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Racist Bastards! Cajun Town Bans Saggy Pants
Posted by ShakeerDELCAMBRE, La. (AP) — Sag your britches somewhere else, this Cajun-country town has decided. Mayor Carol Broussard said he would sign an ordinance the town council approved this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or certain parts of the body. Broussard said he has nothing against saggy pants but thinks people who wear them should use discretion. “It’s gotten way out of hand out here,” he said. Albert Roy, the councilman who introduced the ordinance, said he thought the fine was a little steep and should be more in the $25 range, but he still favored the measure.“I don’t know if it will do any good, but it won’t hurt,” Roy said. “It’s obvious, and anybody with common sense can see your parts when you wear sagging pants.”
Broussard’s advice for people who like their pants to hang low: “Just wear it properly. Cover your vital parts. I mean, if you expose your private parts, you’ll get a fine. If you walk up and your pants drop, you get a fine. They’re better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress.”
This is ridiculous. Although I don’t agree with sagging one’s pants this law is ridiculous because it criminalizes a style of dress because the powers that be don’t like it. This style is primarily worn by young African American men, so in essence this city is making it a crime to be a young Black male. Another problem with this law is that it is unconstitutional; it violates the freedom of expression for people who wear their pants sagged. Many of the people who are charged with these violations will not be able to afford legal representation and will be screwed even more by this law. Another example of people acting like…well you know.
It’s obvious the targeted population for that law is black males, addressing the depiction of our current teen culture amongst African Americans, and masking the intention to justify control of a people through what seems to be an undisputed racial stereotype. It seems to be a never ending battle. Create a stereotype and then watch either a resistance or acceptance formulate around the stereotype. If African Americans actually embrace their idenity as thugs or street savvy, then they are penalized by way of law, if they resist they are penalized by way of social rejection. That is the problem that has to be addressed. These kinds of laws are nothing but fluff and will do nothing but benefit law enforcement and white communities, what will those fines be used to budget and support? Will that money be trickled back into African American community, or will it result in a pay raise for some government official? The law stipulates what would warrent a fine or arrest, that being the exposure of private parts. There is legitiment reason to draw or create boundaries to how people express fashion preferences, if it gets to the point of exposing body parts, then it is offensive. But I don’t feel as though law enforcement should be the initial guiding force for that issue,if anything law enforcement should be the final resort, because making them the absolute enforcement leaves too much room for police harrassment if you ask me. I find reason to question their motives on that basis, and what would be interesting to see is on what complaints this law was actually founded because that will expose a more accurate forecast on it’s intended implementation. Are there actually any documented instances of pant sagging leading to the exposure of private parts, and if so how many? The most I’ve seen is the occasional dingy boxers, or tighty whities in veiw. I won’t say kids shouldn’t be taught that is still socially unacceptable, but I don’t have much faith that this law will be executed without discrimination. This law is not to rectify a problem amongst our African American culture, it is set up to justify the very same stereotypes that have perpetuated the problem at hand. The fashion statement, however undesirable they may seem are a form of resistance. A law, in this sense is not a solution, it doesn’t inspire our kids to develope social graces, it’s more likely a candidate to provoke more social resistance. Will racial bias between the number of white males held accountable to this law vs. black males become an issue? I think it is safe to expect so, but we will see. All the issues should be weighed before making a law, cutlural issues alone don’t warrent law enforcement as a remedy, their shoild be more effort to apporach these issues with the goal of combating the deeper rooted factors. The neglegence to do so suggests this is definitly a racially motivated law and it needs to be challenged as such.
Shakeer-
I think this is also a case of passive aggression gone bad in respects to the response of the acceptance of certain stereotypes amongst our African American Culture. What I mean is this: a guy once said to me that if you embrace a stereotype and make it your own, then you remove the offense. I disputed that saying you only remove the struggle the opposition and the offense is still there, you just decided to live with it on agreeable terms. That does not equal peace, or freedom, because it is not true dignity, in most cases it’s just another form of cynicism. Pant sagging, du-rag wearing, wife beaters and Nike One’s don’t make a person a thug, nor do they make you black, embracing the stereotype to express yourself in a trendy way is to defer to a racist depiction of you in the first place. Afican American teenagers are looking to identify themselves as something different from the other cultures they see around them, yet they are restricted in doing so because of many social barriers. This is a very frustrating duality. It is unfair and needs to be addressed instead of overlooked.
I had a conversation with a sista and we were saying that there were ugly men back in the day but they dressed. Had a nice hair cut, nice ironed clothes CLEAN and they looked good. A well dressed Blackman will make anyone take a second look. But now the boys and MEN are sagging their pants so low they can’t walk. WE emulate a prison image? not one of the greatness we are! RIGHT NOW! we are just as great as any history book of AFrican or African American culture could tell us.
The belts were taken from men in jail and prison to prevent from being used as weapons to harm themselves and others. So their pants would sag. OR the people who parents made them share clothes sagged unintentionally.
STOP WITH THE MESS! IF YOU FEEL WHITE FOLKS IS TRIPPING ALWAYS TRYING TO CHANGE YOU(BLACK PEOPLE)DON’T WHERE THE CLOTHES THEY PROMOTE OR THE RAP MUSIC THAT IS PROMOTED IN MAINSTREAM RADIO, AND TV. they CONTROL IT .
