Should Baggy Pants be Banned? Florida and Arkansas say 'Yes': We say 'No"

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Banning 'Baggy Pants' is harmful to the community. Criminals can blend-in now

Interested in following the flooding in Memphis, we took a look at the Memphis Commercial Appeal and instead found a story that takes precedent over the rising Mississippi River. It’s a story of a rapist caught because of the bagginess of his pants:

A 22-year-old man accused of rape had difficulty escaping from Memphis police in Whitehaven because his pants kept falling down around his knees, according to a court affidavit.

Police on Monday arrested Richard D. Graham of Memphis after a chase through apartment complexes that began in the 3500 block of Longbow, near Millbranch and Winchester.

Loud talking originally drew the officers' attention to three men, including Graham. When police discovered that Graham was wanted on a rape charge, he bolted but fell "multiple times while running due to his pants being around his knees," officers wrote in the court document.

On March 1, Memphis police charged Graham with rape following a report of a sexual assault last October involving a 14-year-old girl.

Police also charged Graham with evading arrest, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. He was held in Shelby County Jail with no bond amount immediately set on the rape charge.

We’ve told you before that Black people don’t like belts. We’ve told you that American Idol generated a pop sensation in the Black singer of Pants on the Ground, a song that preceded Antoine Dodson’s Bed Intruder rap but was just as beloved by white people who secretly enjoy laughing at Black people.
 

Arkansas recently banned saggy pants within its borders and Florida today passed a “droopy drawers” bill which prompted one writer at Thegrio.com to question if this was an example of racial profiling:

The Florida legislature passed a bill last week that bans saggy pants in school, allowing for suspension or other punishment for public school students who show their underwear or "butt crack." The sponsors of the bill -- state Senator Gary Siplin (D-Orlando) and state Rep. Hazelle Rogers (D-Lauderdale Lakes) -- are black. The legislation awaits Gov. Rick Scott's signature.

In the same breath, the state's lawmakers also passed a bill banning bestiality, or sexual relations between human and animals. With fiscal crises, unemployment and other problems facing the states, these hardly seem like pressing issues, certainly not serious enough to warrant a law.

In any case, let's stick with the saggy pants law for now.

An extreme step for something so trivial, so harmless, this is not the first attempt by Floridians to hike up the pants. For example, in 2008, voters in Riviera Beach, Florida approved a saggy pants measure which imposed a penalty of $150 or community service for first-time offenders, and jail time for habitual offenders. A judge found the law unconstitutional after a teen was forced to spend a night in jail. Last year, the city of Opa-Locka, Florida imposed a $250 fine and community service for those who don't pull up their pants in public.

And Florida is not alone. Last month, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe beat Florida to the punch by signing a bill that bans students from wearing clothes that expose "underwear, buttocks or the breast of a female." Proponents believe the law will improve the learning environment and stem the violence caused by student competition over clothing styles. A similar effort in Tennessee failed in a state house subcommittee in April, a second attempt in as many years.

The town of Delcambre, Louisiana passed an indecent exposure ordinance in 2007 that prohibited the showing of one's underwear. In Hahira, Georgia, the city council passed a law prohibiting people from wearing pants below the belt and revealing skin or underwear.

Last year a Bronx man was issued a summons by a police officer for disorderly conduct, and wearing "his pants down below his buttocks exposing underwear [and] potentially showing private parts." 

Deciding to wear pants without a belt will seriously jeopardize employment opportunities for Black males already severely limited in employment opportunities by having the burden of a Black-sounding first name, poor credit score, and higher propensity for being a high school or college drop-out.

It is our belief at Stuff Black People Don’t Like that these laws banning baggy pants do the public a grave disservice, especially when one considers these recent crime statistics published in Criminology: 

The rise in the U.S. Hispanic population and the sharp jump in black violent crime during the late 1980s and early 1990s may skew statistics from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey that appear to show a recent drop in black violence, said Darrell Steffensmeier, professor, sociology, and crime, law and justice, Penn State.

The researchers, who released their findings in the current issue of Criminology, indicated that studies on black violent crime -- a crime that involves force or the threat of force -- often fail to account for the rise in the number of Hispanics in the U.S. Since there is no Hispanic category in the UCR and approximately 93 percent of Hispanics identify themselves, or are identified by law enforcement officers, as white, most arrests of Hispanics are added to white violent crime rates.

