Overview
- Describe the origins of the myth of black buying power, the rhetoric around this myth, and the contextualization of how it is propagated.
- Looks at historical figures from across the political spectrum who have propagated the myth of black buying power, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Amos Wilson and Louis Farrakhan
- Provides an original contribution to the racial wealth gap literature
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About this book
This Palgrave Pivot offers a history of and proof against claims of "buying power" and the impact this myth has had on understanding media, race, class and economics in the United States. For generations Black people have been told they have what is now said to be more than one trillion dollars of "buying power," and this book argues that commentators have misused this claim largely to blame Black communities for their own poverty based on squandered economic opportunity. This book exposes the claim as both a marketing strategy and myth, while also showing how that myth functions simultaneously as a case study for propaganda and commercial media coverage of economics. In sum, while “buying power” is indeed an economic and marketing phrase applied to any number of racial, ethnic, religious, gender, age or group of consumers, it has a specific application to Black America.
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Keywords
Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jared A. Ball is Professor of Communication Studies at Morgan State University, USA. He is the curator of imixwhatilike.org, an online hub of multimedia dedicated to the philosophies of emancipatory journalism and revolutionary beat reporting.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power
Authors: Jared A. Ball
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42355-1
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-42355-1Published: 01 April 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 111
Topics: Social Choice/Welfare Economics/Public Choice/Political Economy, Economic History, African American Culture, Cultural Economics