Eyes on the Lies
Milligan, Susan
EYES ON THE LIES How black leaders and cigarette companies have turned indoor smoking into a civil rights issue by Susan Milligan S cott Stapf sat before the New York City Council in January...
...It has aggressively targeted them in advertising campaigns...
...Ray Hostock, president of the Caribbean-American Chamber of Commerce...
...Black males smoke more and have the highest incidence and mortality from lung cancer than any other sex/race group," notes Harold P. Freeman, director of surgery at Harlem Hospital and chairman of the Medical and Scientific Committee of the American Cancer Society...
...When government, when [New York Mayor Ed] Koch, when Reagan, and when other "good government" organizations—the AMA [American Medical Association]—start making attempts to `help' black people, I get scared ." The civil rights argument has been criticized by some medical professionals as remarkably shortsighted...
...While questioning the motives of public health officials, black leaders express great gratitude for the tobacco industry's support...
...Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, and the rest were fed up with the second-class treatment—low purses, bad playing times—they were getting from the promoters of the men's tournaments...
...And, in perhaps the most ironic partnership between cigarettes and sports, Vantage recently began sponsoring the Senior Professional Golfers Association tour...
...Fortunately, not all minority leaders have joined the efforts to block the smoking bans...
...Cancer as charity There is one other reason why, given the disastrous health consequences of smoking, black leaders seem to have rallied to support the tobacco industry: it has spent millions in direct subsidies to the black community...
...United States—earning a 3 percent market share . which amounts to the sale of 16.9 billion cigarettes, according to Cathy Lieber of Phillip Morris...
...Let's hope his sense of outrage will spread...
...In addition, cigarette advertising has been a major source of support for small black newspapers, many of which cannot get major national advertisers...
...TENNIS AND SMOKING by Robert Doar The use of civil rights rhetoric is not the only curious method the tobacco industry uses to promote smoking...
...The result was the first Virginia Slims tournament in Houston...
...More cigarettes sponsor the Ebony fashion show, which donates proceeds to charity, and Brown and Williamson Co., which had formerly sponsored the Kool Jazz Festival, now sponsors the Kool Achiever Awards for people who have helped inner city communities...
...That decision is being appealed, but the City Council is expected to push ahead on its own legislation...
...His group has worked aggressively to reduce smoking among blacks...
...CIGARETTES ANYONE...
...Phillip Morris had the cash...
...In April, it won a New York State court case striking down the Public Health Council's ban, which was to have taken effect in May...
...Victor Robles, a Hispanic member of the city council, is especially wary of the industry's manipulation of minorities in the smoking issue...
...John 0. Brown, president of the National Medical Association, a group of minority physicians...
...Neither the Tobacco Institute nor its beneficiaries would provide specific numbers, but both testified to the industry's longtime support of the United Negro College Fund and other black cultural and educational organizations...
...Last year George Washington University President Lloyd Elliot decided that his school would no longer host the Virgina Slims Washington tournament...
...Therefore, the "rights" of blacks are being disproportionately affected...
...How is this an issue of racial discrimination...
...It has aggressively targeted blacks in advertising campaigns...
...The Institute assembled an impressive list of local minority leaders to join the "Committee for Common Courtesy," a coalition opposing the ban...
...Black leaders have come to the Tobacco Institute's side, lobbying against the city council legislation and assailing a New York State Public Health Council ruling—now being challenged in the courts—that implemented the indoor smoking ban...
...Graveyard gains The New York City smoking hearings were not, of course, the only time the tobacco industry had shown special interest in black Americans...
...Hellman then went to Joe Coleman, president and chairman of the board at Phillip Morris...
...An executive can close the door and smoke as much as he or she wants...
...of the marketing department at Phillip Morris, "We just count on the favorable association" With ten Virginia Slims banners tacked up around the courts at all tournaments and "Virginia Slims Series" printed on the main court, Phillip Morris has partially circumvented Congress's 1973 ban of cigarette advertising on television...
...They correctly note that white male executives can puff away in their private offices but the black clerical staff, being in the open areas covered by the smoking ban, must put out their cigarettes...
...We're tired of being used," he says...
...In testimony before the Council's Health Committee in January, the Institute's lobbyists also trotted out their traditional argument that there is no concrete proof that cigarette smoking causes cancer...
...ment, claiming that while they attack blacks' right to smoke in public, they ignore other minority health concerns...
...Only recently has Virginia Slims encountered objections to their sponsorship of women's tennis...
...Today, Virginia Slims is the single largest sponsor of women's tennis...
...We have banned smoking at all of our meetings and we do not accept advertisements from tobacco companies...
...Phillip Morris has promoted Virginia Slims since 1971 by sponsoring women's professional tennis, That year, the company's marketing people decided this would be a perfect combination...
...Ever since, except for a short period during the seventies, Virgina Slims has been a big part of women's tennis...
