Page 156 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

Anthropologist on Shopping Sprees . 141

Miller's assumption that children are passive and/or receptive in
this process is as suspect as the claim that shopping is all about self-
gratification and purchase of surface identities. Seen through the context
of Newhallville children's life circumstances, the picture that emerges
from close observation of what these kids bought when they went on
shopping trips with me is one that contrasts greatly with the common
assumption and assertion that children are primarily responsive, for in-
stance, voicing their "thwarted desires" but not working to actively sat-
isfy those desires, or the desires (or needs) of others. Even more specifi-
cally, poor minority children are often seen as acting on desire but little
else, and with often antisocial results.
The major defining factor of these kids' engagement with the con-
sumer sphere is social inequality, and it is understanding the ways in
which social inequality shapes their lives, including their shopping lives,
which renders visible the political aspects of such "vulgar" activity.
Thus the politics of shopping for these children operates at the intimate
levels of relationships with mothers, siblings, peers, and caretakers, and
at the same time is bound up with "larger" political processes: racism,
poverty, residential and economic segregation, and gender bias.