Black Plains

Back in 1994 and 1995, jcabana and I were quite fond of a certain comedian's sophomore release, "Roll With the New".  Chris Rock's comedy album was, and still is one of the absolute funniest pieces of comedy ever release.  With bits like "Marion Barry", "OJ", "Can't Cheat", and "Niggaz vs. Black People", it was an instant classic that I find we're still quoting to this very day.  What makes Chris Rock's comedy so good is the fact that the points he makes are very real, whether they're controversial or not.  We see these things every day in our lives and on the news.

Anyways, a  few years later, he released his next album to much fanfare - "Bigger and Blacker".   While I admit that I never loved this album as much as I loved the previous one, there was always one bit that I have found pretty funny.  However, while I found this one joke funny, I never really thought it was actually true.  Well, I'm here to admit I have been proven wrong...again.

The bit I'm talking about is the 'Black Mall" joke.  The basic premise of the joke is that each town has the White Mall, and the Black Mall.  The white mall has stores like Nordstroms and Williams Sonoma where all the richer, crackas go.  Conversely, the black mall has only two types of stores...shoe stores and baby stores, cause 'niggaz is runnin and fuckin'. 

I was reminded of the joke these past few weeks as I've worked up in White Plains, New York for a project.  White Plains is a large, suburban city north of NYC and is in Westchester County, one of the richest and most expensive counties in the entire country.  White Plains hasn't always been the nicest place, but ever since the Donald built some property there, rich whities have been moving in at record rates.  I headed over the the Galleria Mall for a bite for lunch one day and discovered the truth behind Rock's joke.  The Galleria is in the 'not-so-nice' part of town.   Besides the fact that its food court is made up of only fast food and ghetto chinese restaurants, the mall is filled with a not so surprising selection of stores:
- Athlete's Foot
- Champs Sports
- Easy Spirits
- Finish Line
- Foot Locker (3 OF THEM!)
- Foot Action
- Underground Station (urban clothes and shoes)
- DEMO (as jcabana quotes: "it's a nigga clothing store")
- 2 Cute (cheap kids clothes)
- and so on...i think you get the point.

So there really was a black mall...and it was filled with TONS of shoe stores and little kids stores (next to lots of shitty fast food).  Chris Rock really was right...well, half right.  I still hadn't proved the "White Mall" part of his theory.  That is, until I found the "Westchester Mall" down the block.  Let's have a look...

- Gucci, Kenneth Cole, Louis Vuitton, Baby Gap, Abercrombie, Limited Too, Nordstroms, Neiman Marcus, Aveda, Anthropologie, William Sonoma, Movado, Gucci, Armani, Apple Store, Bose, and Starbucks, PF Changs, and of course...build a bear.

I was amazed.  I never thought that Rock's joke was so blatantly true.  I mean, here, in Westchester county new york, just blocks from each other, stood Rock's archetype of the Black and White Malls...almost as if he used them for his inspiration.  What amazes me more is that he made this joke over SEVEN years ago.  Funny, I guess times haven't changed as much as I thought.  Maybe its time for those black people to buy some shoes at footaction and go runnin their way over to the Westchester mall and pick themselves up a nice cup of joe.

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