Food companies deliberately target Black households with sugary food ads

Evidence

In addition, certain food companies have targeted Black youths with advertising. A marketing analysis of television advertising dollars found a 50 percent increase, between 2013 and 2017, in ads for sweetened food and beverages, and snacks aimed at Black households. Shiriki Kumanyika, a co-author of the study and the chair of Drexel University’s Council on Black Health, said of the findings: “At best, these advertising patterns imply that food companies view Black consumers as interested in candy, sugary drinks, fast food and snacks with a lot of salt, fat or sugar, but not in healthier foods.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 312

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for an essay: the 50% rise in targeted junk-food advertising to Black households as a modern afterlife of the sugar plantation economy — marketing as the new plantation overseer.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the reader’s sacrifice essay frame: the sugar economy’s coercive extraction continues into the present via targeted advertising, an echo of the structural argument.