The Emperor’s New Baggy Pants

From New Jersey to Georgia to Louisiana, citizens are taking decency into their own hands, some drafting legislation that would make it a criminal offense to wear baggy clothes that show one’s boxers and/or backside.

Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, says singling out a person based on baggy dress (most common among young African-American males) is a form of racial profiling and unfairly promotes an association between dress and crime. One could fairly argue that the association was already there, what with the look of baggy clothes having originated in prisons, not boardrooms.

It’s nice to see some taking a stronger stance against the indecently clothed - and the indecently speaking and indecently behaved. To turn the tide on indecency, though, we don’t need laws. We need a society that refuses to accommodate the indecent.

There was a time, recently at that, when showing a stripper’s share of cleavage meant not getting into a family diner. I speak not just of tiny towns, but also of big cities with a respectable (and respectably dressed) customer base. Any community can elicit more of what it wants by rewarding the self-respectful (you may enter my business) and shunning those showing little or no self-respect (you may not enter my business).

As an option, dress codes and codes of conduct are not limited to the snootiest of establishments. But only the snootiest have maintained and still insist upon a code of decency. It is the rest of society that has, for some strange reason, put the “pig” in Pygmalion.

Those who would assert a violation of civil rights when patrons are barred from entering Harriet’s Diner or Vickerson's Deli with their boxers or bustier showing and/or their mouths spewing all manner of obscenities need only refer to the fact that the snooty business's codes are legally established and enforceable. It's not against the law, it's not discrimination, and it's not a violation of anyone's civil rights to refuse a person who doesn't meet that business's definition of "customer."

Article Author: Diana Hartman

Diana (nee Gulick) Hartman is the Culture and Tastes Editor for Blogcritics.org. She is a freelance writer, mother of three, and a (Ret.) US Marine spouse. She is a Wichita, Kansas native, having also lived in the California desert, Southern California, and eastern North Carolina. …

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