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.