I'm not with you on this one, Nez, but the bagginess does offend my aesthetic sense in the extreme. I just want them to not bother with the pants at all. Make boxers {hell, briefs even better} and thongs OK for church and evening wear.
However brazilian bikini waxing will be mandatory and political slogans on the boxers must be pre-approved by local authorities. If this goes through in Atlanta, I'll move there. I like looking at legs. Little children already are onto this style. It's called a diaper.

but...doesn't everyone wear boxers and thongs to church already? y'all really need to learn how to worship, damn.

well yeah, but they have pants on over 'em.

Nevermind the skyrocketing Atlanta murder rate. That's a minor detail that will sort itself out once people are forced to pull up their pants.

So Atlanta is at it again. Remember when they had the Olympics - hotels had to post information on the blue laws there because there were all these ways of having sex that the foreign visitors would probably not realize were illegal!

This guy is on the Today Show right now. He's saying the ordinance is designed to spark conversation and support education and a future for young people. What a crock!! If these yahoos took just a MOMENT to talk to these kids, rather than criminalize how they dress, maybe their lofty words would carry an ounce of integrity. Don't even get me started on the million ways our culture has abandoned urban young people!!!

Oh, and one other thing...having visuals with the story demonstrated that most of the young men had to raise their baggy t-shirts so that you could actually see (gasp) their boxers.

Sorry to be so serious about something so ridiculous, but given that I work with urban young people, this particular kind of hate gets a little personal to me. I did enjoy all of your humor in this post and comments. Laughing is certainly a good way to cleanse from the hate.

yes, NL. you are right...it would be easy for me to rant...its offensive and stupid and asinine and will only further draw a divide between people...and well. i get angry enough. sometimes i need to just laugh at the bullshit. gracias para tu sentimiento.

I honestly don't see why people have to make this a big deal. (No, I do NOT dress like this) I see this kind of dressing all the time (school, grocery store, etc.) and I believe that it is the person's own choice to dress like that. Sure, at times I want to just yell "Boys pull up your pinche pants!" But then I remind myself that this is not my job. It's not my business. Their parents are the ones who should say something, if anyone would.
The only people who get all offended are the ones who let themselves be offended. If the baboso wants to dress with half his culo hanging out, I say let 'em. We'll see how many chicas he picks up.

you know, sometimes i may look at someone too and say "jeez, get a grip," but for one thing, these kids/people do stuff like pervert style and convention for a reason. its a statement of doing your own thing (well, along with all your friends, jeje) but also very much saying "the mainstream (of accepted style) can go fuck itself" and these feelings exist for a reason. it is a symbol of rejecting many other mainstream norms, values, etc. which the people who start these styles generally have reason to feel.

bringing force or control to bear on problems that require deeper understanding of people and their relationship to the dominant forces in their culture will not address anything, it will only cause them to want to reject the dominant forces more. typical Western misdiagnosis of how to address something, anything. stamp out the symptoms, ignore the cause.

not only this, but jesus man. haven't we got bigger things to worry about? like REAL epidemics? these fuckin lawmaking losers need real lives, worrying about my clothes n shit. '

gracias para tus palabras, hija de janna.

Its real hard for me to just let this go. We see signs in our community everyday of a "war on kids of color." Here's a couple of examples:

1. We're currently working with our public libraries to talk to them about alternatives to their plans to put armed police officers in the libraries to control kids.

2. We're also working with our public middle schools to encourage them to find alternatives to their plans to EXPEL students who show three incidents of wearing "gang" clothes, tatoos or showing "gang" symbols.

Research has shown that the earlier a youth has their first contact with law enforcement, the more likely they are to become mired in the criminal "justice" system. All of these efforts are just ways to pull them in faster and sooner. Its no wonder that 1/3 of black men will spend time in jail or on probation when we're looking to find them in the libraries or tag them as dangerous for what they are wearing to school.

nothing systemic about any of it, though.

Yeah, nothing systemic at all, huh?

Actually, thoughts have been rolling around in my head this week about all the parallels I see in these attempts at "security" in libraries and schools with how we're working to "secure" our borders and how we're trying to bring "security" to Baghdad. Just a few links in all that insanity. Of course, other than the fact that these initiatives only fuel violence and blowback, the color lines in it all are there for all the world to see...that is, if we weren't so blind to begin with.

Maybe the whole baggy clothes thing started because poor kids had hand-me-downs that were too big for them? I think I read this somewhere.

But, yes, what is it with laws against gang clothes? Some schools in California have outlawed gang colors--mostly red and blue--the feared primary colors. ooooo. The only thing that will be accomplished by this law passing it that they will make it much cooler to wear baggy pants because it will be illegal and, lord knows, that in junior high and high school I only liked the guys who didn't give a damn about the law (they also wore baggy pants).

Cero,

hahahaha! I thought they only did that in Texas! In Texas it is still illegal to have sex in any position but missionary! While I was there I got all mixed up and thought it was the other way around. Like it was only illegal to have missionary sex. I had to explain to the local authorities that I am dyslexic and, because of this, I thought the opposite and engaged in acts I would never have had I known that they were outlawed. It sure was embarassing but I got off with probation. whoops! ;)

I think it was the Beatles that began this downfall of civilization, if I remember correctly.

Best way to do make youth culture fads go away is for us middle aged folks to start joining in. When you start seeing 40 and 50-something men wearing baggy jeans and 40 & 50 something women wearing low-rise jeans (and thongs - let's not forget that!) - especially if they happen to be mom & dad - the kids will abandon the fad faster than I can say hola. Warning: beware of getting what you wish for though, as one fad will be replaced by another, and some fads have a way of coming back from the dead (as a refugee from the 1980s I live in fear of spandex clothes and mullets returning in some mutant undead form).

so funny, james. so true.

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mimi, you are SO right. and we gonna twist and shout our way to the bottom. :)