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At least not everyone in Florida is nuts…yet
In Gainesville, Florida, there’s a community group known as the Black on Black Crime Taskforce. The taskforce’s chairwoman, Rosa B. Williams, has acknowledged that when police “see someone naked, they’re going to stop them.” Makes sense. But Williams would like to see it taken a step further, having the cops go after the “disgraceful” folks who wear baggy pants that hang below the waist and, thereby, set a bad example for others. “Nowadays they’re so low, they have to hold them up just to walk,” Williams complained to the city’s Public Safety Committee last week.
Her argument was received with some chuckles, and the committee declined to pass any type of enforcement against the baggy lowriders. The chair of the committee noted that forcing folks to hike their drawers might be a good thing for the city, but there was a risk that this would violate their First Amendment rights since it doesn’t seem to reach the level of indecency. Another commissioner noted that baggy pants are actually more decent than some of the clothing she saw at a recent college freshman orientation.
Not letting this loss get to her, Williams intends to fight on by seeking a similar proposal in Tallahassee.
My favorite part of the story is the idea of another local resident, who was at the committee hearing for another matter. He offered the solution that all residents should be required to raise their hands above their heads when getting on city buses, because the hooligans with the low pants presumably wouldn’t want to find their pants around their ankles. Thing is, I’m not really so sure that would be a deterrent. In fact, I think some clever lad would simply devise a way to cut the pants so that one would still have most-if-not-full mobility while their pants were around their ankles, and then they could just wear them like that all the time. Coming, in 2007, Levi Ankle Riders!
