Page 107 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

92 . Hemmed In and Shut Out

and considering the large packages of cookies at the back of the store,
they decide to buy candy and gum that Bob keeps in a glass case behind
which he is stationed. The girls come up to the counter in a bunch. "Can
I have a Twix bar?" Tionna asks. "I want Juicyfruit," says Natalia. "A
glazed donut," Asia adds. The girls dig into the deep pockets of their
oversized jeans and pull out bills and warm coins. Bob dispenses candy,
picks up the money, and counts out change, all the while holding a con-
versation with another customer. Throughout, Bob has kept as much of
an eagle eye on the girls as did the "white lady" at Claire's, but this atten-
tion does not elicit comments—or discomfort—from them, either inside
the store or later.
Children's experiences in and understanding of these two stores are
entwined in multiple ways not only with their consumer activities, but
also their identity and experience as social beings. The forms of social in-
equality that come to bear upon children in different consumption sites
are a primary factor in shaping their experience in and understanding of
those places; in that process, children also build apprehensions of them-
selves and the society in which they live. For the Newhallville girls, being
black, young, female, and poor is an experience that is at once disparate
and fundamentally similar in Claire's and Bob's. This variety of experi-
ence is the result of the obvious differences in the stores' merchandise
and geographic locations, and from the ways in which these stores, their
merchandise, and personnel are enmeshed with the politics and power
struggles of daily life. The stores themselves do not create the inequalities
of race and gender (for example) or experiences thereof, in a vacuum;
Bob's and Claire's are not worlds unto themselves, whose borders end
with the square footage identified in the lease or deed. In New Haven state
and local policies are profoundly implicated in the formation and main-
tenance of an urban landscape characterized by various forms of social
inequality that are especially evident along lines of race, labor, and econo-
my. Thus, the city and state are also centrally important to children's con-
sumer lives: housing and residential policies, taxation, employment, and
education opportunity shape urban geography and social experience, in-
cluding those taking place in and with relation to Bob's and Claire's.

The Polarization of the Consumer Sphere
Below the surface of a seemingly carefree shopping environment lies
an underworld of gang violence, abductions, carjackings, armed rob-
beries, sexual assaults, and crimes against young children. Indeed, in
some ways malls represent ideal locations for criminals—vast parking