YOUTH TREATED UNEQUALLY IN FLINT MI
It's like deja vu all over again[3]
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Good Morning Flint! 07/24/08
by Terry Bankert
http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
Melee Chat at:
http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=32733#32733
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CITY OF FLINT CODE
31-12 DISORDERLY CONDUCT AND DISORDERLY PERSONS.
A person is a disorderly person if the person does any of the following:
(n) For the purposes of this section, PUBLIC PLACE means any street, alley, park, government- owned or government-controlled building, common hallway or public room of any dwelling greater than two units, or any other place to which the public has lawful access, as well as any motor vehicle used to provide public transportation. Masculine pronouns in this section shall be construed to include both male and female persons.[9]
(o) Intentionally makes or causes to be made any open exposure of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast in any street, alley, park, sidewalk, public building, school or building open to or frequented by the public or any other place that is open to the public view or to which the public has access.[9]
Unequal treatment is what Nayyirah Shariff fears most from Flint's crackdown on saggy pants.[1] A question asked at a recent Flint community meeting was are people were a certain style of clothing which does not violate the law being unfairly targeted? My answer is yes.[trb]
Fashion is part of a freedom of expression. We don't always like what other people are saying, but there you have it. Unless a young man is actually showing his, um, "nether regions," arresting or searching him could easily be construed as harassment. And unless they start jailing suburbanite teeny bobbers with visible thongs, this is just unfair.[3] This ceriminal enforcement reeks of disparity and abuse of power.[trb]
This is not about saggy pants. This is about criminalizing black youth..." one Flint resident said.[8]
FLINT CITIZENS MET AT A MEETING ORGANIZED BY YOUNG PEOPLE TARGETED
The meeting at Red Ink Studios, 101 S. Burton St., ...(included)... members of the Flint Chapter of the National Hip Hop Political Convention and RAISE IT UP! Youth Arts and Awareness. Dicks and members of the American Civil Liberties Union have been invited. [2] Also Present was a member of ACORN[trb] I attended this meeting there were over 100 people.present.[trb]
"Flint police are attacking the black community and trying to get them off the streets," said another resident who attended the meeting.[6] The police chief in video was stopping young people fully covered lifting their shirts to see if under wear rise above their pants under their shirt after a pat down search. Do you think this is right?[trb]
WHAT IS SAGGYING
Some people call it a fad. But for the city of Flint, Mich., that urban style known as 'sagging' is now a criminal offense.[4] I bet the teen agersa who would not have saggyed will now start.[trb]
The issue at hand is "sagging." It's the tacky trend of young men wearing their pants super low and flashing their boxers or less, in the unfortunate event they've gone commando. I, personally, hate the style as, from time to time, it brings out the old biddy in me ("Would you look at how low his pants are? Why -- there is just no need for that. Someone should tell him to pull those up.")[3]
EVERY GENERATION TO PROVED INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPS THEIR OWN CULTURE AND STYLE
It's 90 degrees in downtown Flint Mich., and Jayson Miguel is shirtless, in a pair of gray sweatpants. He's hanging out, minding his own business—and breaking the law. It's not that he's loitering (he's on his way to meet a friend). It's his pants: they're hanging off his hips, below his butt to reveal a pair of gray boxer shorts. "I've been sagging since the fourth grade," the 28-year-old says. "I'll be sagging when I'm old and gray."[4]
WHERE DID SAGGYING COME FROM
The origins of sagging may be what's motivating Dicks. Long popular with the hip-hop set, sagging is in part a relic of prison culture: inmates sagged because they weren't allowed belts. To some, the style references a gangster lifestyle—a symbol of disrespect for authority. "I don't understand why parents let their kids out of their sight like that," said 81-year-old Minnie Boyd (no relation to Todd Boyd), shaking her head as she exited a Flint hair salon. "Who in the world wants to see a butt in public?"[4]
But sagging's origins came partly out of practicality, too. In the 1980s, long before labels like Sean Jean and Rocawear catered to black men, the jeans of popular designers like Tommy Hilfiger were made too narrow for the black male body, says Professor Boyd of USC. So people started buying jeans two or three sizes too big, and—voila!—a style was born. Even Miguel says his sagging was a product of necessity: his mom couldn't always afford new clothes, so he'd inherit oversize hand-me-downs from his older brother. "Of course they were too big," he says.[4]
Dicks said wearing pants below the waist is a crime -- a violation of the city's disorderly conduct ordinance -- and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon or drug possession. He said exposing the buttocks is indecent exposure.[5] This police chief new to the job in a department and city flooded with bad news and a rising crime rate was looking for good press. Unfairly imposing an ambiguos city ordiance wrongfully interpreted and intentionalyy targeted to profiled young people who were thought to have no vocal coalition to defend them seem to be an easy shot for the chief. Wrong![trb]
Both crimes are misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and fines up to $500, Dicks said.[5] Lets just more kids a criminal record in Flint MI seems to be the results of the Dicks initiative.[trb]
IN THE CITY OF FLINT, HIGH CRIME, FINANCIAL CRISIS, LAYING OFF POLICE OFFICERS AND CLOSING THE CITY JAIL, WHY IS SAGGYING IMPORTANT?
