Posted by
Ed Lilly on Sunday, July 20, 2008 9:57:24 AM
A south Chicago suburb is the latest place to try to legislate against young men who wear their pants around their mid-thighs:
LYNWOOD, Ill. (AP) - 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.
Young adults in the village, like 21-year-old Joe Klomes, say the new
law infringes on their personal style. He says leaders should instead
spend money on making the area look nicer.
Interesting how the ACLU automatically drags race into it, saying it
targets young men of color. From my experience this past school year
doing a fair amount of substitute teaching, I can say that the tendency
to wear baggy pants way too low, exposing one's boxer shorts, is not a
phenomenon that is limited to young men of color. Perhaps in other
areas, and if looking at the nation as a whole, the numbers show a
different story. But my own eyes tell me differently here in small
town New Jersey.
More interestingly, as the story clearly notes, the ordinance calls
for a fine against anyone who violates it. I expect that the goal is
indeed to have a selective, and discriminatory effect. But it is one
that is directed at all young men. Young women, at least from what I
have seen in the greater Trenton area, have not adopted the drooping,
baggy pants style with 6 inches of boxers showing.
I guess that's just more of how the game gets played. By harping on
the racial angle, the ACLU hopes for publicity, and in the inevitable
court challenge, by making it about race they hope to get "strict
scrutiny" analysis, which is pretty much impossible for a government
body to pass. If they only focus on the more realistic gender
discrimination, then there is at least a chance that the ordinance
could survive the less exacting "intermediate scrutiny" test applied by
the courts.