Call it a kick in the pants. A fashion trend that began in prison has come full circle. Low-waist street-strutters with their saggy pants are already having run-ins with law. At some point, the low-rider may even wind up in the big house where it all started: jail. You see the so-called “offenders” everywhere. We caught up with a few in the Johnson City mall. They wear their pants below the belt, often showing a considerable amount of undergarment. .“It’s disgusting, it’s awful. I would never let my son go out in a pair of pants like that,” said Delonna Copas of Fallbranch. The question for many is whether the government should be allowed to ban something that others may find offensive. A number of cities and towns have classified wearing saggy pants as indecent exposure with fines up to $500 and possible jail time. Last month, the Flint Michigan police chief told officers in a memo they could arrest people wearing saggy pants, exposing their underwear or bare bottoms, under the city’s indecent exposure or disorderly conduct ordinances. So far, officers have only warned people about the practice. But at a forum this week, the ACLU threatened a lawsuit unless the department does away with its duel on dangling dungarees. It considers it a case of racial profiling. “The government shouldn’t have the power to do this cause’ then you get into people can’t wear weird piercings, can’t have tattoos, or even tight clothing,” said KD Bowen who used to own an urban clothing store in Johnson City Mall. Celebrities in music videos, television, and on the Internet have been known to promote the droopy drawers look. “You can get online and look at the Kanye West concert that happened two hours ago and you can see what he had on and then you can go to the mall and say hey can I look like Kanye West or Jay-Z,” said Lemuel Hollifield of Johnson City. This bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prison where inmates are not allowed to wear belts. “When they locked up these men in LA county jails they had elastic pants on with no belt and some of the elastic was not working anymore so their pants would fall,” said Atlanta gang specialist Devon Harris. Even with the addition of a few high profile skate parks, and the media coverage, officials in the Tri-Cities region don’t feel the saggy pants trend is a problem here yet. City officials in Kingsport and Johnson City said they don’t intend to take action unless saggy pants become more of a problem. Until then, it will be tough to get to the bottom of this controversial issue. We want to know what you think. Should saggy pants be banned in the Tri-Cities region? Comment now on tricities.com, keyword: pants.
EMAIL: kcales@wjhl.com
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