Page 113 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

98 . Hemmed In and Shut Out

Interior of Bob's store.

making hot items like steak and cheese sandwiches and Jamaican beef
patties. There is only one brand of nearly every item: Heinz mustard,
2
Morton salt, Domino sugar, Ragu spaghetti sauce. Much of the shelf
space is half filled or simply empty. Bob rules over his small store with a
stern, paternalistic benevolence and while dispensing advice about pur-
chases, life, education, and love makes his strict standards for hard work
and upright living no secret. While some shopkeepers in the area may oc-
casionally extend credit to customers, letting children who are known to
them repay small sums (fifty cents or a dollar) if they are short one day,
Bob does not. He does not disdain the food stamps that many of his cus-
tomers pay him with, but neither does he bend any of the rules—allowing
them to make small purchases with stamps worth ten or twenty dollars in
order to get cash change in return, for instance.
Bob is often caught between his roles as social network member and
entrepreneur. There are two video-game machines at the front of the
store. The machines bring in about $300 a week; he gets half. Bob told
me that he feels he is doing something to keep kids busy and off the
street by having the games there. In the next breath he compared playing