Chicago Suburb spending time and efforts to stop the evil sagging Sants Boxer Shorts

Students - Turn your school term papers in to boxer short money
Even in my backyard, where we lead the fight to keep Sagging Boxer Shorts legal, the local government has passed a new law fining kids who wear their sagging Santa Boxers.

Economy not all that is sagging: Towns crack down on low-slung pants

By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons and Erika Slife

Chicago Tribune

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.20.2008

CHICAGO — If Lynwood, Ill.'s economy is surviving by the seat of its pants, the town at least wants its bottoms properly covered.

The leaders of the small south suburb, with their eyes on attracting development to Lynwood, last week passed an ordinance stating that people caught exposing 3 inches or more of their underwear will be fined $25 — the first Chicago-area town to crack down on low-slung pants.

Since the first sullen cave-teen glared at his father over not being able to use the wheel, young people have been finding new ways to irritate the adults in their lives. In recent years, for some, it's meant lowering their pants and exposing all manner of boxer shorts in public.

The adults are fighting back. Towns across the country have banned pants that hang below the waist, with the price of immodesty ranging greatly. This week, it was the talk of the town in Riviera Beach, Fla., where the fine is $150, and in Flint, Mich., where offenders can be fined $500 and face time in the slammer.

Lynwood Mayor Eugene Williams says he cannot attract major retailers when young men are parading around half-dressed.

Jonathan Gammon knows all about the sagging pants of Lynwood. He sees teens pass his barbershop with jeans so low he wonders how they walk without tripping.

He knows they're not bad kids, because he cuts their hair. They're just copying the style they see in Chicago and in rap-music videos, he figures. Gammon was relieved to hear his town banned low-hanging pants.

"I don't want to see their drawers, personally," he said. "It probably would scare people from out of town."

But some argue the law goes too far in mandating fashion choices, and the American Civil Liberties Union charged the ordinance targets young men of color.

In fact the fashion statement has echoed across racial lines. James Pinkerton, 15, who is white and was shopping at Orland Square Mall in Lynwood on Friday with his great-uncle Bob, 53, scoffed at government attempts to censor appearance.

"I don't think they should be focused on that," said the teen, dressed in black baggy shorts with hanging pocket chains. "I think they should be focusing on more important things."

His uncle, however, supported Lynwood's initiative, and admitted to keeping tabs on the pants sizes his nephew sought to wear.

"I always take him out to buy pants and he says, 'They fit me,' and I say, 'Let me see your waist,' " he said.

Experts note that pushing boundaries is natural for teens searching for their own identities. But they say today's youths are not the rebellious, long-haired hippies of the past. Teenagers today are used to special rules: limits on the hours they can drive without supervision; where they can talk on cell phones; or even on their visits to tanning salons or malls.

"Today's teenagers are . . . fairly comfortable with the rules and guidelines that society has put into place, as long as they get to color in between the lines as they see fit," said Michael Wood, vice president of TRU, a Northbrook, Ill.-based research firm specializing in young adults. "We find it very interesting when adults feel threatened by what they see demonstrated by young people. Oftentimes, we have to remind them that you can't judge what's on the inside based on what they're wearing on the outside."

In Lynwood, a town of about 8,000 30 miles south of Chicago, officials felt the ordinance was needed to prove to outsiders it is a place worth investing in. The mayor says he received more positive reactions than negative to the ordinance, especially in the African-American community. He's even talked with other south suburban leaders about adopting the law in their towns.

"I know I'm going out on a limb by doing this," he said. "It's a hot topic right now — everyone wants to talk about it, but I really hope it does some good."

Even some youngsters in Lynwood agree with the ban. While Chris Sowell, 10, was getting his hair cut at JC's Barber Shop on Friday, the men seated around him discussed the ban. Chris knows better than to walk around his house with sagging pants.

"You might think you're a gangster trying to be like the people in Chicago," he said. "I know I'll get in trouble with my mom."

