Page 92 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

"What Are You Looking At, You White People?" . 77

School Lunch
Tionna got up from the lunch table, remembering that she had a bag of cook-
ies up in the classroom, and ran up to get them. She came back down with the
cookies—a package of chocolate chip, two packages of wafer cookies, and
one of Nutter Butters. She had bought them at Bob's (a local corner store) the
other day with her grandmother. She said I could have some chocolate chip
ones. She also let some other kids have them—handing them out in a casual
fashion to those sitting near her. She gave the last three cookies in the pack to
Carlos, who was sitting next to me.
Stephen, the boy who sold gimp in the classroom, was also sharing his
homemade M&M-studded cookies, giving one to the person next to him and
one to Natalia, and then handing me the baggie, which now held only broken
pieces and crumbs, telling me I could have the rest. Teyvon, who was eternally
hungry, was looking downhearted because nobody had given him any cook-
ies. I took a large crumb for myself from the baggie Stephen had given me,
then I gave Teyvon the rest.

Lunchtime was always a period of intense interaction among the kids.
Trading portions of school lunch, homemade lunches, or cadging money
to buy cookies—which the "lunch ladies" (as the cafeteria workers are
called) sold for twenty-five cents for a pack of three—were activities con-
ducted in a fevered pitch that often rivals the trading floor of the New
York Stock Exchange.
The intensity of the lunch period was heightened by the fact that this
half-hour was the children's only free time during the day. Fear of drug-
related violence had led the school's principal to keep students indoors
from the first morning bell until afternoon dismissal. There was no recess
period—that is, neither indoor nor outdoor playtime—and the gym peri-
od, which children attended two or three times a week, was likewise con-
ducted inside. In order to keep the lunchroom chaos to a simmer, classes
of children waiting to join the cafeteria line had to sit at their tables with
their hands folded on the table and lay their heads down on top of their
hands. They were not allowed to talk. Lunch periods were one half-hour
long; kids sometimes waited as long as twenty minutes to get their food,
which left them with only ten minutes to sit and eat their meal. Some-
times it seemed as if kids had no sooner taken their seats at the table with
their lunch tray when the school's security guard began pushing the
rolling garbage can past the table telling students to hurry up, finish eat-
ing, and throw away their remains.