Sagging pants stirs debate in South Florida

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Sagging pants trend stirs debate
Some want sagging pants policed

By Gregory Lewis South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 22, 2007

As cousins Travis and Chuckie Jones stroll off the South Broward High campus on school days, they're "gooned out."

Wearing oversized T-shirts and low-riding jeans, they mimic the hard core look that gangsta rappers first popularized in the 1990s.

The Jones boys' jean shorts, held up by belts, are hanging around their thighs and sag so low that you can't help but see the gym shorts they wear underneath.

"I like saggin'," said Travis, a 15-year-old sophomore.

For him, wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans, is cool — and makes a strong statement. It's all about attitude.

"It tells everybody to kiss my a--. There are a lot of haters out there," Travis said.

The increasingly popular style among young men turns off many parents and older folks, who deride it as sloppy.

"I don't like it," said Melissa Brown, who is raising a 19-year-old son and 17-year-old nephew in Boynton Beach. "It doesn't look presentable at all. Pants weren't designed to be worn that way. Why should I buy pants that are two sizes too big and you have to walk wide-legged to keep your pants up?"

It also bothers city officials around the country, some of whom have proposed laws against what they see as indecent exposure. The message: Pull up your pants or face the consequences.

"The style is awful," said Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie Greene, who in 2004 unsuccessfully proposed having police issue citations to young men who show their underwear.

Since then, however, the style has captivated more young people. That's prompted some communities across the nation to follow Greene's lead. Similar legislation has been proposed in Atlanta; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Homestead and Opa-locka.

But in trying to impose a dress code, city officials, community leaders and parents are fighting against the pervasive power of an urban fashion industry and the media powerhouses that promote the style.

The trend of sagging britches comes from prison culture. Prisoners are issued oversized uniforms without belts to prevent suicides and in-house murders, said Lori J. Durante, executive director of the Museum of Lifestyle and Fashion History in Delray Beach.

But behind bars, sagging pants also can be a sign the wearer is spoken for — or available.

"Youth today have no clue to that part," Durante said.

So what's a parent to do? Charles Henry, the father of a 15-year-old in Dania Beach, said he allows his son to wear his pants "a little low."

"He seems into it but not to an extreme," said Henry, who was a teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s. "I think about the platform shoes, the bell bottoms and the hot pants we wore and the generation above us looked at us and questioned what we were doing."

Some officials say wearing pants below the waist isn't about a style of dress, but undress. That's why officials in Homestead are considering a city law against sagging pants. Opa-locka commissioners will vote on their ordinance Wednesday.

State Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, has filed a bill that would prevent students from wearing clothes below their waist and exposing underwear on public school grounds.

But trying to mandate fashion sense or good taste doesn't always go well, as Greene learned. While some in the black community liked the idea of making young men pull up their pants, others criticized Greene because they believed she was setting up young black men for further harassment by police.

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