Pi-Consulting

Some time ago, by order of the hip-hop community’s high arbiters of sartorial taste, it was decreed that Thou Shalt Wear Thy Jeans At Half-Mast. Sagging pants, revealing at least eight inches of the boxer shorts worn underneath, became an almost mandatory fashion statement among young male African Americans with attitude. (Not all of them knew where the idea came from: it started in jail, where oversized prison uniforms were issued without belts, to prevent suicide. After the cons stopped laughing, low-slung pants became a wordless invitation to the ‘screws’ to “kiss this”). Now states like Louisiana are invoking indecency laws and trying to criminalize the habit. Wearing your trousers below the Plimsoll Line can cost you a $500 fine in some towns, even get you thrown into jail, where of course the fashion originated. The NAACP takes a dim view. “To criminalize how a person wears their clothing is more offensive than what it is trying to remedy”, says a former executive director there. Source: New York Times, Pi.