Yup.
Slippery slope.
We've seen this movie before.
Why stop at masks when we can ban weaves, sandals, lashes, bonnets, sagging pants, baggy clothing, hoodies, and gold teeth?
Anthony Childs, a 31-year-old Black man, was walking along a sidewalk in Shreveport when a police officer attempted to detain him. Childs ran. The chase ended when the officer fired several rounds, and Childs fatally shot himself.
The offense that led to this tragic and deadly encounter? Childs was allegedly wearing his pants too low.
Since 2007, Shreveport criminalized people for wearing pants below the waist in public with an ordinance that was almost exclusively enforced against Black men. According to data collected by the
Shreveport Times, Black men made up 96 percent of the people arrested under the ordinance.
The ordinance turned local law enforcement into literal “fashion police” who used saggy pants as a pretext to target, search, and imprison Black people – with devastating and even deadly consequences.
Childs’ death spurred a long-overdue effort to repeal the ban, and on June 11, the Shreveport City Council finally scrapped this unconstitutional and discriminatory ordinance – thanks to a groundswell of public opposition and the leadership of Councilwoman LeVette Fuller.
This is good news for the people of Shreveport and for everyone who believes in the constitutional principles of fairness, free expression, and due process of law.
Anthony Childs shouldn’t have had to die for Shreveport to repeal its unconstitutional ordinance. Now it’s on all of us to honor his memory by keeping up the fight against all forms of racial injustice. Anthony Childs, a 31-year-old Black man, was walking along a sidewalk in Shreveport when a...
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