Baggy Britches

We’ve all seen it – the low slung trousers revealing underwear, a style that has become fashionable for young people to wear. Until now, it has simply been a matter to shake our heads over, but there are politicians and law enforcement officials who are ready to take a stand. Kathy McManus of the Responsibility Project reported that “as a nation that pulls itself up by its bootstraps, we are also a nation that needs to pull up its pants.”

McManus reports that “the style of wearing over-sized pants that sag to reveal large expanses of underwear started in prisons, where big pants were issued with no belts. In the 1990s, the look seeped into the popular culture and under the skin of politicians and police.”

“We’re not going to sit here and let that happen in Flint,” declared the police chief of Flint, Michigan, where wearers of the saggy pants can be arrested “if the pants are at the knees and your underwear is exposed.” He calls the look “disorderly” and “immoral self-expression.”

A 17-year-old Florida boy was among the first to be jailed for violating local “sagging pants” law after a police officer spotted him riding his bike with his pants low enough to reveal four or five inches of boxer shorts. A Florida judge later declared the law to be unconstitutional, but that has not deterred authorities in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, New York and other jurisdictions from proposing or enacting similar measures, arguing that the sagging fashion is akin to indecent exposure.

ACLU attorneys responded, calling the laws “idiotic” and arguing that, “You can’t arrest people because of their style of dress.”

The south Chicago suburb of Lynwood, which also bans the low slung pants look, claims the fad has gone so far as to effect economic growth and discourage businesses from investing in Lynwood.

New York State Senator Eric Adams, a former police captain, sees the sag style as something more, calling it “a slippery slope to a criminal future. The first indicator that your child is having problems is the dress code. Prior to the sagging pants, it was the shoestrings out of sneakers. All of this is born out of prison,” said Adams.

Last week Thursday, Grammy-Award-winning singer/songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer for the group Green Day, was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank because of his saggy pants. Cindy Qiu, an associate producer from ABC station KGO-TV in San Francisco also happened to be on that flight. She recounts “a flight attendant approached him and said, ‘Pull your pants up.’ Armstrong replied, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do than worry about that?’ The attendant then said, ‘Pull your pants up or you’re getting off the plane.’”

This is not the first time an airline passenger’s attire has caused problems, according to ABC News. In June, college football player Deshon Marman was arrested after being hauled off a US Airways flight when he refused to pull up the pajama pants that he was wearing. “His underwear was covering his private areas, but his pants were below his shorts, so it was in full view of the public,” Sgt. Michael Rodriguez of the San Francisco Police Department said of Marman’s appearance. US Airways said it was Marman’s behavior that got him booted from the flight and subsequently arrested. US Airways spokesman, Andrew Christie, said that “the passenger was removed and taken into custody after repeatedly ignoring crew members’ instructions.” Christie said that although it does not have a specific dress code, "we do ask our customers to dress in an appropriate manner to ensure the safety and comfort of all passengers.”

Tell us what you think. Should government be responsible for dictating what citizens can wear? Is publicly exposing your underwear freedom of expression, indecent exposure, or your personal responsibility?

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