Alex Kuczynski: Black Like Me
To the city below 110th Street, Harlem is simultaneously unrefined and a daringly sophisticated community, stretching the boundaries of humanity and culture in a way that few other American neighborhoods do. The kid on the corner feels uncomfortable that his mother won't, or can't afford to, shop there. But the people buying the condos at the nearby Lenox (where a penthouse recently sold for $2.4 million) and the Dwyer (condos priced to more than $1 million) may be happy they can find a hand-tailored suit at N, for prices starting at $1,000, without having to go two miles south.
Alex Kuczynski hauls her pale skinny ass to Harlem in today's Times to show the rest of Caucasian New York that it's safe for whitey to go shopping up there. In addition to empathizing with the "teenager in a baseball cap, gold medallion and pants that started around his upper thighs" and making a series of "see, black guys drive a car like this" observations, Special K takes on gentrification, blogs, and Oprah. It's a bravura performance, particularly if you feel there's no better advocate for this city's increasingly marginalized African-American community than a frequent cosmetic surgery patient who writes a shopping column for the New York Times. Fight the power, Alex! Also, props for correct use of Negro lingo like "'hood."
