Page 120 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

Hemmed In and Shut Out . 105

end of his story, even having the money to buy something may not yield a
satisfying conclusion to the story.
The potential for humiliation and dehumanization is ever-present for
most black shoppers, and they protect themselves against the toll it can
take against them in several ways. One of the most important is dressing
up when going downtown to shop: the need to appear respectable to
store personnel, to appear to have money in their pockets or purses, and
thus to be treated with attention and respect is perhaps more tactical
than it is psychological. This effect is more easily accomplished by older
people than younger ones, in part because the fashion preferences of mi-
nority youth are not only more distinctive and recognizable, but specifi-
cally associated with danger. Though within minority neighborhoods it
is relatively easy to spot signs and signals that mark individuals as drug
dealers or gang members, these signals have proven to be generally un-
intelligible to the outside community. Security guards in malls, for in-
stance, are given red-flag guidelines about youth fashions that tend to
brand all minority styles as indicative of potential problems. One such
red flag is raised when two or more kids dress alike. Though it is true that
such dressing alike is a common gang marker, it is also very common in
Newhallville for especially close friends—boys or girls, and sometimes
boyfriend-girlfriend pairs—to buy matching outfits. In New Haven's
social and political culture, black has come to be equated with poor, and
this development has had far-reaching repercussions for Newhallville
children's experiences downtown.
On April 1,1992, a New Haven Register headline read, "White Person
Slips, Falls! Shoppers Shudder; Is Downtown Safe?" (1992). Looking
more closely, it turned out the headline was an April Fool's Day joke pub-
lished by the New Haven Advocate, a local weekly tabloid that emulates
the Village Voice. The headline and spoof article that followed baldly
stated what was more often merely hinted at in the Register: that the mall
is an unsafe place for white shoppers, and African American kids are the
reason why whites feel uncomfortable there. The Advocate's sharp parody
of the New Haven Register front page encouraged readers to call in and
answer the daily "sound-off" question, a regular Register feature: "Would
anyone except a suicidal moron on drugs shop in downtown New
Haven?" The text of the article added further ironic flames to the fire:
The shopper . . . said he will stick to patronizing suburban malls from
now on, "like everybody else around here who's scared to death of
the city." ... Sources say police may call a key suspect in the incident,