"The result is that the violent crime rates for whites are inflated and the black rates are deflated in these studies," said Steffensmeier, who worked with Jeffrey T. Ulmer, associate professor, and Casey T. Harris, graduate student, both in sociology and crime, law and justice, Penn State and Ben Feldmeyer, assistant professor, University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

When the researchers adjusted for the Hispanic effect, there was little overall change in the black percentage of violent crime, said Steffensmeier.

Using arrest statistics from 1980 to 2008 in California and New York, two states that include a Hispanic category, the recalculated national figures indicated that the black percentage of assault increased slightly from 42 percent to 44 percent and homicide increased from 57 percent to 65 percent. There was a small decline in robbery, from 57 percent to 54 percent.

"It is the case that violent crime rates are lower today for blacks, as they also are for other race groupings, but the black percentage of violent crime is about the same today as in 1980," Steffensmeier said.

According to Steffensmeier, studies that purport to show declines in black violent crimes may also rely on timelines that are too short to be effective. For instance, studies that start in the late 1980s and 1990s cover a period of rapid increase in black violent crime fueled by crack cocaine use in the inner cities. According to Steffensmeier, the recent decrease is more likely a return to average crime rates.
"A study that uses statistics from a short time period can lead to a regression to the mean effect," said Steffensmeier. "Which basically means, when a trend rises quickly, it can fall just as quickly."

Some researchers have suggested that the improving trend in black violent crime indicates that African-Americans are experiencing better social standing in the U.S. Steffensmeier said that black progress may not be as pronounced or as broad.
"There may be a growing affluent black middle class, but at the same time, the black underclass appears to have become even more disenfranchised and more segregated from the rest of society," said Steffensmeier.

That the new Black middle class exists at all in America is largely due to a combination of affirmative action and government jobs (the old Black middle class was gutted by the 60s and Disingenuous White Liberal government plans).  Oh… or token Black Republican politicians that are pushed to the forefront of the conservative movement to show that conservatives aren’t racist.
 

Black violent crime is only getting worse, despite high rates of Black incarceration. This is why such laws banning baggy pants must be overturned. Wearing baggy pants is a fine demarcation between the law-abiding and the law-breaking class. The only people who wear baggy pants are Black thugs, Black gang-bangers (or Hispanic) or wiggers. All represent the worst elements of the Black underclass, but one must recall that Morehouse College – a highly respected HBCU – had to mandate a dress code so that the so-called ‘elite’ Black male college students wouldn’t wear droopy drawers.
 

About a year ago, we were on a flight to New York City and members of Morehouse College were on board for some academic fair. Inquiring about the dress code, they shrugged it off, but it was obvious that the Black underclass culture permeates to all levels of Black culture now (Ron Paul is right; 95 percent of Blacks are lost!).

For the safety of all American citizens, any attempt to pass “droopy drawers” bills or “saggy pants” legislation must be opposed. As the magazine Criminology reports, it’s increasingly a shade of Black or Brown that people must fear when it comes to be mugged, raped, beaten or murdered.
 

Saggy pants let people know that trouble is near and potential employers that the candidate for the position (unless its sports related) isn't worth pursuing. Legislation that would remove this easy-to-identify criminal accoutrement threatens to destabilize civilization as we know it.
 

How else would Richard Graham have been caught in Memphis were it not for his ‘droopy drawers?’

#65. Dress Codes

Do private businesses have the right to decide who frequents their establishment? In Black Run America, the notion of private businesses serving customers at their discretion is not allowed, as all companies hoping to maintain positive standing with the government are coerced into conducting business with patrons of every race.

However, Black people are painfully aware that special rules exist that circumvent the law of forced association mandated by legislation that work to include Black patrons where they might not be welcome.

Notoriously, night clubs and bars throughout the United States utilize the clandestine methodology of barring Black people from patronizing their establishment through the elaborate usage of dress codes to deny entry to those who fail to uphold the standards of proper accoutrement's as prescribed by the owners.

Black people are known to have a unique sense of fashion, primarily wearing pants that routinely are on the ground instead of their waist. Owners of bars and restaurants are in the business of turning a profit and these proprietors are painfully aware of the track record that exists of Black nightclubs and bars that routinely are profiled on local nightly news channels for unsavory accomplishments.

Clubs and restaurants across America, forbidden by the government to practice discriminatory policies of denying patrons by the color of their skin instead deny entry to potential customers based on the clothes that adorn their bodies.

