The Obligatory "New York Senator Eric Adams Hopes To End Youths' Pants-Sagging Trend" Post

CNN.com:

A Brooklyn, New York, politician is hitting the streets in an effort to bag the sag.

State Sen. Eric Adams announced plans to post six billboards around Brooklyn targeting the pants-sagging trend popular with many young men. The billboards, which will hang on busy streets, feature two young men wearing low-hanging pants above the phrase, "Raise your pants, raise your image."

"It's part of a larger campaign ... to tell our young people and our community as a whole, we are better than this," Adams told CNN, adding that the sagging trend originated from prison culture. According to the former New York police captain, "I policed all over the city. ... The first indicator of whether a young person was in trouble was the way they dressed."

He plans to reach out to school boards to establish a standard dress code in classrooms and is also looking to media outlets, the Internet and endorsements to spread the word.

Cool in sentiment, but will it work? Highly doubt it. First, there's the fact teenagers especially, don't like to be told what they can and can't wear, much less how they should wear it. Secondly, while Adams message (on each ad is the slogan “Raise your pants, raise your image.”) is correct in every sense of how you represent yourself being a direct reflection of how outsiders see you, this stuff starts at home. So if parents aren't putting a stop to the baggy-pants nonsense, how's a political supposed to do it? Third, as much as I hate to stereotype the genre, hip-hop has to (and will) get part of the blame here (although it should be noted that most experts on urban culture agree that the baggy-pants trend started behond prison bars, not wih rap music) what with today's rap artists continuing to milk "gangsta" images, kids will feel free to continue to emulating them. Last, if Senator Adams really wants his campaign to succeed, clearly he's going to have to put in a call to Larry "Pants on the Ground" Platt--I mean who better to get out there and demand that kids pull their pants up? Really now.