Ah ha! Erica is from Texas: So much is explained to me now about her...so much!!!

Actually... that dress in inappropriate anywhere (other than possibly certain street corners on Aurora (no... even there)). she should be pistol whipped for showing it the light of day...

And it has nothing to do with the boobies...

Yeah, I suspect most of what is deeply wrong about ECB can probably be traced to her being from Texas.

I think she was arrested by the fashion police. It had to be said.

Yikes. Um, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have even been allowed into our prom in that dress. Teh kids these days!

Although, I'm sort of hoping her date wore what Obama's wearing in that "art" one post down.

I do not know a single attentive and involved parent that would let their child so much as put on that dress.

At least the dress isn't as bad as the one that Jenna Bush made her twin sister Barbara wear ...

With slight alterations, that dress could have been turned into an item at American Apparel. And then Erica would complain about an ad featuring it.

I just think that dress is just too hoochie mamma for the judges to respond seriously.

Bah.

I've chaperoned a few proms in my day and have yet to see anything resembling your examples of prom fashion.

Actually, the kids tend to dress quite conservatively. The noticeable difference from my high school days is the dancing, which is more like dry-humping.

Isnt that Tom De Lay's old district?

Of course, if on the other hand Maxim or FHM were promoting this as a prom dress, ECB would be outraged.

I think the rule of faux feminism is if The Man doesn't like your boobies, they're feminist boobies, But if A Man likes them, they're sexist boobies. Or maybe there is no rule and it varies on some kind of cycle.

Arrested? You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Hasn't anyone in Texas ever seen a bikini? A bikini is much more revealing than any of those prom dresses, but nobody's ever been arrested for wearing one, have they?

Here's 2007's Miss Texas wearing one. Did they call out the Rangers to take her away?

for the record, I went to a trashy-ass prom and if this girl had been there she would have been kicked out and laughed at.

for the record, I went to a trashy-ass prom and if this girl had been there she would have been kicked out and laughed at.

for the record, I went to a trashy-ass prom and if this girl had been there she would have been kicked out and laughed at.

When is the "teh (insert plural noun)" meme going to die? As in "teh boobies," "teh menz" or "teh internets." So, so played out.

When people stop typing so darned fast, teh Genuine Article.

Credit goes to digg for unearthing this list of guidelines the students had to sign and were expected to adhere to for admittance:

1. Only one inch of the midsection can be shown
2. Bare back are acceptable
3. Slits in the dresses can be no more than three inches above the knee
4. See through fabrics should not be in places which reveal private body parts
5. Proper undergarments must be worn
6. Tennis shoes of any kind are unacceptable

She was definitely in violation of #1. The handcuffs came out when she refused to leave. This is a total non-story.

Worth noting: The high school Taylor goes to is 58 percent black; Sugar Land, in contrast, has a black population of just five percent.

@20, the fact that segregation still exists is always worth noting

#19, Erica is allergic to facts.

The girl was in violation of 2 seprate rules, she signed and agreed to adhere to.

1. She was not wearing panties. 2. She was showing way more skin than allowable.

Asking Erica to include these facts in her reporting is a bit of a stretch.

Afterall, she's an advocate, not a journalist.

Prom was always depressing in that way even when I went six years ago - 17 year old girls, as an aggregate, have absolutely no taste. The 17 year old boys with their hoodies, baseball caps on sideways, and white sneakers, were just as bad.

@21:

I missed the part where ECB explains that this is THE school where ALL the black kids are REQUIRED to go. would you please point out the citation?

Or could it be a High school in a predominately black neighborhood?...

My High School had a disproportionate ratio of Catholics... (Some thought it was because it was a Catholic school... but now I know better.)

I wouldn't have kicked her out. But I would have punched her in the stomach. Maybe piss in her hair a little bit. "You love it, bitch!"

Maybe not a good prom outfit, but it's swell for a Star Trek convention...

Watch out Poe... she looks like she may keep razor blades in her wig...

@17 I agree. Typing "teh" for "the" is as horrible an affection as dotting i's with hearts or smiley faces.

I looked up the history of this orthographical travesty and it started as an inside joke amongst expert code-writers and gamers and is now a tag for poseurs.

my date's dress was victorian-demure, but i totally got laid. the clothing means nothing (though: no panties - how did they know that?).

let them dress any way they want. its fucking high school.

