Monday, October 1, 2018

Dress Codes Are Not Fashion Fascism

The following is an unpublished letter-to-the-editor that was sent via e-mail to the New York Daily News as well as amNew York, a free daily newspaper.

Voice of the People
New York Daily News
450 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001

October 21, 2005

To the Editor:

Re: NBA dress code. To call Commissioner Stern's decision racist or, as [sportswriter] Filip Bondy termed it, an act of "fashion fascism," is utterly ridiculous. What's wrong with looking your best? How can that be interpreted as "attacking cultures," as one of the athletes described it? What is cultured about wearing pants so low that one's underwear shows?

If Joe Louis, Martin Luther King, Nat "King" Cole, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Duke Ellington, and other African-American luminaries had dressed as slovenly and thuggish as some of today's millionaire athletes, no one would have taken them seriously. In fact, the black community would have been ashamed of them for looking like someone's unmade bed.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

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