You Feel Almost Like You're Less Than Human: Emotion Management by African American Consumers

• In Event: 2183 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Race and Emotions

Abstract

Sociological perspectives on emotions in service work focus on the emotion work that requires employees to manage their own and others’ emotions to ensure a pleasant consumer experience. This study focuses on the emotion work required of African Americans as consumers. In particular, we focus on experiences of racist microaggressions in consumer settings, the feelings and emotions these experiences provoke among African American consumers, and strategies African Americans develop to avoid and cope with microaggressions and the negative emotions that arise in consumer settings. Drawing from forty semi-structured interviews with African Americans about their consumer experiences, we find that the consumer role can be quite laborious as individuals attempt to avoid and interpret negative experiences, deal with their emotional responses to racialized experiences, and navigate the guilt and shame they feel for letting negative experiences get to them.

Authors

• Martha Crowley, North Carolina State University

• Stacy De Coster, North Carolina State University

• Taurean Brown, North Carolina State University

• Chaniqua Simpson, North Carolina State University