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.
Black people are not dark-skinned white people, says advertising visionary Tom Burrell. In fact, they are a lot more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of no way! At this point in history, the idea of black inferiority sh...
“Through the lens of personal experience, Dr. Armah walks us through the scholarly research on culture, corruption and economics as it applies to the Ghanaian experience. We are left with a partially disappointing picture of a country wealthy in people and resources, but poor in growth but cannot help but imagine that Ghana has turned a corner and that history may well turn out to be kind to the country Dr. Armah clearly loves.” –Kenneth Leonard, Associate Professor, University of Maryland at College Park “Management consultants and corporate leadership experts have often verified Peter Drucker’s observation that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast.’ This book represents a heartfelt effort to recognize and grapple with the power of culture over economic strategy and development policy. Stephen Armah’s reflections on Ghanaian experiences reveal how a deeper appreciation of culture and mindset can help us understand the persistence of corruption and elements of a path forward.” –Alex Winter-Nelson, Director of ACES Office of International Programs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign “This book is an interesting introduction to the ways in which culture influences economic growth and productivity in Ghana. Using a combination of revealing anecdotes and citations from the literature Dr. Armah explores the ways that culture can positively, and negatively, impact the institutions that are necessary to allow a country to thrive. Aspects of culture that are a hindrance cannot be changed immediately, but can, over time, adapt to improve the country.” –Erik Cheever, Professor, Department of Engineering, Swarthmore College "An easy and thought provoking read! It contains a bold message that I expect will facilitate an important conversation not only in Ghana but across Africa.” –Saweda Liverpool-Tasie, Associate Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University “Armah’s thesis is that corruption, economic inefficiency, and weak formal institutions are culturally rooted in Ghana, and that the real work of development involves changing the worldviews that give life events their meaning and determine how people respond to formal policies and institutions. This is a controversial argument that will provoke lively debate. Armah's book puts the literature on economic development and culture into dialogue with stories of life in post-independence Ghana.” –Stephen A. O'Connell, Gil and Frank Mustin Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College Using Ghana as a case study, this book argues that local culture and tradition play a role in shaping economic institutions that operate in a country. This book focuses on how certain cultural practices lead to an environment more susceptible to cronyism and corruption. The book then discusses the relationship between culture and rampant corruption, and how these in sum have harmed Ghana’s economic development. “I have no doubt that culture, in terms of attitudes, values, norms and behavior, is the single most important explanatory factor in Ghana's underdevelopment. It explains the widespread corruption, poor work ethic and indiscipline. These are the issues Stephen Armah courageously takes on in this book as needing to be addressed in Ghana's development.” -Stephen Adei, Professor Emeritus, Ashesi University “Stephen Armah’s Nurturing Sustainable Prosperity in West Africa explores and interprets the economics, transnational organizations, socio-cultural politics as contexts and processes for understanding corruption in Ghana, in particular and Africa as a whole. Focusing on the continuous transactions among Ghanaians with reference to their social and personal obligations against the backdrop of the pervasive corruption exemplified in his case studies, Armah clearly explains the process of constructing socio-political mores and policies to remedy or root out chronic corruption. Armah examines the institutionalized and non-formal customary practices that engender nepotism, absenteeism, lawlessness and general malaise that hamper development. The book provides an important analysis and solutions to corruption. It will be of interest to not only to scholars of economics but also, to the general reader, policymakers and servant- leaders in contemporary Africa.” -Pashington Obeng, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, Ashesi University
“Read this book. It explains so much about the moment...Beautiful, heartbreaking work.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates “A deep accounting of how America got to a point where a median white family has 13 times more wealth than the median black family.” —The Atlantic “Extraordinary...Baradaran focuses on a part of the American story that’s often ignored: the way African Americans were locked out of the financial engines that create wealth in America.” —Ezra Klein When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the black community owned less than 1 percent of the total wealth in America. More than 150 years later, that number has barely budged. The Color of Money seeks to explain the stubborn persistence of this racial wealth gap by focusing on the generators of wealth in the black community: black banks. With the civil rights movement in full swing, President Nixon promoted “black capitalism,” a plan to support black banks and minority-owned businesses. But the catch-22 of black banking is that the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty caused by discrimination and segregation inevitably became victims of that same poverty. In this timely and eye-opening account, Baradaran challenges the long-standing belief that black communities could ever really hope to accumulate wealth in a segregated economy. “Black capitalism has not improved the economic lives of black people, and Baradaran deftly explains the reasons why.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “A must read for anyone interested in closing America’s racial wealth gap.” —Black Perspectives
"While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a ... German commentator and Stanford University academic, [proposes] that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets ... Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe [posits that] 'economic miracles' that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking 'the end is near'"--Dust jacket flap.
GOLD MEDALIST OF FOREWORD REVIEWS' 2015 INDIEFAB AWARDS IN WOMEN'S STUDIES What's wrong with black women? Not a damned thing! The Sisters Are Alright exposes anti–black-woman propaganda and shows how real black women are pushing back against distorted cartoon versions of themselves. When African women arrived on American shores, the three-headed hydra—servile Mammy, angry Sapphire, and lascivious Jezebel—followed close behind. In the '60s, the Matriarch, the willfully unmarried baby machine leeching off the state, joined them. These stereotypes persist to this day through newspaper headlines, Sunday sermons, social media memes, cable punditry, government policies, and hit song lyrics. Emancipation may have happened more than 150 years ago, but America still won't let a sister be free from this coven of caricatures. Tamara Winfrey Harris delves into marriage, motherhood, health, sexuality, beauty, and more, taking sharp aim at pervasive stereotypes about black women. She counters warped prejudices with the straight-up truth about being a black woman in America. “We have facets like diamonds,” she writes. “The trouble is the people who refuse to see us sparkling.”