RACIST LAW hardly. STUPID yes. And obviously there are more than just Black folks sagging their pants for a law to be created. READ A BOOK, SHARE A CONVERSATION AND REALLY FIND OUT WHAT is RACIST. LIKE THE FACT THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE FAILING OUR BLACK YOUTH!!! and THAT MANY OF THE BLACK COMMUNITIES ARE RIDDLED WITH POVERTY AND REACTORY CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES. THEN CHALLENGE THE LAW and POLICIES.
SISTA want to talk more hit me at my website.
SISTASOULPOWER-
You couldn’t be more right and wrong at the same time. Racism rears it’s head in many ways, which is why it’s power is not as easy to overcome as you suggest. It’s easy to give history lessons and spew facts, but misapplying facts doesn’t do anyone any good. I am very aware of the cultural distinctions within our community and their origin, but I still say law enforcement is not the remedy to those issues, they have always been part of the problem, so how can you not see that this is a racially motivated law? Although I know the history of “sagging pants”, a history lesson of that sort is not what is needed. Like I said before, our children, because of the social barriers created by racism, like poverty and the failed school systems as you pointed out,are trying to find their own way of expressing or rebelling against a society that rejects them by way of classism, discrimination in education, and racial stereotypes or stigmas. Far too often people don’t know how to overcome a stereotype and end up just embracing it through cynicism, etc., teaching our children what is socially acceptable and teaching them about their history is our job and we need to be dilligent in doing so, but in doing so we have to connect all the dots, we can’t condone lawlessness on either side of society, our kids have to be held responsible, but so do our law makers when they make laws to promote harrasment and make money off of the stereotypes they had a hand in to begin with.
SAGGY PANTS R THE BEST YOU CAN PAST EVERY TEST AND GOD BLESS
SAGGY R THE BEST
YOU CAN JUST WHERE LARGER CLOTHES
I DONT LIKE SAGGY PANTS
I JUST DONT KNOW WHAT I LIKE
I LOVE THE BIG SAGGY PANTS
I LOVE THE PEOPLE WIT THERE SAGGY PANTS
I LOVE SAGGY AND BAGGUY
Well I must say I am glad the law has made this move contrary to popular belief. I feel that every item of clothing has it’s proper place, swim wear has its place, wedding wear has its place just like the showing of underwear has its place and that is in private. If one looks up the origin of wear saggin pants came from one would change thier minds. If you turn the word saggin around you will also see the “ignorant word” which does not make it a cultural platform at all. It’s a fad that needs to be erased, dismissed and abolished. Not here to start an argument with anyone, I am a black woman with a voice and have something to say.
I think the saggin pants are a poor way of dressing, although we as a people be it black, white or any other, we are already defined but society has re-defined one because of the way we dress. Like it or not this is the society in which we live. When you go on a Job interview there is a proper attire that is welcomed, when you go to church there is a proper attire that is welcomed. When the proper attire is not displayed society re-defines you and does not easily welcome you. Is this right maybe or maybe not but this is the society we live in.
Now a legislation has been passed, will we as a people rebell or will will play by the rules. If we rebel becuase we are 20 + 1 then we suffer the consequences but if we play by the rules then all is well.
I love to wear what ever I want, However I can’t in society so I wear it in the comfort of my own privacy. Living Peacfully is the best way even if you think one is wrong.
I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, but TMD I understand your point about appropriateness of dress, but you lost me with the appropriateness of sagging pants. Anecdotal evidence points to the origins of sagging pants as prison yards where people could wear their pants properly because the were not allowed to have belts. It then evolved into a street style because people wanted to claim that they had ’street credibility.’ Other stories say that sagging pants were a symbol in prisons that the person sagging was available for sex with other inmates. We really don’t know what the real origin is other than the fact that it started in prisons now laws like these are contributing to the vicious cycle of the prison industrial system because those who can’t pay their fines will then be subject to more prison time or prison time for the first time because of what is essentially a crime of fashion.
[...] would not be the first city to take on sagging pants. Earlier this year, the town council in Delcambre, La., passed an ordinance that carries a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing [...]
Sagging pants are completely unneccesary. People who have sagging pants, white or black, should get ghetto stomped into the nearest curb. Why? Because with the sagging pants you get the sagging pants people culture, punks and emos and goths and gangstas and such. Fags.
And what is this about the failing school system? Is it the schools fault when truancy is a problem, did the students accidently skip? Is it the government’s fault that many blacks can’t seem to get ahead? Maybe we should quit complaining and take some initiative.
Trying to make everything fair is rather far-fetched. People are naturally greedy. It’s why communism doesn’t work and why free markets work so well (with just a little bit of government intervention).
Survival of the Fittest
Chears,
Trakan
This law is racist and stupid. What would happen if pants companies start selling pants that the upper part looks like a boxer. Would it be a crime to wear’em? The waist is still at the “proper level” right? BTW, this weekend I saw a 30 something white guy running in the park just wearing just shorts and tennis. Isn’t he showing a lot more than these fellas?