Critics also say the Flint police department has bigger issues to worry about. A 2007 report by Congressional Quarterly ranked the city (population 120,000) the third most dangerous in America. It recently laid off 48 officers and closed the city jail because of budget constraints. With a climate like that, why allocate resources to a bunch of kids who have an aversion to belts? "Clearly there are more important things going on in Flint," says Todd Boyd a cultural critic at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.[4]
TARGETING BLACK YOUTH FOR RANDOM SEARCH... NOW THERE'S PROGRESS
"It seems like you're targeting youth," the 32-year-old Flint resident said Wednesday night during a community forum, noting she disagrees with Police Chief David Dicks' decision to start charging those with sagging pants with disorderly conduct or indecent exposure.[1]
GOOD PEOPLE BEST OF INTENTION HORRIBLE OUTCOMES
But, broken ALERT, hating bad fashion and punishing people for bad fashion are two different beasts. The proposed treatment of the "saggers" is about as appealing as seeing a young man's boxered butt walking down the sidewalk.[3]
"Don't they have something better to do than roll around the streets telling us what to wear and how to wear it," 15 year old, Donovon Cooley said.[8]
FLINT CHIEF OF POLICE ABSCONDED AND IS NON SHOW AT FLINT CITIZEN FORUM
"It's not the community's morals. I think he's kind of out of touch," she said of the chief.[1]
"But for David Dicks, Flint's new police chief, it's a national nuisance. Dicks has ordered his officers to start arresting 'saggers,' as some aficionados of this sartorial style call themselves, on sight, threatening them with 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."[3]
POLICE CHIEF HAD SUPPORTERS WHO WANTED TO SPEAK TO HIM
Shariff's views were echoed by many of the dozens of people at a community forum at Red Ink Studios in Flint -- but not by everyone.[1]
There has been a tidal-wave of fallout since Flint Police Chief David Dicks said he was cracking down on saggy pants. [6]
It has put Flint in the national spotlight, and at odds with the American Civil Liberties Union. Some people said the ability to sag one’s pants is freedom of speech and expression, but other said its just indecent.[6]
FLINT RESIDENT SUPPORTS CRACKDOWN ON CRACK
Lovie Giles, an eighth-grade counselor, said children need guidance, and their decision to wear saggy pants is more about peer pressure and maturity than about self-expression. She supports the crackdown, which could result in fines or jail time for offenders.[1]
"I think that children should not dictate what they can and cannot do," she said. "Parents need to set the tone for children."[1]
"if showing your undies and buttocks is gonna be the next generation of dress style we need to put a stop to it we all have rights is very very sickening to see this garbage,so if saggy pants wins a law suit for freedom of rights and speech then we can sue them for indecent exposure i really think they either wet their pants or filled them with festis and forgot to change we need to put a stop to it all now [7](comment of diablo)
IF THE RIGHT OF SELF EXPRESSION IS LOST IN FLINT, OTHER COMMUNITIES ARE IN AT RISK!
The crackdown has drawn national attention to both Flint and the issue of self-expression through fashion. It also has prompted the ACLU to seek out those targeted by the crackdown for inclusion in a lawsuit against what officials say is a faulty interpretation of city ordinances.[1]
ARE WE SO FRUSTRATED IN OUR INABILITY TO CONTROL OUR CITY FROM CRIMINALS THAT WE ATTACK OUR CHIOLDREN WITH FALASE ACCUSATIONS?