Kansas City - recently the home of Flash Mobs - has an area of town popular for the nightlife offered there that strangely imposes rules that seemed targeted toward barring Black people in a fashion completely legal:

Cordish instituted a dress code in June 2008 that has been called racist by critics. The dress code includes a ban on bandanas, work boots, ripped or baggy clothing, shorts that fall below the knees, athletic jerseys, and chains.^[City Hall questioned the Cordish company about the dress code, noting that the dress code seemed targeted towards black males and was inconsistently enforced.

Councilwoman Melba Curls said her son was turned away from the district, while Counselwoman Beth Gottstein stated that "the message I keep getting is that Cordish is only available to some." David Cordish stated that the company was merely attempting to reduce gang related activity.^[21] Critics further accused Cordish of exhibiting racial bias when after DJ Jazzy Jeff left the stage early during a performance.

It has long since been established that Black people do not like belts. Many restaurants and bars have enacted dress codes that deny entry to people who wear baggy pants, which seem to target Black people excessively for their propensity for finding belts unbecoming is legendary.

Cornrows, a popular hairstyle found uniquely found in the Black community, seems to be unpopular to owners of bars and restaurants who find this style of hair a potential harbinger of trouble to their place of business.

Dress codes, you see, are primarily a ruse conducted by business owners who wish to return to the days when freedom of association was a right awarded to everyone, even those who own popular restaurants and bars.

Refusing to serve someone based on the color of their skin might seem archaic and nefarious, but the freedom of an owner to serve customers was a right guaranteed once in the free market. Simply instituting policies such as a dress code act as a modern-day Governor George Wallace standing in the door keeping Black people out of enjoying the fun inside the bar:

Mother's, a popular night club in Chicago, appears to be reinstating Jim Crow laws as they recently barred entry to six African-American patrons. The six students were part of a senior class trip of 200 students from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and had made plans to visit the establishment. Upon trying to entering the venue, the Black students were denied entry and were told it was because their pants were too baggy.

Not believing the hype, a white student switched pants with one of his classmates and tried the entry process again. Lo and behold, the white student was still allowed in while the Black student was left outside.

The situation in Chicago is not to be outdone by the one brewing in Kansas City, where a forum was recently held to discuss the validity of dress codes and find out, once and for all, if they exist to deny Black people entry to private restaurants denied the right by law to deny an individual entry based on their race:

At a forum entitled, “Is it your Clothes or your Color?”, sponsored by the Human Rights Commission of Kansas City, Missouri a panel of experts, academics, civil right activists and business owners were brought together to discuss the use of dress codes in the city.

The issue of whether or not dress codes were being used as a tool of racism became front page news a couple years ago when people of color, mostly African American men, began reporting problems with their enforcement at the Power and Light entertainment district Downtown.

Several complaints were made to the Human Rights Commission, which then took several steps to investigate violations of the Public Accommodations Law, initiated its own testing and worked with the management of Power and Light to make changes to the code.

Held at the Bruce R. Watkins Center, some panelists used their time to explain their experiences with dress codes around the city, while others discussed the social and legal implications of dress codes and their effectiveness. Members of the community also were given time to express their feelings about the issue and offer anecdotal information regarding the legacy of racism in Kansas City entertainment areas, including Westport and the Plaza.

Moderated by Daniel Weddle, Clinical Professor at the UMKC Law School, the issue of dress codes aimed at particular sections of the community—particularly people of color---came sharply into focus.

Nia Webster, organizer for Power and Lights Out (PLO) said her organization wasn’t against businesses establishing dress codes but want to help people understand about racial discrimination and how to properly report and respond to those incidents.

“Dress code should not be created to discriminate,” said Webster. “Dress is a perception. A person in a suit isn’t any different than someone with a white shirt and jeans. People who are troublemakers are troublemakers.”

Webster said her organization did a survey and that “90 percent knew someone who had been discriminated against.”

Anthony Burnside, a security specialist and consultant, who was Deputy Sheriff and former nightclub bouncer, said a business “had a right to have any dress code the want”.

“It should be posted on their website instead of people being surprised when they get there and are turned away,” said Burnside. “The point is to make money and have a good time.”

Burnside said when he worked as a bouncer in Westport the management let it be known what type of crowd they wanted; “Mix 93”, a local radio station that has a younger, white demographic.

Dr. Clovis Semmes, author and professor of Black Studies and Sociology at UMKC, said the phenomenon of dress codes is occurring nationally and its history was being written in places like Kansas City.

“They (dress codes) may be emerging as a proxy for racial discrimination,” said Dr. Semmes. “It’s a form of market regulation of prime commercial space.”