Others would welcome a ban. Outside Orland Square, Marcelino Rosas, 17, lifted up his oversize T-shirt to reveal baggy pants firmly belted above his drawers.

"I think it's offensive," he said of bared underwear. "I don't like it. It's so ridiculous."

But Joe Klomes, 21, who sported half-inch holes in his ears to accommodate oversize earrings and pointed to his body modification as his freedom of choice, said: "I don't really know if they have a right to infringe on somebody's personal style. . . . If they want to clean up their image, they should spend money to fix up the streets, parks, planting trees, making it nicer that way.

"If you're going to be shallow enough to go after clothing, I don't know. It seems a little bit racist."

ACLU spokesman Edwin Yohnka agreed, saying he's interested to see how evenly the ordinance will be applied.

"One of our concerns is that we know who wears baggy pants; it appears these are efforts to have more police interaction with young men of color," he said. "Let's see if they start pulling over plumbers for their pants."

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shorts

The NY Times picks up the Boxer Short fight. ACLU Boxer Suit

Gotta love the NY TIMES for publishing this article on the ACLU's fight for our rights to wear sagging Boxer Shorts!!!

Flint, Michigan is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. But troublemakers beware. The police are cracking down on . . . saggy pants?

They’re in fashion — in case you haven’t noticed — and they look like this:

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Flint’s acting chief of police, David Dicks, recently announced that his department would start arresting people whose low pants — something he called a “national nuisance.”

This is becoming something of a law enforcement trend, with municipalities from New Jersey to Louisiana trying to ban saggy pants.

Here’s a question: Why?

Is there a connection between saggy pants and menacing behavior? In June, a man was shot in Florida in a dispute arising from his sinking trousers. But it was the man demanding that the pants come up who fired the gun.

Mr. Dicks has said that low pants qualify as “indecent exposure.” Last month he issued a memorandum calling the trend “immoral.”

The ACLU of Michigan has sent Mr. Dicks a letter of protest. “Under no stretch of the imagination,” the ACLU says, “does wearing saggy pants that reveal the top of one’s boxer shorts violate the Flint Disorderly Conduct Ordinance.” The people of Flint, the ACLU says, “should embarassed by this colossal waste of time and scarce resources.”

Low-riding women’s pants, fashionable in recent years, came with the constant threat of exposing a bit too much of . . . err, the top of one’s backside. These pants also tend to fit quite snugly. Is that then more indecent? Will Michigan throw Amy Winehouse in jail?

Of course, everything old is new again. In the 1960s, the “threat” came from hippies, with their tie-dyed tee-shirts, and the Beatles, with their “long hair.”

There are laws against public exposure, but people with saggy pants are not violating them. As long as no one is exposing private body parts, law enforcement in Flint and everywhere else should stick to fighting crime, and leave the “saggers” to the fashion police.

We will continue to fight for our BOXER SHORTS!!!!

The ACLU picks up our cause. Fighting for your right to show your Boxer Shorts

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has taken the Boxer Short fight to the courts.
Boxer Shorts are part of our freedoms as Americans, Give me sagging Boxer Shorts or Give me Death. Christmas Boxers LIVE!!!

Flint residents who like to wear their pants in the latest “sagging” fashion shouldn’t have to pull up their trousers to stay out of jail, according to the ACLU of Michigan.

The right to wear sagging pants is protected by the constitution, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan argued in a letter it sent Monday to Flint Police Chief David R. Dicks, who has ordered officers top start arresting people wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms.

The letter called for an immediate end to the stopping and searching of individuals with low-riding pants and a response from the police department by next Monday. If not, the ACLU said it will take the issue to federal court.

The ACLU said the new policy gives police authority to conduct unconstitutional search and seizures, promotes racial profiling, violates due process and interferes with an individuals’ freedom to express themselves in their appearance.

“Given that Flint has one of the highest crime rates in the country, you would think the police chief would be fighting crime instead of the latest fashion fad,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, who composed the letter over the weekend.