It's a move other municipalities have tried before on a style that's been around for decades. But Dicks, who took over the department on an interim basis last month, has employed a particularly harsh approach—one that some critics are calling downright illegal. So far, Dicks has only issued warnings to saggers, but he's made it clear that anyone with pants below the butt—whether or not they've got boxers underneath—is violating the city's disorderly conduct code, punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and fines of up to $500. "Everybody's talking about it," says Tonio Watkins, 18, a local high-school student. "I don't like what they're doing. I've been dressing like this my whole life."[4]
The suburban Chicago village of Lynwood, Ill., passed an ordinance last week that states people caught exposing three inches or more of their underwear will be fined $35.[5]
WAS IT DISRESPECT OR POLITICAL, WHY WAS THE CHIEF NOT PRESENT
Despite an invitation to the event, Dicks did not attend.[1]
SAGGING HAS CAUGHT THE NATIONS ATTENTION
Last year, city officials in Atlanta, Ga., started making laws about what people can and cannot wear. This summer, Flint -- or at least the police chief -- is trying to do the SAME.[3] If any saggers are interested I will sponsor a sagging fashion show but you will have to organize it. Most of us do not really kn ow what sagging is.[trb]
ACLU TO THE RESCUE
The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union doesn't like it, either—and has given Dicks an ultimatum: stop the policy or face a court battle. They say Dicks is taking the law into his own hands, and violating citizens' freedom of expression in the process. Sagging to show boxer shorts doesn't even violate the city's conduct policy, they say—which states a person must have "open exposure" of the "genitals, pubic area [or] buttocks" to be considered disorderly. "Under no stretch of the imagination does wearing saggy pants that reveal the top of one's boxer shorts violate the Flint disorderly conduct ordinance," says attorney Greg Gibbs, the president of the Flint chapter of the ACLU. "This man has basically taken his personal dislike of a style of dress and made it a violation of criminal law." Gibbs says the chapter will act after Monday if Dicks doesn't change the policy. [4]
With Flint Police Chief David Dicks refusing to back down from his anti-saggy-pants policy, the ACLU is asking people to come forward for a possible lawsuit.[5]
Like the electoral college, the ACLU has long worn out its usefulness. I'm fed up with them comming up with excuses for humanity to behave brainlessly. I believe the pants below the butt thing repulsive and I have yet to hear anybody say it's attractive or says anything to them but "nasty, dirty, repulsive, stupid, etc." I know law enforcement love it when baggy pants run. Makes it easier to nab the scum and hide them in a prison so decent society does'nt have to look at their filthy underwear. [6](-comment of rahrah)
HAVE YOU BEEN APPROACHED BY THE FLINT POLICE ABOUT-"SAGGING PANTS"[10]
The police may be violating your rights when they stop you, search or threaten to charge you with " indecent exposure" just because you are wearing sagging pants. As long as your " buttocks, genitals and "pubic area" are not "openly exposed" you are not committing a crime. [10]
If a police officer has approached you because of the way you wear your pants, or you have seen the police stop someone because of the way they wear their pants we need to hear from you.[10]
Call the ACLU Police Acountability Hotline (313) 578-6831[10]
You have a right to complain directly to the Flint Police Chief, Flint Police Internal affairs, The Mayor of Flint, The Flint City Council and the Flint Ombudsman. For any youth interested I am willing to help you with organizing for your contact with these governmental entities.[trb]
A CROSS SECTION OF FLINT WAS PRESENT AT THIS RED INK EVENT ,THANK YOU RED INK
The forum, organized by youth and community groups, was billed as a dialogue, not a debate. It brought together people from a range of professions, young and old, white and black.[1]
JUST GIVE ME A LITTLE RESPECT SAY THE SAGGERS THAT ARE DECENT
While many of those who oppose saggy pants focused on issues of respect and decency, those opposing the crackdown said the city should focus its limited resources on more serious crimes.[1]
Probable cause? Fines? Jail time? I know this is cliche, but doesn't the police chief of Flint have bigger FISH to fry? Like, say, catching actual criminals and solving real crimes?[3]
In the meantime, residents like Miguel—who, at 6-foot-3, wears a size 3XL in sweatpants—are just plain confused. Sagging has been around for decades. Why outlaw it now? "I think it's an opportunity to harass, to be honest," says Miguel. The ACLU worries about that, too: it's no secret sagging is a style long popular with men of color. Last week, a Flint police officer called into a local radio station to say that officers were already using the policy as a way to profile minorities. (Chief Dicks is himself African-American.)[4]
"We are not in favor of people exposing indecently, they don't have a right to do that," Gibbs says. "But that's not what Chief Dicks is doing here. He's going after a style not after indecent composure."[8]
Today, Miguel sags because it's "cool, hip"—but insists it's not a commentary on his way of life. "Hip-hop has been around for a long time now, and there are some things about the culture that have just become commonplace," says professor Boyd. "You're not making a big statement by sagging." As Miguel puts it: "It's just a style, man." And hopefully not a criminal offense.[4]
—end
Posted here by Terry Bankert
–where did this stuff come from
[1]
Freep.com
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080724/NEWS06/807240428
[2]
Freep.com
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/NEWS06/80723006/1008
[3]
Mlive.com
http://blog.mlive.com/newblack/2008/07/flint_fashion_police_the_no_sa.html
[4]
Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/146803
[5]
Freep.com
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/NEWS06/80721061/&imw=Y
[6]
WJRT
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=6283079
[7]
WNEM
http://www.wnem.com/news/16962293/detail.html
[8]
NBC 25
http://www.weyi.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=163897
[9]
City of Flint
http://www.ci.flint.mi.us/
[10]
ACLU FLYER distributed at Red Ink meeting see:
http://www.aclumich.org/
[trb]
Comments of Terry Bankert to include unattributed cap headlines.
http://attorneybankert.com/
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TERRY BANKERT WILL ASSIST ANY VICTEMS OF THE DISCRIMINATORY SAGGYING CRACKDOWN TO PROTEST ..not litigate go to ACLU for that...We will take this issue publicly to the powers to be in the City of Flint. CALL 235-1970. area code 810.
or email to ATTORNEYBANKERT@YAHOO.COM
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