WHY ARE Black smokers drawn to menthol cigarettes? In a 2004 comedy sketch, Dave Chappelle posed as a game show host, quizzing contestants on just that question. One responds hesitantly, “I don’t — I don’t know.” The bell dings. “That is correct,” Chappelle says.
Except that’s not entirely true. Somebody knows.
According to Keith Wailoo, author of Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette, advertising consultants advised their tobacco clients in 1971 that African Americans were “open to exploitation” and lived in neighborhoods that provided “new opportunities in the menthol cigarette market.”
Wailoo examines how the tobacco industry framed Black people as a niche market and the industry’s evolution — its secrets, practices, and power. They “worked so hard to create, nurture, and sustain” smoking preferences and thus birthed the Black menthol stereotype. Prior to the industry’s decision to push the Black market, “‘Negro smokers […] had less experience with Menthol cigarettes than have all smokers.’ In fact, 45 percent of African American smokers surveyed reported a dislike for the menthol taste, well above the 30 percent of all smokers who reported such a distaste.” A people were studied and manipulated into choosing menthols.
Smoking has been a staple of American society for generations — whether tobacco, marijuana, or vape. It surrounds adult life. In the book’s early pages, Wailoo relays his exposure to smoking:
I grew up in New York City in the 1970s in the era of blaxploitation — a term coined during my early years, describing a new genre of Black-themed films like Super Fly (1972) that trafficked in garish stereotypes of urban street life filled with criminality, sex, and new heights of coolness.
Cigarette ads were banned from airing on the radio or television, so “New York was saturated with tobacco posters on buses and subways.” Wailoo became “wary of pushers looking to get kids […] ‘hooked on dope.’” And cigarettes were no exception: “I knew that smokers were also addicts, even if of a less threatening sort, hooked on a legal drug.” Wailoo’s diligent research leaves little room for conjecture, making a coherent and engaging story out of a century of conversations, advertising, and activism for and against smoking. He explains:
Many of the sources for this book comes from this Tobacco Truth Industry Documents archive, offering unprecedented insight into the machinations of preference formation. Other sources included the personal papers of influencers like Ernest Dichter, founder of the Institute for Motivational Research and renowned consultant across multiple industries, as well as the papers of critics such as Vance Packard; newspaper coverage over the century; medical and scientific writing on menthol as a drug, medicine, and flavor; evidence gathered in congressional hearings, regulatory settings, and other court cases; the vast advertising and business literature; and archival collections relating to billboard advertising and Kool jazz festivals.