Listen "Cool Consumers"
Episode Synopsis
Cool Consumers: Laurie Taylor considers how music acquires the social connotations of “cool” & its implicit association with youth and outsider status. He's joined by Jo Haynes, Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Bristol. Also, the way in which racial marketing promoted menthol cigarettes to African Americans, linking them to notions of ‘cool’, with enduringly harmful effect. Keith Wailoo, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, unpacks a poignant and intricate story which reveals why 85% of Black smokers prefer menthol brands and how difficult it has been to ban them, not least because of the way that tobacco companies forged deep connections with Black media publishers and civil rights campaigners. He argues that the cry of 'I can't breathe' has multiple meanings in America's painful racial history. Producer: Jayne Egerton
More episodes of the podcast Thinking Allowed
Dogs
15/07/2025
Learning Disabilities
08/07/2025
The Irish in the UK
01/07/2025
Russian Propaganda
24/06/2025
Death
17/06/2025
Objects and Stories
10/06/2025
Solidarity
03/06/2025
Motherhood
25/03/2025
Smoking
18/03/2025
Dress Culture
11/03/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.