Don't go acting black in Virginia, hear?
Legislator Algie Howell, who's a Democrat, by the way -- don't let it be said that I never go after one of ours! -- wants to make it against the law to wear pants that so low-slung they expose your undies; to ride sitting low-down in your car; and to crank up the volume.
Hip-hop and rap-music artists, mostly young black men, have made wearing low-slung pants fashionable.
Howell says it's got nothing to do with race, though. He says if he sees white folk doing these things, they should be arrested too.
Howell said he was prompted to introduce the bill after witnessing an accident in which the driver had the seat positioned so far back he could not see that the driver in front of him had on a turn signal.
The impetus for the loud-stereo bill was partly from his own experience of having his grandchildren in the car with him and having other drivers pull up blasting music, some of it filled with profanities.
You know, I understand this guy's motives. I do. I too hate the thump of the music from the SUV next to mine at the stoplight. It's annoying. And when it's full of words like bitch and whore it's more than annoying, it's offensive. (When it's a Lee Greenwood song, it's really offensive, but never mind.) I also don't especially like to look at some guy's underwear, most days.
That's the thing. It's annoying. It's offensive. But that's all it is. Is that something we really need laws about? To drag people into court -- to waste our police officer's time and clog up our courts dealing with?
You know, I'm just thinking not.
Mr. Howell should find a better use for his time.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780264956&path=!news!politics&s=1031773094959
2 hours ago
2 comments:
Some idiot tried to pass a law in my community making it illegal to wear low pants and show your undies. I kind of wanted them to pass it to see if I could get arrested (I am neither black nor young), but good sense prevailed, and the idea died.
As for the sound thing, most communities have noise laws but don't always enforce them properly. I'm one of those who wants them to be enforced strictly. If you cannot live in your own house or be in your own yard without having your eardrums abused, someone needs to pay. That goes for sound systems, barking dogs, and incessant screaming and yelling.
I can't help this: loud music is a rite of passage and after a few years they do turn it down. The low pants, well what I find offensive is those fat men with beer guts wearing pants a few sizes too small that fall down in the back exposing not underwear but their pimply but. That is not only offensive but it is toxic the stuff nightmares are made of. Now, the little boys and girls who run around exposing their behinds and almost monspubis do not bother me other than to think back in the day how much better I looked than they and how they must be freezing their butts off and that kind of thing. I don't see how it is worth arresting them. Men who take offense to such things have way too much time on their hand and need to take on more serious things like education, hunger, medical care, the poor, and ending this war. Not the loud music, the low pants, or the position of the driver of a car.
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