Dr. Semmes stated that factors like dress, musical selection and demographic targeting were raising many issues “regarding the physco-social perception of young black men” in “prime commercial areas”.

“If you played heavy metal music or country music you probably won’t see a lot of black people,” added Dr. Semmes. “If you have hip-hop or R&B, which has white fans as well, they don’t want to replace a young white demographic with a black demographic.”

Dr. Semmes went on to mention that sociological studies from the 1960s and 70s pointed to problems with how blacks where perceived by whites.

“In every case, black men were seen as more aggressive,” said Dr. Semmes of the studies where whites compared blacks--acting in the exact same manner as their white counterparts. “It only takes 30 percent of an audience for whites to perceive that blacks are in the majority.”

Dr. Semmes said that in “geographical context” dress codes were an issue of “dealing with corporations regulating markets in prime commercial real estate,” and were rare in “areas that are not prime commercial space.”

Andrea Shelby-Bartee, owner and manger of BodyWorks Phase II nightclub at 84^th and Troost said her establishment has used a dress code for years in order to “create a clean, safe atmosphere for everyone to have a good time.”

Bartee added that her establishment was targeting to be “an upscale type of venue” but didn’t feel the dress code discriminated against anyone because of race or ethnicity.

This problem of dress codes isn't geographically isolated in the mid-western states, but affects nearly every state where Black people reside and wish to enjoy a beverage:

On a blustery Saturday night, the usual line of 20-somethings was missing from in front of Peabody's, the Virginia Beach club.

Instead, small knots of people approached the doorman waiting outside on a stool.

When a young white guy accompanied by two women walked up, the doorman looked at him and his black football jersey, jeans and sneakers. He was rejected.

"This is the fifth place I've been turned away from tonight!" he told his friends.

It's common knowledge among clubgoers that Peabody's has a tight dress code.

Some people have speculated that the policy there and at many other clubs might be a subtle ways of discriminating against black people. Club owners, however, say the dress codes weed out patrons who might cause trouble and, in turn, harm their customers and their business.

White patrons say they're often turned away, too, and some black patrons agree with the policies.

"Our policies keep people safe, and it has worked for eight or nine years," said Brandon Ramsey, one of Peabody's operating partners. "People can take that the wrong way. But Peabody's is a mixed crowd. We work hard so people can come here and have a good time."

The irony is that across Hampton Roads, the music thumping inside clubs is often hip-hop, which dominates the charts and lures large crowds to dance, yet club owners set up dress codes that target the "hip-hop look " - the baggy clothes, work boots, 'do rags and other markings.

Ba Da Bing, another Oceanfront night club, looked considerably different than Peabody's from the outside. That night, the patrons were exclusively black, and the people in line had a style that swayed toward roomy pants, boots and camouflage. A security guard, however, said they also don't allow 'do rags, jerseys, gang-related beads, white T-shirts, flags or bandanas.

Ba Da Bing has a reputation for fights.

"A lot of clubs in Virginia Beach make dress codes to keep us out," said James Tamry, 25, a black Norfolk resident who was hanging outside Ba Da Bing on Saturday. He wore a striped Enyce polo shirt and jeans. "We dress a certain way."

At the same time, he said, he understands. "You have a lot of the younger guys, 18 to 21, that come out just to prove how tough they are."

Tamry, who is in the Navy, said clubs "are trying to keep the peace. But to me, something can happen anywhere."

Indeed. Norfolk police spokesman Chris Amos said a suspect was taken into custody last weekend after a knife fight in the Waterside parking garage, ostensibly after leaving one of the mall's very non hip-hop bar-restaurants.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed a discrimination complaint last week against Kokoamos, a bar and grill in Virginia Beach. The ACLU said the club's practice of banning cornrows and dreadlocks was discriminatory and potentially a violation of federal law.

Kevin Martingayle, a Virginia Beach lawyer whose practice areas include civil rights, said clubs are free to discriminate but not on the basis of race, gender or disability. Any place, therefore, that conducts business transactions with the public is within its rights to bar people with baggy jeans, because nearly anyone can wear big pants. But banning blond hair, for example, would discriminate on a different basis that might violate federal law.

Kokoamos' owner Barry Davis said the hip-hop look creates an atmosphere in which violence is more likely to break out. Hair aside, other club owners more or less shared that sentiment.

"It's more a young thing," said Terry Webb, who runs Reign in Norfolk, a trendy spot favored among upscale hip-hoppers. "How many women do you know who work at a Fortune 500 company that would talk to a man in a white T-shirt? At a certain age, it has to stop. No grown man should be going out in a jersey unless he's going to a sporting event."

