Page 144 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

Anthropologist on Shopping Sprees . 129

anguish as she showed me the marks. Deanna's relationship with her
mother also seemed tense, partly out of jealousy over the close relation-
ship between her mother and Deanna's sister, but tension also seemed to
emerge around issues of mutual aid and paying of bills. Deanna's rent
was largely paid for with a Section 8 voucher, but Deanna felt that her
mother expected her to pay too much of the electricity and gas bill.
Deanna also did not have a car and felt that her mother was not gener-
ous about taking her to the store for grocery shopping, demanding ei-
ther money or food stamps as payment for the favor.
Cherie's role in this complex web of material and emotional jockey-
ing seemed to be that of an eager, placating human pinball, quick of wit
and quick on her feet, working hard to make everyone around her
happy and trying to keep out of the way of flashing tempers. She was
not, however, just an insecure little victim, and shared a warm and jokey
intimacy with her mother, who did not baby Cherie much, speaking and
kidding with her like a pal. Deanna was also watchful and protective of
her daughter, and my first encounter with Deanna was really an en-
counter with her disembodied voice—Cherie was outside trying out a
new skateboard and Deanna was watching and directing her every move
from an upstairs window. But Deanna was moody and prone to drink-
ing, and Cherie seemed ever watchful of her changing disposition.
Cherie's shopping trip reflects these concerns about mediating actual
and potential conflicts between these three imposing women in her life
and, most of all, anticipating her mother's wants and needs. Even in the
planning stages of her shopping trip, Cherie thought she would buy her
mother a pair of sneakers "because I took my mother's sneakers because
I needed them for junior police." The junior police was part of a commu-
nity outreach program designed to improve the touchy relations between
police and residents of certain New Haven neighborhoods, among them
Newhallville. Kids participating in the program went to special events,
had educational and training sessions, and wore uniforms. Black shoes
were required with Cherie's uniform, and Deanna had given her own
black sneakers to her daughter so that she was fully equipped. Cherie
knew that replacing those sneakers with the money from this shopping
trip would make her mother very happy, and that it would impress her
quite a bit:

You're going to try them on to see if they fit your mom?
Yes. She can fit them. She's going to say, "$14.95, child? What were you
thinking?"