Crackingdown On Crack

North Carolina's Mecklenburg County is the latest locality that is considering a crackdown on individuals who insist on displaying their dirty underwear "sagging" pants:

The Rev. Willie Simpson thinks low-riding pants are indecent. Now he wants Mecklenburg County to make them illegal.
On Tuesday, Simpson asked Mecklenburg County commissioners to work with the Charlotte City Council to pass a ban.

"Pants hanging off a backside is degrading for any young man or woman to do," said Simpson, who wore a crisp white suit to the commissioners' meeting. "I don't understand why we allow this young generation to be exposed the way they are."

In agreement was Blanche Penn, who oversees the local "Just Pull 'Em Up" campaign. It promotes pulling up sagging pants as a symbol of self-improvement. The style is thought to have started in prisons, where inmates aren't given belts with their loose uniform pants. The look caught on, first in rap music videos, then in suburban malls and now everywhere.

The tiny town of Delcambre, La., has banned wearing saggy pants. Trenton, N.J., and Atlanta are talking about doing the same.

The commissioners didn't comment on the suggestion, but support might be lurking. In July, Mayor Pat McCrory blasted youths, especially blacks, for wearing "gangster type of dress."

Commissioners Chairwoman Jennifer Roberts, however, doubts a ban would be possible.

"I think that it would be very difficult to write and very difficult to enforce," said Roberts, a Democrat.

Furthermore, Roberts said, "It's a fashion -- it doesn't necessarily reflect on the values of the youth."

Interestingly, the authorities who "just say no to crack," rarely, if ever, do so to females who insist on publicly exhibiting their underwear.