Tobacco.org

Tobacco Companies Target Black Community for Disease and Death  

“You've come a long way, baby,” was a 1970s advertising slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes, at least one of which featured a Black woman with an afro, African print tunic top and bell-bottom jeans. Considering, however, that Blacks were at one time forced, as slaves, to pick tobacco and bring great wealth to Caucasian-owned companies, some disagree that Blacks have come a long way when they are the group most devastated by the tobacco industry today.

La Tanisha Wright, Western Region Director for the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN), recently presented a 5 hour “Follow the Signs” seminar in Denver, Colorado to “raise awareness about how Big Tobacco specifically targets Black communities.” She laid out the facts that slave labor made the tobacco industry rich and that now, half of all deaths in the Black community are from smoking-related diseases; more Blacks die from lung cancer than any other group in the U.S.; 72% of Blacks are exposed to secondhand smoke, compared to 50% of Whites and 45% of Hispanics; and that smoking or secondhand smoke plays a large part in the high rate of asthma amongst Black adults and children.

Wright finds the statistics disturbing and thinks the disparities have much to do with tobacco companies targeting “urban” areas which are referred to as the “focus” market of cigarette companies. She knows this very well as she was employed for a leading company as a tobacco industry manager “responsible for developing promotional programs for urban markets.” After four years of firsthand experience, in 2005 she kissed the industry good bye and joined NAATPN to begin spreading the word and sounding an alarm to Blacks across the country.

Many Blacks are unaware that cigarette companies were some of the first to advertise with Black media in the 1950s; that they study and learn everything about Blacks in order to devise advertising campaigns to “lure” new smokers as customers; that the companies, Wright said, will do anything to sell nicotine – even lie and practice deception, and that the industry “preys” on Blacks because there is no outcry and they know they can get away with it. . . .

From the days of slavery, when Blacks were not only required to pick tobacco but were also bought with tobacco payments, to today, the industry appears to need the Black consumer or slave to survive. Wright even used a quote by Harriet Tubman to describe how she views her mission. “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

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I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.
Harriet Tubman quote cited by La Tanisha Wright, Western Region Director for the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN), in her “Follow the Signs” seminar.