A white truck pulled into her Boston housing project, but it wasn't selling ice cream.

Instead, it was a tobacco company giving menthol cigarette samples to to children and black communities are still suffering

deadly consequences because of this secret targeted marketing.

This is two minute black history. What you didn't learn in school. A white truck pulled onto their block and the children approached, but this wasn't the ice cream man.

Instead, a rep from a tobacco company was handing out cigarette samples.

Marie Evans was one of the children. She began smoking at 13 after receiving samples from Lurylard tobacco, but the story gets worse.

Companies use predatory marketing tactics to target us like hooking children, plastering billboards all over our

neighborhoods, sponsoring black events, and marketing the coolness of mentals.

Millions of blacks have been killed, including Evans, who died from lung cancer at 54 years young. Today 85% of black smokers use highly addictive menthols, making it harder to quit.

The Biden administration is working to ban them. Previous bands have focused on sweet flavors, but never menthol.

While this may help some quit,

it also revokes the choices of black consumers

without providing solutions for care, like counseling

or quitting programs. In addition, it doesn't hold companies accountable for getting us hooked

in the first place.

Eric Garner was killed on the suspicion of selling loose cigarettes

and George Floyd was buying a pack before his killing. These are not coincidences but the result of a long history of targeting.

Nicotine addiction can't be reformed away with taxes or bans.

Assessable public health care has to be the solution,

as well as telling the truth about racist predatory corporate behavior.

In order to move towards the future, you've got to look to the past.

This has been two minute black history, a podcast by Push Black.

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