Page 191 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

176 . Conclusion

children's shopping trips only begin with the act of shopping. Newhallville
children's reasons for seeking out particular items and their capacity for
"spending my money wisely" are socially rooted in attempts to please
caretakers, efforts to avoid the disappointment or anger of parents, the
desire to share with siblings, and anticipation of the pleasures of gift-
giving. These relationships, in turn, are shaped by the straitened econom-
ic circumstances of these families, circumstances ensuring that consump-
tion is often for these children not a realm of unbridled fantasy, but rather
one where fantasies must be reined in. This is not to say that questions of
fashion or style, fad and fancy have no place in children's consumption.
Such status items as Cross-Colours clothes and Nike sneakers were with-
out doubt consistent objects of intense desire and scrutiny, coveted by
some or lovingly cared for by others. But, as one young man pointed out
in a group discussion at a neighborhood drop-in center, the emotional
energy devoted to these possessions—or objects of desire—needs to be
understood in its proper context. As he explained:

White kids, they get things given to them. Their parents buy them a
car, sneakers, they have everything. A black man, he has to work hard
for what he gets, gold chains, sneakers. We don't have so many things.
So when somebody comes along and steps on your sneakers, it's the
same as if they went up to that other guy's brand-new Porsche and
bashed it.
While white kids (among others) might debate the assertion that "they
have everything," the important point made by this man is that people
value the things they own, whether these are sneakers or Porsches. He
urges us to remember consumer lives are not simply expressions of indi-
vidual desire. In New Haven, these lives cannot be understood apart
from such processes as urban renewal, deindustrialization, the drug
economy, informal segregation, and public transportation, since these
are the processes that have been critical in shaping the consumption
horizons of the black community there.
One place where these processes are manifest is in geographic spaces,
which are as important to consumption as are individual desires, likes,
and dislikes. A racially charged downtown, a sexually threatening neigh-
borhood, a local area thronged with liquor stores, storefront churches,
and corner stores—these provide distinct geographic contexts for con-
sumption within which multiple facets of identity are configured and re-
configured. Aside from providing children with different commodities to
purchase or covet, these distinct geographic locations open up (and close