Reflections of a Black Middle-Class Consumer: Caught Between Two Worlds Or Getting the Best of Both?

Abstract:

Consumer behavior studies traditionally have treated Blacks as a homogeneous, monolithic group. However, the Black community, like the white community, has always shown evidence of diversity and stratification. Even during the period of slavery, there were social distinctions among slaves based on where they worked, eg in the fields or in the plantation house (Pinkney 1969). However, as noted by several researchers (Robinson and Rao 1986; Reid, Stagmaier, and Reagan 1986; Williams 1989), most consumer behavior studies have concentrated primarily on low-income Blacks, generally women, in urban areas, and often have generalized the results to all Black consumers. Within the next few years, though, it is projected that over half of all Black workers will be middle-class, casting them into critical roles as consumers of goods and services, in addition to becoming the focus of greater research attention. Both empirical and ethnographic studies have fallen victim to this fallacy of focusing on the low-income Black consumer. For example, one empirical study on perception of television commercials compared children from white middle-class schools and neighborhoods with children from Black inner city schools and neighborhoods to reach conclusions about the differences between Blacks and whites (Donohue, Meyer, and Henke 1978). This obviously was more of a class difference than ethnic group difference. In an ethnographic study the ghetto community was advocated as the setting to pursue research on the effects of ancestry and kinship on consumption practices among Blacks since the researcher argued the ghetto community …

Año de publicación:

1992

Keywords:

Fuente:

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