Dicks did not return multiple calls Monday seeking comment, and Flint Mayor Donald J. Williamson said he had no comment on the sagging pants policy and that he did not comment on lawsuits.

In an interview last week with the Free Press, Dicks said wearing pants below the waist is a crime — a violation of the city’s disorderly conduct ordinance — and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon and drug possession.

Individuals would be subject to search, and depending on how low the pants sit, punishment of up to 93cq days in jail and a $500 fine.

“It is not the job of the police officer to enforce his idea of what dress is appropriate when no crime is being committed,” Steinberg contended.

Steinberg said the ACLU would prefer not to go to court, but was prepared to do so.

“People should be concerned when police officers go up to individuals and lift up their shirts to expose young men’s boxer shorts and claim that they’re acting indecent,” Steinberg said, citing a Free Press video report last week on the enforcement. “There’s nothing different between that and lifting up women’s skirts to expose their underwear and charging them with indecent exposure.”

He cited exposed bra straps or slips as comparable fashion faux pas that would not warrant police searches and citations.

“It’s another matter if you can see their naked buttocks…but it is not a crime to wear sagging pants where boxers are exposed.”
Only in America!!! WEAR YOUR BOXER SHORTS PROUD!!!
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SPECIAL REPORT: Should Saggy Pants Be Banned? Another great Boxer Short story

It's absolutely non-stop. The banning of boxer shorts continues to keep real news out of the news. With all of the current world wide political turmoil, one would think sagging boxer shorts would stay out of the news. Believe it or not we can find Boxer Short police stories in the news on a daily basis.
It has become a common sight...what used to be private, now available for the public to see..underwear, tattoos, boxers, and bare skin. Some say enough is enough, when it comes to sagging pants.

Donald Young, Augusta, GA: "If you going to have your pants to your knee caps, might as well walk around in your boxers."

Ken Broughton, Augusta, GA: "When it's all the way down, coming off as they walking, that's inappropriate."

Many say celebrities are promoting this lifestyle, in their music videos. Others say it's a personal freedom.

Joseph Houston, Augusta, GA: "First of all, everybody is an individual. I don't think you ever need to tell somebody what they can wear, or what they can do, because a person's clothes doesn't determine them. If somebody has saggy pants, it's their preference, but of course, naturally it will stereotype that person."

So, should the government step in? Should politicians undermine this underwear revolution, with new laws?

Renee Lunger, Augusta, GA: "I don't think it should be outlawed, but I think, in school, it should be restricted. I think it should be a dress code, but we just celebrated Independence Day and I don't think it should be a law. I don't think the government should get into what we can wear, and what we can't wear."

Others we talked to say this style has been around for a long time.

Ken Broughton: "It's been here for 20 years, it's going to be here for a while."

Fraendy Clervaud, reporting: "For many people, seeing boxer shorts and panty lines can be very offensive, but to others, it's quite interesting. So, why not wear a belt to keep everything intact?"

Ken Broughton: "I think most people don't know why they do it they just do it because they following the leader.

So, where did saggy pants come from? Gang specialist, Devon Harris, works with troubled youth and those in the prison system. He recently attended the National Youth Gang Symposium, in Atlanta, and learned from various law enforcement, the origin of this fad.

Devon Harris, gang specialist, Augusta, GA: "When the inmates would come, it was a place where they were violated, and the older inmates, after they violated these young men, were told to walk down the tier or the hallway with their pants sagging with the belt below that, so they are advertising that they are available again."

He says inmates didn't use belts.

Devon Harris: "When they locked up these men in the LA county jails, they had elastic pants on with no belt, and some of the elastic was not working anymore, so their pants would fall."

Others use it as a means to hide something.

Devon Harris: "It is a way of concealing things, maybe, so you can't see maybe a weapon that's attached to your under clothes, or something like that."

Christmas / Santa Boxer Shorts may be banned by December. Valentines Day Boxers, look out you may be next.