Why is this trend of dress codes mandated by business owners appearing in virtually every city in America and why do they seem to target the habits of dress primarily associated with Black people?

We know that Black people do not like tipping, so perhaps it is an economic issue. Patrons of bars and restaurants normally tip a waiter or bar tender based upon their service, but Black people are known to refrain from parting with money in a voluntary manner for services rendered.

Or, perhaps it is due to the high-levels of violence that follow Black people at nightclubs throughout America. Bar owners are working to make a profit and develop of reputation of providing a fun, safe environment for patrons to enjoy a good time replete with shots of alcohol and removed from shots that come from guns.

Like the William Gates Foundation Scholarship which is only available to minority students, dress codes seem targeted only at minorities. Private businesses and corporations are mandated by law to serve every patron, regardless of race, yet few people question the rights of a private charity to grant scholarships solely by race, excluding all white people.

If one is morally wrong, shouldn't the other be as well?

Dress codes exist in nearly every city, an attempt by business owners to proactively engage troublemakers by keeping them out of their establishment and they target only Black people in the process.

Business owners risk lawsuits and horrible publicity to implement such dress codes. Perhaps, after failing to enact the three rules set forth by Dalton in the film Road House on how to properly run a bar, business owners realized they would rather face financial ruination by social ostracism than allow Black people to grace their businesses.

ZZ Top said every girl loves a sharp dressed man. Business owners say - through the advent of dress codes - that everyone still doesn't like Black people in their establishment, regardless of the publicity that accompanies any attempt to implement a dress code.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes dress codes, for utilizing such draconian methods to bar Black people from frequenting a place of business should have been relegated to the bad old days of Jim Crow.

Yet, if forced diversity is so great and freedom of association such an outdated method of conducting of business, why do restaurants and bars across the United States continue to risk closing by having dress codes?

Even the NBA - a league that is 80 percent Black - instituted a dress code for its players. Bars, restaurants and the NBA all have the commonality of dress codes to Black people's chagrin.

Pants on the Ground?

Thanks to American Idol, Stuff Black People Don't Like continues to show off our prescient ability at preparing the nation for the next cultural phenomenon that takes the country by storm.

Remember, we discussed Black people's complete disgust at the prospect of belts almost three months ago, and now, thanks to American Idol, people everywhere got to see Black people in Atlanta at their finest:

"Pants. On. The. Ground.

With those four words, "General" Larry Platt has gone from "American Idol" reject to Internet sensation.

The 63-year-old civil rights veteran performed his original hit at an audition for the show's ninth season, winning over judges Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi — and earning a nervous endorsement from incurable skeptic Simon Cowell.

For Platt, the song was just another one of his causes. He said Thursday that he and his civil rights colleagues sacrificed too much for today's youth to walk around with sagging pants.

“Everybody in America’s singing my song, ‘Pants on the Ground.’ I made that song up, years ago,” he told Access Hollywood's Billy Bush, adding that the song has a simple message.

“It’s about these kids and grown folk walking around with their pants down,” he said. “Get these pants up!”

Platt — his black jeans securely fastened — proudly showed off black and white photographs of himself alongside civil rights icons Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Congressman John Lewis, and pointed to plaques from city and state officials recognizing his social justice work as a dedicated foot soldier with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee."

Here are the lyrics to this song Black people don't like (for it attacks Black people primarily, and perhaps the actors in Jersey Shore):

Pants on the ground pants on the ground Lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground with the gold in your mouth, hat turned sideways, pants hit the ground, call yourself a cool cat lookin' like a fool Walking downtown with your pants on the ground Get it up! Hey, get your pants off the ground! Lookin' like a fool, Walkin, talkin' with ya pants on the ground Get it up! Hey, get your pants off the ground! Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground Gold in the mouth, hat turned sideways pants hit the ground, call yourself a cool cat, lookin' like a fool, walkin, talkin with ya pants on the ground Boom, yea pants on the ground lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground! with ya gold in your mouth, hat turned sideways pants hit the ground, call yourself a cool cat...

Gold teeth? Black people acting a fool' and living up to stereotypes of 'pants on the ground'? Say it ain't so General!
Stuff Black People Don't Like applauds the efforts of Larry Platt, for his song hits close to Black people's home everywhere - for you do look like a fool with your pants on the ground.

And only in America could an idol be someone who sings about the obvious shortcomings of Black society and not be taken seriously, but become a star.