Bad Georgia: Beware of Baggy Pants and Bra Straps

Once again, the Great State of Georgia is excelling in making itself look stoo-pid and racist and classist. Yes, again! Recently we have had another string of sneaky attempts at black voter disenfranchisement, with Secretary of State Karen Handel (as in “Can you Handel the fact that your Secretary of State is a flaming jackass?”) embarking on a mass mailing campaign to helpfully notify people of the new state requirements for voter ID cards – you can use one of four state-issued forms of identification or get a free (that makes it all okay!!) new type of ID specifically for voting. Only problem is, Georgia’s voter ID law was struck down by the courts last year and the appeal is still pending, which any good Secretary of State can tell you means we HAVE NO VOTER ID LAW. So all these people - the rural and urban poor who already have low voter turnout due to lack of transportation, childcare, and voter education - are getting mail telling them that there is yet another step they have to take to vote, and it isn’t even true. There is a reason why Georgia is trying to restrict access to voting with what would be the nation’s strictest voting laws, and that reason has everything to do with the traditional (Democratic) voting habits of poor and/or black Georgians.

Meanwhile, in the We Hate Spics (But Love Taco Bell!) Department (now Georgia’s largest branch of government), various counties are currently working to pass laws banning “boarding houses”, aka houses with multiple unrelated adult residents, aka the houses of Latinos. Supposedly this has nothing at all, heavens no, to do with race or the rabid brown immigrant hatred that seethes from the pores of most red-blooded Georgians.

Then, today, news of a truly brilliant new entry into this litany of idiocy: Atlanta councilman C.T. Martin, a Bill Cosby-esque mess of a self-hating black man, has introduced a ban of baggy pants. Thank god! Why, just the other day I was accosted by several pairs of baggy pants and was lucky to escape with my wallet. And don’t get m started on that overcrowded house down the street – I swear I have seen at least 14 different pairs of clearly unrelated baggy pants coming and going, and several of the baggy pants park their cars RIGHT ON THE LAWN!!!!

Fortunately for the baggy pants, they will not be spending the night alone in jail when martin gets his mitts on them. They will be kept company by equally offensive exposed thongs, boxer shorts, and bra straps. Okay, let’s break this down:

1. Visible Thongs: The only people who should be arresting a girl (or guy; this is the gay Mecca of the South, you know) whose thong is showing are the fashion police. I mean, really, whale tails are so 2002!!!

2. Visible Boxer Shorts: Hmm, Councilman Martin better get his butt down to every majority white high school with relatively wealthy students at final exam time, because everyone knows that well-to-do preppy girls wear college sweatshirts (the grey kind with the always-SEC college letters appliquéd in plaid) and BOXER SHORTS during finals week. It’s a look that says “I studied so hard, I could barely find a Scrunchi in the same plaid as the letters ‘SMU’ on my sweatshirt, let alone wear PANTS!!! Geez!”

3. Visible Bra Straps: I may have to stop typing this at any second as the fuzz are about to do a raid on my office. And every other office in my building and in all of Georgia. And anywhere else where bra-wearing women congregate. Shit, if you have worn a bra with straps, you have flashed a bra strap. It’s what they call a tautology, Councilman. Here, try this bra on with this tank top and I will show you.

4. Baggy Pants: Oh, Baggy Pants. How long is it now that you have been de rigueur for black people and Kevin Federline? What’s that, going on 20 years, you say? Clearly this baggy pants thing is just a fly-by-night fad, like hip hop and naming your kids after luxury cars, that can easily be stamped out by an appropriately outraged black politician. Well, sorry Councilman, but if Bill Cosby couldn’t get his peeps to change, neither can you. Just be thankful that the rolling up one leg look went by-the-by. But in a world where fro pics are still jauntily shoved into fros and the airbrush nail business is still booming, baggy pants are here to stay.

Some choice quotes from Councilman Martin:

"Little children see it and want to adopt it, thinking it's the in thing," Martin said Wednesday. "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."

Sorry, buddy, but baggy pants are the “in thing” for many, many people. And “half-dressing”? Shit, that’s as old as rolling your eyes when your parents are talking, as far as young people go. And I don’t hear too many complaints about one-quarter-dressed cheerleaders.

Baggy pants are going nowhere, fool, face it. And get yourself some Cornel West or Henry Louis Gates or bell hooks and brush up on your black cultural politics, yo.