Harris says this controversial trend doesn't cater to a specific race, but to those individuals who choose to embrace it. A number of cities and towns have classified it as "indecent exposure," so until your local government gets to the bottom of it, you may continue to see saggy pants, and exposed unmentionables, on a street near you.

Community leaders in Augusta tell us it's a topic that they'll be addressing, pretty soon. And, it's a topic that's been generating tons of e-mails from you, the viewers. To view what others have to say, or to tell us your view on saggy pants
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Tracing Boxer Shorts and another Boxer Short fashion police story

Boxer Short fashion is hitting the news on all fronts. From Boxer Shorts history, Boxer Short psychology, Underwear Sociology, and of course Boxer Short criminology. Only one thing is sure, come Christmas, Santa Boxers will once again be the hot fashion gift.... Long live Boxer Shorts.

Halloween Boxers are right around the corner.

Some travelers follow their hearts, others their heads, but few follow their underpants like New Zealand-based writer Joe Bennett.

Bennett's purchase of a five pack of China-made underpants took him on an eye-opening quest from the checkout in a New Zealand store to the economic powerhouse to unravel the mysterious workings of global capitalism.

Tracing the NZ$8.59 ($6.5) pack back to a Shanghai factory, the rubber trees of Thailand and cotton fields of Xinjiang in far western China, Bennett went behind the scenes to meet the hundreds of people who manufactured and exported his pants.

While leaving him none the wiser as to how much the pants actually cost to make, Bennett says he learnt much from his underpant odyssey, titled "Where Underpants Come From". He spoke to Reuters recently:

Q: Why underpants? Why not trace an iPod or a garden hose, or any other of things China exports?

A: Because I bought some underpants and not a garden hose. It's that simple. I bought some pants and they set me thinking. It never crossed my mind to change the subject.

Q: Your trip grew from a peculiarly post-industrial kind of ignorance: you couldn't fathom how the pants were made, and at such a price?

A: We sit on this cushion of affluence in the West, which very few of us can actually justify because we can't engage in those industrial, commercial or scientific processes ourselves... Something as rudimentary as making cotton -- I haven't got a clue. If electricity stopped being generated I wouldn't be starting it up again.

Q: It was your first time in China. Were you worried about what you might find in the underpants factory?

A: I didn't go into anywhere that was a sweatshop, certainly, (though) I expected to see pretty grim working factories. I'm very confident that the actual pants in question are produced as close to ethically as its possible to produce underpants in China. Sure, people are working longer hours for less money, but that's the function of a different economy with a huge labor market.

Q: You note that when you grew up, underpants were a plain, uniform white -- now there's a rainbow of colors and styles. What does this flowering of fashion tell us?

A: The booming of pandering to vanity in the West and also the huge swelling of commerce anywhere you can expand a market.

Everyone's house in the West is full of vast quantities of redundant stuff, all of which they bought in the frantic search for happiness, and none of which has delivered. If you wear satin underpants you're not happier, nor more sexually successful.

Q: So what does that reveal about today's consumers?

A: Rich, silly and grasping, very much in the manner of donkeys chasing the unachievable carrot. You don't buy happiness in a department store. But the illusion is an illusion of crucial importance to a Western capitalist society. You must be lead forward to the next consumer good. Forgetting always that the last one didn't deliver the joy you were hoping.

Q: You predict the death of the boxer short as Westerners are becoming too fat to wear them comfortably. Any other tips?

A: Certainly the hugging hipster is the vogue at the moment. There will be other styles of underpant coming in. It's hard to predict. But people must keep changing things so that we throw away things that are not worn out.

Q: Did your journey into the unknown leave you wiser?

A: As a result of the whole process of research and travel, I was delighted, just simply delighted. I laughed a lot. I'd expected to endure the journey, and I enjoyed it.

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Big news came out of Flint Wednesday — news that made me want to drop my pants below my waist and celebrate my constitutional right to dress like a degenerate.

Fortunately for everyone in East Lansing, I composed myself before someone caught a glimpse and seared a retina.

