Page 45 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

30 . The Shadow of Whiteness

in tension with and in opposition to the nonmainstream. What is espe-
cially evident in looking at consumption is that in both the North and the
South white identity often has been performed and displayed in opposi-
2
tion to ideas about black consumption. Thus, current images of super-
predators and the like draw upon a centuries-old fund of images and as-
sumptions that have a long and complex relationship with both white
and black lives. Historical images show a strong affinity to present-day
conceptions of "combat consumers" and help to demonstrate most clear-
ly the ways in which the consumer sphere has been and continues to be
marked as white, since these images are generated primarily in the white
imagination and for white consumption. It is important to dissect these
images in part because despite a concerted effort on the part of social sci-
entists to subvert them with data and theories these works have had little
impact on the frequency with which blacks continue to be portrayed as
poor, and the poor continue to be portrayed as morally corrupt. Together
with the historical legacy entangling black and white consumption, these
portrayals constitute a sort of "shadow of whiteness" that often colors
the way consumption of and by African Americans is understood.
Denied Entry
Slavery, segregation, economic discrimination, and racism have shaped
the tenor of African American life for over two hundred years, and for
most African Americans consumption has a long and ugly association
with the most profound sorts of violence. The weight of this history
bears heavily and directly on contemporary African Americans and has
ensured that their relationship to the consumer realm is complicated in
ways that are just beginning to be investigated. Likewise, the weight of
this history bears heavily on the nonblack buying and manufacturing
public. Subject to fantasizing the "inner city" youthful consumer as a
brand-crazed crackhead (or crack seller) who is willing to kill for sneak-
ers, a flashy gold chain, or a car—what I call "combat consumers"—the
general public often mistakenly assumes its only relationship to these
terrifying youths is as actual or potential victim of their predations. The
relationship of the general public to these imagined consumers is much
more complex than this: as members of a society that has for centuries
systematically constrained the ways in which black consumers engage
with the marketplace (both symbolically and materially), the wider pub-
lic is implicated in creating the problems it bemoans.
The media consistently exaggerate the proportion of African Ameri-
cans who are poor, on welfare, or who commit crimes to get coveted