I could smash your head open like a melon, but nice shoes

It's the biggest cliche around, but I have to say "only in New York" to a truly weird incident last Friday night.
Navigating through the huge theatre crowds in Times Square just before 11, I wound up behind two fairly short middle-aged white guys and a woman. Ahead of them was a tall black youth with a shaved head.
I don't know what set the scene, but the kid turned around and said to one of them, "I could knock you out, but I like that polo shirt." The scared whiteys say nothing. The kid turns and said to stop talking about him, because, again, "I could knock you out, but that's a cool polo."
Where does this kind of thinking end? "I could axe-murder you, then chainsaw your remains and feed it to my dog, but love the socks." In the heart of the great consumerist machine, it was consumerism that stopped the kid and saved the whiteys.
Some one should put up a sign now. "Polo: Stops Threatening Negroes Every Time."