Bostonist: No More Mallrats?

Zach

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:18:09 -0500

I live a few miles from that mall, and the Hispanicity of Holyoke really has nothing to do with it -- it's the only good mall for twenty miles in any direction, and everyone goes there. Among the high school students wandering around town there is talk of a boycott. I've never had a problem in Holyoke, and I've been to the mall only about ten thousand times since birth.

Matt

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:37:14 -0500

Yes, they are very mean, and they beat up my grandmother. And I liked the mall. Maybe I was a thugah.

Joel

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 09:41:28 -0500

Growing up in central connecticut my friends and I would occasionaly take a trip up to that mall, just as an excuse to drive somewhere "far" and get away from the same crap in our home town. We went there maybe a handful of times before I said "to hell with it I'm not going back" because of the problem this post is talking about. Maybe I was just too nerdy for my own good, but a trip to a friggin' mall shouldn't be stressfull and akin to a warzone. awww hell naw. lastly - in every case where me and my stupid "alterna-teen" friends were accosted they were white teens. white, black, hispanic, asian - thug kids are thug kids.

Matt

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 09:12:32 -0500

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/2530840.html If you check out that link you will notice that Holyoke is 41.4% Hispanic, where as the Massachusetts average is 6.8%, according to 2000 US Census data. So I would say that's probably the exact problem, though no ACLU involvement has been meantioned.

Josh

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 08:56:46 -0500

As far as I know, there is no law preventing age discrimination against teenagers by private businesses (kids, after all, are subject to a wide variety of age-based restrictions). In other places where malls have imposed these sorts of rules, I've noticed that the kids most affected are frequently black and hispanic, and I know that the ACLU and Urban League have attacked the age limits as proxies for race restrictions, arguing that the mall rules are not responses to actual crime but to white patrons' discomfort around large groups of kids of color. Being as I don't know anything about Holyoke, I can't say whether that might be the case there.