Page 93 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

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

Exchange episodes, such as the one above with Tionna, Stephen, and
the distribution of cookies, took place daily at lunch. Having something
to give—and something that other children wanted—invested Tionna
and Stephen with great power: they meted out gifts to a select few among
the many who were loudly clamoring or quietly eying the treasure. This
was sometimes done with an air of careless largesse, as if the receiver was
almost invisible; at other times those who received were chosen with
elaborate care, and relationships were often cemented or celebrated
through exchanges of particularly prized foods.
Another element to the lunchtime exchange scene was the content
and quality of the school lunches served. The fifth graders received
lunches the same size as first graders and were often still hungry after
eating. Most children told me they did not like these lunches in the first
place. Meals were sometimes made up of a curious, if not bizarre, com-
bination of items. The day of the cookie exchange lunch consisted of a
scoop of tuna salad, a pile of cut-up iceberg lettuce, peanut butter and
jelly between graham crackers (this item wrapped in a printed foil so it
looked like it might be an ice-cream sandwich, albeit a small one), and a
"wafer cookie." That day some kids had muffins on their trays also. The
muffins looked as if they might have been left over from breakfast.
Kids very often refused to eat all or part of the lunch served; if they
were willing to eat part of it (for instance, the peanut butter and jelly on
graham crackers) they would barter vigorously to get someone else's por-
tion of that item and "Are you going to eat that?" was a phrase often re-
peated throughout lunchtime, in concert with "Can I have your milk?"
or "Do you want your pizza'?" The negotiation of relationships between
children lay clear on the face of these interactions and I have seen children
pointedly dump uneaten portions of their lunches—coveted by others at
their table—into the garbage. As a gesture of rejection, such an action
could hardly be more decisive.
It was in these interactions with each other that I saw children's de-
sires most clearly expressed. It was the only situation where kids con-
sistently made requests of other people: they wheedled, begged, and
pushed to get what they wanted. This direct expression of their wants
may have been made possible, in part, because they were among their
own; such begging and pushing was rarely tolerated by their elders. In
addition, because the lunch was provided to them by the relatively
anonymous school cafeteria, it did not enter their lives already enmeshed
in the complicated world of obligation and reciprocity that family meals
were likely to embody. These wants, their expression, and the negotia-