Fighting Fashion Crime One Saggy-Baggy-Pants-Wearing Kid At A Time
YO! GOOD MORNING FROM CHI-TOWN! Looks to have been an exciting weekend for news, one which will keep Crabby serving up bite-sized snarky snacks for days.
But to begin the week, I want to bring your attention to the new official dress code in Lynwood, Ill., a city of 7,600 on the southern outskirts of Chicago where apparently pants held up with belts is the preferred method of dress.
According to The Associated Press, the town's mayor Eugene Williams says that boys wearing baggy pants are scaring new businesses away from the community. So officials passed an ordinance that allows the ticketing of anyone caught showing three inches or more of their underwear in public. The fine? Twenty-five buckaroos.
Lynwood isn't the first municipality to pass such a law. And, of course, reports are that the American Civil Liberties Union thinks the law unconstitutionally targets African Americans.
This one leaves me baffled. On the one hand, I can understand not wanting to see anyone's butt crack or Spongebob yellow boxers. Saggy pants as fashion statement seem, duh, unfit to me. But Crabby professes not to know much about fashion whether it be found along Chicago's Gold Coast or on the streets of Lynwood.
Here's my thought: Does it not seem as though there is a dearth of creativity among Lynwood officials? Why risk the ACLU's wrath when humor is a better weapon?
Why not put up billboards showing droopy drawers and asking if the community really wants to air their 'dirty laundry?'
How about a "baggy pants Amnesty" campaign, where one can trade in their oversized denims for a gift card to Old Navy? Or even more proactively, how about a "jobs for suited youths" public program?
Officials could also have invited Dwaine Caraway from Dallas to bring his national crusade against baggy pants to Lynwood.
I'm sympathetic to Lynwood's butt blight but, come on people, think of something more clever than turning local government into a laughingstock.
Posted July 21, 2008
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