Brothers should pull up their pants

"Brothers should pull up their pants," President Elect Barack Obama said when asked about laws being passed to outlaw sagging pants. 

I respectfully disagree, Obie One.  I rather see young men busy trying to keep their pants up, their colorful underwear showing, than cracks showing over low slung jeans.

Yeah, I know. Everyone's missing the point.  Is not about decency, it’s about the fear that with gangsta rap and sagging jeans comes crime, but no one will come out and say it.  It’s easier to talk about the indecency of underwear showing.

Except that we long ago crossed the line of decency.  Slut's in.  What does President Obama think about young women all over the mall wearing plunging necklines, exposing overinflated silicone breasts a la Pamela Anderson?  What about impossibly short baby doll dresses, mile high stilettos and skimpy thong underwear (or no underwear a la Britney?). No one's yet asked that question, but we can guess his answer.  Something evasive, some “let’s focus on the economy, live-let-live” kind of response. He'd never criticize mothers who dress even sluttier than their daughters, or dad's who walk around with the crack showing, parents who give their daughters boob jobs as sweet sixteen presents.  He won’t because, among other things, well, those folks are mostly white.  Barack can get away with telling black kids to pull up their pants, but he can't tell young Britneys to wear underwear or cover their boobs.

As for fashion trends, they're just that. Trends.  Some are short lived, some stubbornly stick around for a while, like the sagging pants, but those too are on the way out.

I guess the only reason sagging pants are still around is because so many object to them.  Nothing better than being noticed and feared not for whom we are, but what we wear.  Maybe young black men have been feeling powerless, and their clothes express power.  With
Barack as President that attitude might change. I can't wait to see how that change in attitude gets translated into fashion.

But we can’t legislate proper attire.  Unless parents are willing to police what their children wear, no amount of censorship or any silly law is going to get between us and our Calvins (can you believe Brooke Shields is 43?). Our young trendsetters will continue to come up with new ideas, drumming to their own beat, unhindered by what’s lawful, proper or improper. And their ideas will be copied around the world, keeping factories working overtime in China.

By the way, I think Barack’s a briefs guy. You say boxers?