Better than being from Humble, TX:

Texas teens tell police they converted skull into bong

@ 12: I don't think the dress is "feminist." I think it's stupid that she was ARRESTED for wearing it (after offering to leave if they gave her her money back). I think a feminist like me and an anti-feminist like you can at least agree that hauling a high school kid off to jail for her choice of clothes is a bit fucked up.

@ 22: She violated a school rule, not the law.

and @ 20: Uh, it's worth noting that a hotel in an uptight, very wealthy, mostly white neighborhood singled out a black teenager and, instead of having her kicked out for violating school rules, had her ARRESTED by the POLICE. I think it's pretty obvious why I was pointing that out.

@31 - they were watching to make sure she didn't steal the towels and the soap. They already were using the sheets for hoods ...

I went to a rural high school in West Texas and we weren't even allowed to have a prom. Dancing is the devil's work, you know.

You don't think that perhaps they tried to kick her out and the situation escalated to the point where someone outside of the high school called the cops? Because that's what I get from all the articles I read. And its not like she got charged with anything. They took her home for crying out loud.

@31 ECB

It's surreal to read a paragraph where, in the first sentence, you accurately describe what she got arrested for, that is, refusing to leave, and then, one sentence later, you change it to say she got arrested for her choice of clothes. Read it out loud to yourself and tell me if you think it sounds weird. Seriously.

I think the only thing that is fucked up is that she didn't get her money back, but it's not fucked up enough to write a story about. Prom tickets aren't like $1,000, as far as I know.

Plus, did they take her to jail? Or take her home?

And, excuse me, I'm the feminist here.

I think a feminist like me and an anti-feminist like you

LOL. For Christ's sake, why do you hate women so much, elenchos? What's the matter with you?!

why require clothes at all, it's so prudish. when they grind dance butt to groin, it's not sex, it's arts expression.

stop repressing the young folks.

I agree. Naked proms would be a lot more honest.

she was on private property, she was asked to leave, she refused, she was escorted away by the cops. end of story.

considering this happened in texas, in my extremely biased and highly unflattering opinion -- which is based entirely upon conjecture and various sub-plots from "dallas" (sorry ECB, i'm an unapologetic texist) -- she's lucky she didn't have her head blown off. correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't this how scores are settled in the lone star state?

31

Well it wasn't that obvious. How could anyone have guessed from your post that hotel was in a white wealthy neighborhood?

Erica,
I really liked the light blue dress you linked to as "these."

Please let me know where you saw it.

http://slutty-prom-dress.girl-dress-up-games.com/

I found this site and thought it was appropriate ;)

@31:

Seriously though, being from Houston (where Sugarland is a suburb), this story isn't like it's a shocker.

I've noticed over the past several years how black teens seem to edge more towards the "Pimps Up - Hoes Down" dress for their Proms. It's inappropriate period, even more so at a "school function" regardless of where it's held or how much the ticket was.

I do find it a bit appalling that you feel it adds punch to make this story sound as if it were racially motivated. That's complete bunk, as far as I'm concerned. Sugarland isn't a " Very wealthy, White, Uptight Neighborhood"... at least, not any more. Perhaps you need to drive through your old stomping grounds. You're thinking River Oaks, where even the poor kids know better than this.

I think the more pertinent question is "WHO gave her the idea that this mutilated hand towel was appropriate for public wear?" More importantly, WHERE was her MOTHER or other Parental figure?

This fashion atrocity should have been stopped LONG before the school should have had a vote. Hmm.. according to the Prom Agreement, OH LOOK, she already knew this was not appropriate. Her intention to wear this dress was to cause exactly what happened, needless garbage in the news. This is made very clear when she told the news crew that she "wasn't wearing underwear anyway..."

I'm sure the screaming and cursing level was fairly high, not to mention the stir of "What's going on!?" causing a crowd from within the prom as well as without. As a hotel manager, I'd have had the screamer and crew escorted out by security/police too. You didn't mention whether these were off duty policemen who were providing security for the Prom (a good idea these days, period).

Really, check your facts, or at least express both sides. Blathering Racism in Texas is really in poor taste these days. We're all Mexicans now.