While hip-hop’s lyrics have come under fire as of late, now, so has some of its fashion sense. In Atlanta, Georgia, city officials are looking to make wearing baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs illegal.
Under a proposed amendment to Atlanta’s indecency laws, sponsored by city councilman C.T. Martin, it would be illegal to sag your pants under city law. According to the Associated Press, the amendment states that pant sagging is an “epidemic” that is becoming a “major concern” around the country.
The proposed ordinance would bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants, as well as wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
If it passes, the penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.
Seagraves says the legislation will not survive in court, because it cannot be enforced in a nondiscriminatory way due to the trend coming from the black youth culture. “This is a racial profiling bill that promotes and establishes a framework for an additional type of racial profiling,” Seagraves said, according to the AP.
Martin, who is black, said he plans to hold public hearings and vet the proposal through churches, civil rights groups and neighborhood organizations. The proposal will get its first public airing next Tuesday (August 28) in the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
The AP reports that earlier this year, the town council in Delcambre, Louisiana, passed an ordinance that results in a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing underwear in public. Several cities in Louisiana have instated similar laws in recent months. – Miles Bennett
