Page 80 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

"What Are You Looking At, You White People?" . 65

comprehensive. My intent is to provide a sense of the tremendous range,
flexibility, subtlety, and complexity of consumption in the everyday lives
of these children: the way in which their social relationships are forged
by and through consumption processes, and the ways in which con-
sumption opens up and closes off social territories to them. At the same
time, children's own powers of imagination and transformation are cen-
tral to the form and tenor of these experiences and, though likely to
change substantially as they enter their teen years, give some indication
that the urban jungle is not what it is often made out to be.

At Home
August 1992. When I arrived for an impromptu visit with Tionna, she came to
the door braiding her hair as she walked. Her grandmother, Celia, was in the
dim bedroom that they shared, sitting atop the chenille bedspread, and she
said she was going to get back into bed as soon as Tionna was done doing
her hair. Celia did not feel well and said she'd been running a fever all week.
It was time, she said, to do some back-to-school shopping for Tionna; she was
hoping that someone would be able to give her a ride out to K-mart. The store
was several miles away and, while accessible by bus, the route was inconve-
nient and time-consuming.
Tionna spied a glazed donut lying on a paper napkin on top of the bureau.
"Ma, is that your donut?" Tionna asked her grandmother. "Yes," Celia an-
swered, and Tionna intoned, "I want one . . ." "Well, they're your grand-
mother's donuts," Celia said (Tionna often calls her grandmother "Ma" and
her great-grandmother "Grandma"). "You have to ask her if you can have
one." Either Tionna did not want to ask or Celia decided she did not need the
whole donut because she quickly called Tionna back and told her she could
eat half. "I won't be able to eat the whole thing, anyway," she said gruffly.

In a way, Tionna and Celia made up a separate household that coexisted
with Ella in her home. Tionna and Celia shared a room, and a bed as
well. When at home, they generally kept to their small room. There was
some tension between Celia and Tionna on the one hand and Ella on the
other, especially regarding the day-to-day tasks of raising Tionna and
maintaining the house. Ella complained that Celia did not want her to
have any say-so in Tionna's upbringing but added that Tionna's mother,
before her death, had specifically asked Ella to take care of the little girl.
Ella complained as well that neither her daughter nor great-granddaughter
helped her to keep the house clean, something Ella was no longer able to
do as well as she would have liked. These tensions had given rise to a