Page 152 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

Anthropologist on Shopping Sprees . 137

the consumption of kids like these. When the gap is noted, it is primarily
approached in terms of kids' frustration with not being able to buy what
they yearn for. While children do harbor these frustrations, the shopping
trips also showed that a concern for status items, brands, and fashion
does not exist at a constant level and exerts a fluctuating force in chil-
dren's consciousness.
Sheila and Tarelle, for example, gave me a long and detailed educa-
tion on the ins and outs of athletic shoes—which brands, models, and
colors are "slammin"' and which aren't. Even once inside Payless, Sheila
pointed out to me the various "wannabe" models of sneakers lined up
on the shelves:

Sheila tells me that at Payless they have "wannabe" Reeboks, Nikes.
She goes to a bunch of sneakers and holds them up one by one, telling
me what kinds of wannabes they are. "These are wannabe Huaraches,"
she says, holding up a pair of sneakers with a cutout top. "They're by
Nike."

Sheila and Tarelle even pointed out the sneakers that Tanika had
bought earlier for herself, saying that they looked stupid and that they
would never wear them. These attitudes did not stop the girls, however,
from each buying a pair of shoes in the store: Sheila bought a pair of
multicolored Docksider-type shoes, and Tarelle bought a pair of blue
suede clogs. Kids had a keen eye for brands that was undeniable, but it
was rivaled by their equally adept eye for bargains.
While on one hand kids would tell me with utter certainty that
"everyone" was wearing Air Jordans, and that they really wanted a pair,
they would duck into Payless a few minutes later and come out with a
ten-dollar pair of shoes or sneakers. I became, upon reflection, very curi-
ous about who this supposed "everyone" was since, as I pointed out to
Stephen, only two kids at his school actually wore Air Jordans, and he
was one of them: this hardly constituted anything approaching "every-
one." This was an imaginary "everyone" nonetheless experienced at
some level by kids as being real, though not necessarily immediate. This
"everyone" is similar to the real but nonexistent amoral and pathologi-
cal consumer that these kids are so often portrayed as being. In both in-
stances these images possess a powerful influence, one at odds with an
on-the-ground situation.
The shopping trips were also striking for what children did not do,
even when they were with me, a singularly lenient adult. Family, house-
hold, and community dynamics in Newhallville did not foster the kind