the person. If the zoot suit was a “badge of hoodlumism” and the saggy pants are a “badge of delinquency”, then does wearing girl scout badge make me a girl scout? The suit, the pants, the shoes all represent something else- problems with gangs, racism, or prostitution. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented about the Zoot Suit Riots, "The question goes deeper than just zoot suits. It is a racial protest.” (L.A. Almanac) Why are we not focusing on the actual crimes that the sagging pants seem to embody ... focus on the real thug, not one who has the appearance of it. Does a girl wearing a low cut shirt get arrested for being a prostitute? Do rappers in music videos get fined for indecency? We have moved away from simply the issue of indecency. Discrepancies in modesty occur everywhere you look. The heart of the matter is this, a gang will still exist with or without baggy pants. The girl will still be a prostitute with or without the high heels. We are only doing away with the appearance of evil, instead of the problem itself.
