Book ID: CBB653382427

Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette (2021)

unapi

Wailoo, Keith (Author)


University of Chicago Press


Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 392
Language: English

Spanning a century, Pushing Cool reveals how the twin deceptions of health and Black affinity for menthol were crafted--and how the industry's disturbingly powerful narrative has endured to this day. Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known as "the best place to buy menthols." Black smokers overwhelmingly prefer menthol brands such as Kool, Salem, and Newport. All of this is no coincidence. The disproportionate Black deaths and cries of "I can't breathe" that ring out in our era--because of police violence, COVID-19, or menthol smoking--are intimately connected to a post-1960s history of race and exploitation. In Pushing Cool, Keith Wailoo tells the intricate and poignant story of menthol cigarettes for the first time. He pulls back the curtain to reveal the hidden persuaders who shaped menthol buying habits and racial markets across America: the world of tobacco marketers, consultants, psychologists, and social scientists, as well as Black lawmakers and civic groups like the NAACP. Although menthol smoking first emerged in the twentieth century as a health deception and free of racial messaging, today most Black smokers buy menthols, and calls to prohibit their circulation hinge on a history of the industry's targeted racial marketing. Ten years ago, when Congress banned flavored cigarettes as criminal enticements to encourage youth smoking, menthol cigarettes were also slated to be banned. Through a detailed study of internal tobacco industry documents, Wailoo exposes why they weren't and how they remain so popular with Black smokers. Spanning a century, Pushing Cool reveals how the twin deceptions of health and Black affinity for menthol were crafted--and how the industry's disturbingly powerful narrative has endured to this day.

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Reviewed By

Review Rana Hogarth (2022) Review of "Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 894-895). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB653382427/

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Authors & Contributors
Proctor, Robert N.
Marshall, Thomas R.
Starks, Tricia
Iida, Kaori
Mary C. Neuburger
Fields, Barbara J.
Concepts
Tobacco
Smoking
Tobacco industry
Public health
Science and society
Social sciences
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century, early
Modern
Places
United States
Japan
Argentina
Turkey
Balkan Peninsula
Russia
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
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