Menace to Society?

Cops in Flint, Michigan are literally playing fashion police!

According to reports, the city’s new chief of police has ordered his officers to start arresting saggers*.

Saggers could face jail time and hefty fines for a fad he calls “immoral self expression.”

He later told a local paper the style could give officers probable cause to search saggers.

WTF?

Flint is in America!

We still have some freedom of expression rights in our country, don’t we?

Michael Moore, what’s your hometown thinking?

No worries…the ACLU is on the case. They’ve threatened to take the Flint cops to court if they insist on citing peeps for sagging.

*Saggers = fans of wearing their pants low – very low!

Update: A reader points out something very interesting.

“Although I’m not a fan of the baggy jeans look, most folks don’t know that the whole look didn’t start as a fashion statement, but because poor kids always had to wear hand me down clothing …so in the hood, everyone was wearing pants, shirts and shoes that were way too big for them. The look is a nod to that …and when folks challenge that, it’s often because they don’t understand the context.”

Update #2: Inneresting.

Another reader offers a different take on things.

“On the posting about the new saggy pants citations in Mich you have an update from a reader who points out the tradition stems from poor kids wearing hand-me-down clothes. This is not true. It stems from the fact that when in prison, prisoners aren’t allowed to have belts, so their prison issue pants often sag very low. The style of saggy pants was brought to the street as a show of toughness associated with the prison/gangster lifestyle. And the citations aren’t really about freedom of expression. One of the main reasons saggy pants are being banned in many places (including in many schools) is because it makes it easier to conceal guns.”

Update #3:

You guys are so smart!

Another reader points out an interesting hypothesis, ” just an update, they are STRUGGLING in michigan and they are trying to find some way to make money, especiallllly oakland county. that’s why they’re enforcing this.”

[Image via WENN.]