Reading report

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 10
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Title: Are Your Jeans Sagging? Go Directly to Jail.
Source: www.nytimes.com Date of publication: August 30, 2007

Vocabulary

Sophomore: A second-year student in a U.S. high school or college.
Outrage: An act grossly offensive to decency or good taste.
Engender: 1. To give rise to. 2. To propagate.
Zoot:
Sag: 1. To sink, droop, or settle from pressure or weight. 2. To lose vigor, firmness, or resilience. 3. To decline, as in value or price.
Ordinance: 1. An authoritative command or order. 2. A municipal statute or regulation.
Badge: A device or emblem worn as an insignia of rank, office, or honor.
Thug: A cutthroat or ruffian; hoodlum.
Swagger: 1. To walk or behave with an insolent air; strut. 2. To brag.
Tack: A course of action.
Fad: A briefly popular fashion; craze.
Steadfast: 1. Fixed or unchanging; steady. 2. Firmly loyal or constant.
Craft: To make or devise, especially with great care.
Single out: To choose or distinguish from others.
Apparel: Clothing, especially outer garments
Headgear: A covering, such as a hat or helmet, for the head.
Brawl: A noisy quarrel or fight.
Spill: To cause or allow to run, flow, or fall out.
Decry: To condemn openly.
cuff: The turned-up fold at the bottom of a trouser leg.
Flout: To show contempt for; scorn.
Beat: A stroke or blow.
Garment: An article of clothing.
Amendment: a. Formal revision, as of a bill or constitution. b. A statement of such a revision.
Remedy: 1. Something that relieves pain, cures disease, or corrects a disorder. 2. Something that corrects an evil, a fault, or an error.

Main ideas

¨ Sagging pants are becoming a criminal offence.
¨ Pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat for the public. This new law started in Louisiana.
¨ In Delcambre, L.A., the style carries a fine of as much as $500 or up to a six-month sentence.
¨ An ordinance in Mansfield subjects offenders to a fine or jail time.
¨ The hip-hop style is said to be worn as a badge of delinquency. Also it is related to the issue of freedom of expression.
¨ Sagging began in prison, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use as weapons.
¨ In 2004 the efforts to outlaw sagging in Virginia and Louisiana failed.
¨ The American Civil Liberties Union has been steadfast in its opposition to dress restrictions.
¨ School districts have become aggressive in enforcing dress bans.
¨ Dress codes are showing up in unexpected places as the National Basketball Association.
¨ Fashions tend to be descried when they challenge the conservative morality of society.
¨ Not since the zoot suit has a style been greeted with such strong disapproval.
¨ Sagging prohibitions are seen as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.
¨ This legislation has been proposed by African-American officials.
¨ Atlanta Councilman sponsored an amendment to the city`s indecency laws to ban sagging.
¨ A dress cpde ordinance proposed in Stratford was rejected drawing criticism that the law was unconstitutional and encouraged racial profiling.
¨ Benjamin Chavis, chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will challenge the ordinances in court.



Personal reaction

This article is about new laws applied in some states of the United States that consider the fact of wearing sagging pants a criminal offence.
This new legislation is criticized because the majority of the wearers of this trend are young African-American men, and so that it is considered a way of discrimination against them.
I think that following the same line of thinking we can considere many other trends as criminally offensive worn by women and men of every race in the western world.
This view lacks of sense because in this way almost every youngster would be charged or punished by law because of the way they dress, and criminals will continue existing no matter what clothes they wear.