Where Are You Comin' From, Where Are You Goin' To:
Placing and Black Students' Discursive Construction of Community

CJM Writings > Thesis Home > Chapter 3: Out of Place (intro) > Placing & Shared Territory > Material Contexts of Placing: Hangouts

Kickin' It: Hangouts

Although this section discusses more than one hangout, it focuses on the Union. I also show how the hangout exists as a part of a migration that is both temporal and spatial: temporal, in that community members often arrive at the hangout at specific times, and spatial, in the sense that hangout locations may change. The migration is also historical, since Word of Mouth vernacular often includes stories about the hangouts of the past.

Informants who currently or used to gather at the Union recognize it as a community center among Black students, where people are placed by Face and Word of Mouth. Olympia illustrated how she spent her time at the Union:

I usually try to go outside of the USU, because over there is where mostly the Black students hang out or kick it, if you will, during 12 noon every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it seems like, even though Tuesday and Thursday, there are people there during midday, but it's not as many. But I try to go over there to see what's up, see all my friends that I came to Summer Bridge with, to just socialize. To talk with the people that with which I haven't seen maybe all week, to find out what's going on, find out where there's going to be a party or find out who's done what, or who's got an award for what, just to have a connection, because these are the people in which I feel comfortable with.

I don't worry about expressing my opinion with them because we all know where we're coming from, we all know where we've been, and so from that, it's as if I feel comfortable there, that's like my second home. And so that's like my own little community that I, 'cause it's the closer knit community that is there . . .

Olympia's comments illustrate the significance of the hangout as multiple territories that are shared. At the Union, people gather who can be placed by Face at events/programs of the past (e.g., Summer Bridge orientation) and by Face according to race and ideology ("I don't worry about expressing my opinion with them because we all know where we're coming from . . . like my second home"). Through Word of Mouth, too, members place each other at events or phases that have taken place ("find out who's done what") and at anticipated phases ("find out what's going on, find out where there's going to be a party"). As a material context, the physical territory is a social territory where "one can have a connection," placing one another in shared space.

Even in the shared racialized territory of the hangout, however, one must demonstrate shared territories of other sorts in order to belong. Word of Mouth, when in the form of gossip, can sometimes work against community members, inducing them to leave gathering places such as the Union. Through gossip, a person may be placed in territory s/he did not name: undesirable territory. Steve says that friends of his have stopped hanging out at the Union for this reason:

People always seem to know you, know about you. When you tell one person something they go tell somebody else and the story changes every time and then when it gets back to you, you say, "No, that's not true at all. Do I know you?" and things like that. The gossip part of it makes you sick . . . you know, when you walk in people turn their heads and they start whispering -- things like that.

As a sophomore, Emerald, now a junior, would often stop by the Union. She claims that this year she no longer goes there.

. . . 'cause people talk too much mess, you know, but once your face gets in the picture, people, there are certain people that will sit out there and talk about your shoes, talk about your clothes, talk about your hair, talk about your makeup, talk about who you slept with, or how you're a ho, and you get tired hearing about that. [People who go there] talk about people, you know, find out about parties, but I personally don't go there because people talk too much stuff over there . . . it's like you get ridiculed, you know, people look you up and down, and give you dirty looks, you know . . .

The shared territory of race is not always enough to ensure community membership. Placing doesn't end once one "earns" recognition as a community member, but continues on a regular basis as a part of how community is created and maintained.

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CJM Writings > Thesis Home > Chapter 3: Out of Place (intro) > Placing & Shared Territory > Material Contexts of Placing: Hangouts

Placing and Black Students' Discursive Construction of Community

Copyright (c) 1996, Corinna J. Moebius