Page 84 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

"What Are You Looking At, You White People?" . 69

One day, when we were dropping the two younger children off at their
mother's home, a man in his twenties detached himself from a group near the
house and struck up a conversation with me. Within a few minutes he was ask-
ing for my phone number. At that moment Natalia came up behind me and said,
"I think I'm ready to go," deftly cutting the interaction short. "He's probably a
drug dealer," she said with assurance as we walked away. "He probably rapes
little girls," she added.
The girls had just been paid by Natalia's brother, who had given them fif-
teen dollars, eight for Natalia and seven for Tionna. Natalia said she'd been
using the money to help pay for camp. Tionna said she could just spend the
money on whatever she wanted. When I asked her what she bought with it,
she said, "I don't know. Food." "What kind of food?" "I don't know. Just things
to eat!"
The girls began talking about someone who had died, a classmate's grand-
mother. Their friend had missed a few days of school and when she had come
back was acting short-tempered and "babyish." The conversation turned to
what would happen if various people in the girls' families died. "If my grand-
mother died, I'd stay with my great-grandmother," Tionna said matter of factly,
"and if she died I'd have to find my way to Augusta, Georgia." "Maybe you
could stay with me!" Natalia suggested, then went on, "I wouldn't want to go
into foster care, because the foster parents sometimes rape the kids." As we
continued on our walk, Natalia's sandal came unglued from the sole and she
walked along dragging her foot so the sole wouldn't flap against the broken
and glass-littered cement.
After a few minutes Tionna said, "I think men go after little kids because
they can't talk, they can't say anything, because they're little." Natalia didn't
think about this very long. "They go after big kids too," she replied with sure-
ness. "And women too."

Natalia's vision of the lifelong threat of rape, and the matter-of-fact way
in which she delivers this vision, is chilling. The girls' heightened aware-
ness of sexual danger, evident in their everyday conversations about men
"who rape little girls" and the way these men exploit young children
"because they can't say anything because they're little," surfaced again
and again, in varying forms, during the time I spent with them.
These girls find many ways to speak about their fears and frustrations
and, as will be seen later in this chapter, the consumer sphere is one medi-
um they turn to this purpose. The consumer lives of these and other
Newhallville girls are entwined with their emergent sexual awareness in