Call me a pervert if you will, but I'm fascinated by the political implications of the Atlanta city government's attempt to ban baggy pants which show boxer shorts:

ATLANTA (AP) - Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta's indecency laws.

The amendment, sponsored by city councilman C.T. Martin, states that sagging pants are an "epidemic" that is becoming a "major concern" around the country.

"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."

However adults are adults, and if you're an adult, you have a right to run around looking like a slob, regrettable though that might be. I do not think governments - whether federal, state, or local -- have any business getting into telling people what to wear beyond prohibiting nudity, and, I suppose, requiring shoes to prevent the spread of diseases. I hate sagging pants which expose visible underwear, but I would not make that a crime, because whether you like it or not, it is not indecent exposure.

However, even though I don't consider this an appropriate area for legislation, I fail to understand the racial implications. Debbie Seagraves does:

The proposed ordinance would also bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants. They would also be prohibited from wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

The proposed ordinance states that "the indecent exposure of his or her undergarments" would be unlawful in a public place. It would go in the same portion of the city code that outlaws sex in public and the exposure or fondling of genitals.

The penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.

But Seagraves said any legislation that creates a dress code would not survive a court challenge. She said the law could not be enforced in a nondiscriminatory way because it targets something that came out of the black youth culture.

But Seagraves goes from her declaration of culture origin to racial profiling:

"This is a racial profiling bill that promotes and establishes a framework for an additional type of racial profiling," Seagraves said.

Martin, who is black, said he plans to hold public hearings and vet the proposal through churches, civil rights groups and neighborhood organizations. The proposal will get its first public airing next Tuesday in the City Council's Public Safety Committee.

"The purpose of the paper is to generate some conversation to see if we can find a solution," Martin said. "It will be like all the discussions we've had around the value of the hip-hop culture. We know there are First Amendment issues ... and some will say I'm just trying to put young black men in jail, but it's going to be fines."

Makeda Johnson, an Atlanta mother of a 14-year-old girl, said she is glad Martin introduced the proposal. She does not want to see a law against clothing, but said she thinks teenagers are sending a message with a way of dressing that is based in jailhouse behavior.

Atlanta would not be the first city to take on sagging pants.

Right?

If you think this means Debbie Seagraves is a dissenting black activist, think again. Debbie Seagraves is white. And on behalf of the ACLU, she's decided that a proposal by black Atlanta legislators is racist. (No, she doesn't dress like Madonna, so don't you white heteronormative types go there looking at her picture and expect to be titillated by underwear that wants to be outerwear.)

Hey wait a second!

I thought it was against the rules of identity politics for any white people to accuse any black people of racism.

Is there an exception for white leftists? Or has Debbie Seagraves been getting ideas from Jeff Goldstein?

MORE: In a more recent post, Jeff Goldstein explains why a white leftist like Debbie Seagraves does in fact have the unique right to castigate blacks with whom she disagrees:

...calling a Black man an "Uncle Tom" isn't really racist if you've taken steps to embrace progressive politics, because progressives, bless their selfless souls, have -- along with a dazzling righteousness! -- emotional and ideological purity on their side. And if the wayward Negro they're striving to help would just learn to listen to these sage shepherds of social justice, they wouldn't need to coax the poor dumb ungrateful fuck back on the plantation with such a show of tough love.

Hey, in this instance I can't even figure out what the cultural underwear narrative is, much less who's supposed to control it.

(I do think that the idea of there being such a thing as stolen cultural underwear simply goes too far. They're not only politicizing the personal, they're playing a dirty game of hardball identity politics!)

UPDATE (08/24/07): Clayton Cramer has an interesting additional take on this; that it's not only vague, but probably unenforceable:

the problem with such an ordinance isn't just that the ACLU will challenge it as "racial profiling" or violating freedom of speech. The problem is how do you define "undergarments"? Boxer shorts are not so different from shorts in appearance these days. Would someone wearing briefs, then boxer shorts, then sagging pants be in violation if the boxer shorts were visible?

For women, the definitional problem is even more severe. The camisole used to be considered an undergarment, but now many women wear them as outerwear. Spaghetti strap camisoles with a bra strap showing would certainly qualify as a violation of Martin's proposed ordinance. (Not to mention that the combination looks ridiculous.) But the camisole alone can range from profoundly provocative to really, really gross, depending on who is wearing it. Is a camisole an undergarment or not?

I don't have much hope for an ordinance like this to be enforceable....

In fact, I'd say that legislation like this only invites more defiance, and more "creativity."