The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power: Media, Race, Economics

The second edition of 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. A new  foreword by Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and  Urban Policy at the New School (in New York, USA), and a new chapter on  cryptocurrencies are included in this new edition.