Page 145 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

130 . Anthropologist on Shopping Sprees

Why? Is that a lot?
It's a lot for me these days, she says. But she'll say, "Thank you for getting
them."
/ bet she will.
I'll get them for my dear old mother. Because six might be too small, she
could grow into these.
You think she will?
Okay. I'm buying my mother a pair of shoes, size six and a half. That's all
I'm saying.
Cherie's decision to buy her mother new shoes may have been calculated,
in part, to fend off any bad feelings Deanna may have been having about
having given her own shoes to her daughter and then having to go with-
out herself. Her "dear old mother" was not her only concern, however,
and once Cherie had decided to buy one person in her household a gift,
she began to wonder what she should get for her grandmother, aunt, and
little brother. She bought some small bags of candy for her aunt and
grandmother and did not get anything for her brother. (Cherie's joking
comments about buying a cap gun to "murder my brother" hinted at a
bit of tension and even jealousy she was feeling at his arrival, which may
explain her omission.) After we finished shopping, Cherie spent her last
couple of dollars on a strawberry frozen yogurt for herself at the mall's
food court. Cherie's shopping trip took less than an hour, and its culmi-
nating moment was not the purchases themselves but the distribution of
the gifts.
When we returned to Cherie's house, it was already dark outside, and
we found her mother, grandmother, aunt, and new baby brother in her
grandmother's living room. Cherie's grandmother was holding the new
baby, who slept in her lap. Cherie's aunt Lynn was off from work that
night and sat sprawled in a living room chair, wearing a baseball cap,
acid-washed jeans, and a frown. Deanna had just gotten a perm from her
mother, who did under-the-table beauty parlor work out of her home.
With a towel over her shoulders and conditioner in her hair, Deanna sat
on the couch, watching TV with the others.
Cherie could hardly contain her excitement as we came into the
house and, beaming intensely, put the package from Payless down on
the couch, saying, "Look what I got!" "What's that?" Deanna said in a
high, girl-baby voice. Cherie told her mother that it was a present for
her, that she bought it for her on her shopping trip. Deanna answered