But seriously folks, it’s a great day to be from East Lansing. Well, it’s a great day to be from anywhere other than Flint, where fashion police are lurking the city streets looking for butt cracks. Literally.

According to the Detroit Free Press, interim Police Chief David Dicks and his officers are now arresting people for wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms.

Dicks told the Free Press that pants pulled completely below the buttocks with underwear showing is disorderly conduct and saggy pants with skin of the buttocks showing is indecent exposure. A spanking may or may not be included in the sentence.

I don’t know about you, but I believe the strict interpretation of this law is purely blasphemous. I’m not sure where police officers get off telling its taxpaying, law-abiding citizens that they can no longer express themselves by revealing whether they wear boxers or briefs.

If this law were enforced in East Lansing, I’m not sure what I’d do. With gas prices being so high, there’s no way I could justify spending $10 on a belt. That would be superfluous.

Hopefully by now, you’ve detected my sarcasm.

In reality, it’s about time a city stepped up and did something to mitigate the visual blight caused by people who think they’re making fashion statements by letting their pants ride below their waists.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m fully in favor of the First Amendment. If someone wants to wear a shirt that reads “F—- the Police,” that’s a protected right that every American is entitled to exercise.

However, crude shirts and sagging pants are not parallel offenses. Crude shirts don’t bother me when I’m driving behind a motorcyclist and can see the tattoo on his butt, or when the person sitting at the restaurant booth next to me has his whitey-tighties riding up his spine.

I’ll support any legal measure that discourages people from wearing baggy pants. Kudos to Dicks.

"Old" man...Cool Sagging Novelty Boxer Shorts

Just an excerpt from an "Old" man, turning 30, as he reflects on The trend of sagging boxers.
Boxer Short Fashion continues momentum, as law-makers outlaw sagging boxer shorts, the trend continues to grow. The truth is, the boxers out of the jeans style would most likely have faded on it's own. But if the "establishment" hates it, kids love it. Boxer Shorts are here to stay.

I turned 30 four months ago. I suppose I made the big "three-oh" particularly significant, because I started to work for myself, and I got married at around the same time. So far, in my limited experience of them, my thirties are turning out to be a very different bundle of years to my twenties.

Some people dread thirty. I never did. It seemed to hold all sorts of promise. In your thirties, you should have your life sorted out, and I unintentionally lined things up so that when my birthday rolled around, I was a fully-fledged adult with a husband and a business - a far cry from the walking-sandalled, backpacking hippie from the year before.

In my family, we age well - my mother is still in fine fettle approaching sixty, not looking a day over 39 - so I didn't ever feel that there was the beginning of a downhill slope approaching for me (certainly not at 30, anyway).

But all of a sudden, I've started to notice little things I've started thinking and doing, and the only conclusion I can draw about them is "oh my god, I'm getting old."

Saggy-bottom boys

The first thing - and this sign of ageing crept in when I was in my mid twenties - I abhor low-slung jeans. I'm not talking about hipsters, I'm talking about that dumbass skater fashion statement of wearing jeans hanging lower than the butt crack, with funky boxer shorts bulging out the top.

It just looks silly. Wearers have to walk funny to keep them up. I read somewhere that the fashion originated in prisons, where inmates aren't allowed to wear belts, so their pants hang. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea, but emulating "gangtsa" fashion seems a bit inane to me.

My husband, who is obviously younger at heart than I, points out that all fashion has its roots in inane sources, but I'm unwavering on these pants - the wearers just look like they're trying too hard.

Health food has also started to taste good. I was never a fast food grease addict, but I liked things rich and complex. The joy I now get out of a plate of chicken breast with parsley and flaked almonds, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice is a clear indicator that I'm in a new phase in my life.

It's not just that I feel like I'm being healthy so I feel good about myself. The mingling of the clean tart flavors genuinely seem delicious to me, whereas a fillet steak in cream sauce has started to feel a bit like overkill.

Get prepared to start shopping for your Back-to-School Boxer Shorts and than Halloween, Christmas Santa Boxers are right around the novelty corner.

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