Baggy pants need a belt or a hike

It ought to be against the law to have your pants hanging so low that folks can see your drawers.

It almost was.

Last week, Virginia lawmakers sought to pass legislation that would impose a $50 fine on people who wear their pants so that their underwear is visible in a “lewd or indecent manner.”

Just when I thought I had ammunition for the battle in my household against my 12-year-old son over that simple necessity called a belt, Virginia lawmakers wimped out.

And, just when I began to think that you could legislate decency and good taste and had the ultimate weapon — the law — on my side, Virginia lawmakers didn’t have the fortitude to stick with their proposed $50 fine.

The Virginia House of Delegates, on Feb. 8, passed the so-called droopy drawers bill. The bill was killed by a Senate committee two days later.

“To vote for this bill would be a vote for character, to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia but for this entire community,” said sponsor Algie T. Howell Jr. in published reports.

Amen.

Lawmakers and the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the measure was an unconstitutional attack on young black males who have helped to popularize the loose, baggy, hip-hop styles that many kids crave.

Reggie Moore, co-founder and director of Urban Underground, a leadership training program for central-city youths in Milwaukee, agrees.

“You get policies and reaction to things that adults don’t attempt to understand. If you look at Harley riders in the way that they dress with tattoos and leather, nobody criticizes that or passes ordinances against it. It’s a culture just like hip-hop is a culture,” Moore says. “A lot of young people dress in a way that’s acceptable to their peers. But it doesn’t need to be criminalized. We’re not going after white kids with purple hair.”

This is true. But on the other hand, black males already are on the fringes of society. Baggy pants have a bottom-line impact if you’re a black male: Your chances of getting a job will be greatly reduced.

This style evolved in prison, where inmates aren’t allowed to wear belts for fear that they may use them hang themselves or harm others. It took off after rap artists began wearing their own pants without belts, consciously imitating felons.

All right, in all fairness, I guess we should go after the plumbers and other laborers who typically have problems with low-hanging pants.

I sure wish there was such a law a few months ago when I was shopping and saw a male shopper leaning over the meat freezer with his butt breezing in the air because his pants were sagging down. He apparently had no underwear on. I saw more than I care to mention.

The fashion police are nowhere to be found when you really need them. Maybe if the droopy-pants bill had passed, it would have set a precedent for other states to follow.

Well, the fact that this has become a big enough issue to come up for a vote before a legislative body says a lot.

Schools have long grappled with this issue. Many have instituted dress codes that require students to wear uniforms as a way to control the problem.

At Milwaukee’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Principal Josephine Mosley is battling the problem one child at a time. The school instituted a dress code 14 years ago. Still, some students push the limits of dress even with uniforms, says Mosley.

“It’s hard to enforce the uniform policy without dealing with the sagging and the bagging,” she says. “I still have some kids here who want to express themselves with the uniforms. They buy the bigger pants. We keep belts here to pass out.”

Once a month, students are allowed to express themselves and dress out of uniform.

“We try to turn our heads and let them express themselves. When the pants get down to where they’re in the middle of the butt, we say, `Pull your pants up.”’

Think about the message it sends each time a young man walks into a company looking for a job and he can barely walk for tripping over his pants. No one in the business world will take you seriously with your pants falling down.

Dressing the part is ever more important in the workplace, according to a new survey sponsored by Office Team, a staffing service. It found that 81 percent of employees polled said a person’s work attire affects his or her professional image; nearly half — 46 percent — of respondents said wardrobe significantly impacts how someone is perceived on the job, and that more conservative attire is gaining in popularity in many organizations.

Nobody is more affected by dress expectations than young black men.

A study conducted by a sociologist from Northwestern University found that white male felons had an easier time getting hired in the Milwaukee job market than young black men with no criminal record. If you’re a young black man, that should be reason enough to pull your pants up.

Just ask Mavis Williams of Milwaukee, the single mother of three sons.

“There should be a law against people walking around with their drawers hanging out,” contends Williams. “It’s disrespectful. I can’t stand it. We need to stand up and do something about this.”

Williams knows that appearance means everything, which is a point she constantly tries to drive home with her 12-year-old son and his 16-year-old twin brothers.

“I tell my sons that your appearance could mean your future.”