...There are no hard numbers on how many of them are black, but if it is true that workers in open office areas are disproportionately black, as black leaders claim, then it is also likely that the victims of involuntary smoke are also disproportionately black...
...Thirty-five percent of all spending for urban billboards is for tobacco ads in black neighborhoods, according to the Eight Sheet Outdoor Advertising Association...
...That's with a 'b' ," she says...
...But in New York, the most vocal minority voices have been raised to protest the smoking ban...
...The women's tennis promoters needed a sponsor...
...We don't ever, in any way, ask for product endorsement," says Ellen Merlo, Robert Doar is a Washington writer...
...The group included Hazel Dukes, president of the New York State branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
...Not surprisingly, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the American Lung Association have criticized the aggressive ad campaigns targeted at blacks...
...Tobacco companies have focused on blacks in part because demographically they have the characteristics of the most likely smoker: they are younger, poorer, and less educated...
...Jewel Jackson McCabe, president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women...
...Just what a 65-year-old needs: a pack of Vantage...
...Tragically, the black leaders' alliance with tobacco companies seems to have been caused in part by a thirst for financial support they can find nowhere else...
...Virginia Slims has grown to be the 12th most popular brand in the...
...It doesn't make sense," says Dr...
...Wilbert Tatum, the outspoken editor of The Amsterdam News, the city's leading black weekly...
...Does all this sports sponsorship pay off...
...They can't run an ad showing a women puffing a cigarette on TV, but they can sponsor an event showing a healthy woman in front of a Virginia Slims banner...
...I think it's absolutely paternalistic for someone to say that tobacco advertising and tobacco support affect blacks, hispanics, or women differently than they do white men," says Brennan Moran, a spokesperson for the Tobacco Institute...
...Reynolds's Salem cigarettes division sponsors street festivals in black areas, arranging entertainment and handing out free cigarette samples...
...I do not wish to have George Washington University," said Elliot, "being associated with the promotion of cigarettes!' Virginia Slims is not the only tobacco company involved in big time sports...
...Reynolds' Winston brand has sponsored the National Association of Stock Car Racing Series since 1970, investing over $750,000 a year in the 30 stock car races...
...Reynolds, were intended "to show our appreciation to the black cornmunity for supporting Salem cigarettes...
...To me, that's discrimination ." Wilbert Tatum of The Amsterdam News lashes out regularly at those in the city health departThe hearings on the New York City smoking ban were not the only time the tobacco industry has shown special interest in black Americans...
...Robert Door provided research assistance...
...According to Adweek, the majority of ads in black newspapers are for cigarettes...
...It has gathered 27,000 signatures against the bill and sponsored the mailing of 4,000 postcards to council members...
...So the tobacco lobby argues that the office provision is discriminatory because clerical-type jobs are held largely by minorities...
...The council members looked skeptical but Stapf pushed on, pointing out that the legislation would affect thousands of working blacks in New York and that "minority groups see them as a frighteningly familiar discriminatory element ." This civil rights worker was none other than the assistant to the president of the Tobacco Institute, the lobbying arm of the tobacco industry...
...Phillip Morris has been far more conscientious in terms of social responsibility as a corporation—before the antismoking legislation came before us," said Dukes, adding that she is a nonsmoker...
...A few leaders have even recognized that the tobacco industry is less a partner in fighting for civil rights than the cause of thousands of black deaths, and that, if anything, an indoor smoking ban would save a disproportionate number of minority lives...
...The "discriminatory" legislation he was so ardently opposing was a proposed ban on indoor smoking in New York City...
...And when they say they are in my corner, I walk out...
...sections, prohibits employees from smoking in most open office areas, whether in government departments or private businesses...
...But whatever the reason, smoking-related diseases have hit blacks hardest...
...The festivals, according to Kay Young of R.J...
...Forty percent of black males smoke, compared to 31 percent of white males...
...Phillip Morris had only recently introduced Virginia Slims, which were expressly targeted at the liberated woman...
...But knowing that this argument has regularly been ripped apart, the tobacco lobby added the civil rights issue to their pitch—and the support of the local black leaders gave great respectability to their claims...
...Nationally, according to Stephen Joseph of the New York City Health Center, an estimated 5,000 people die each year because they regularly inhale other people's cigarette smoke...
...Look where minorities fit into the work place: at the low end of the totem pole," said Hazel Dukes, of the NAACP...
...The bill, in addition to requiring large restaurants to create nonsmoking Susan Milligan is a reporter for the New York Daily News...
...Slick billboards with sexy, successful blacks dot the streets in black neighborhoods...
...Nat Singleton, executive director of the Association of Minority Enterprises...
...New York black leaders and tobacco industry representatives, though, charge that such concern by public health groups is reprehensible...
...Legislation the council was considering, he said, "would encourage discriminatory enforcement at the expense of the city's minority communities...
...Why is the AMA so concerned about black health [all of a sudden...
...Twenty-three states control smoking in government buildings, restaurants, or in private buildings...
...While the Institute has been able to enlist individual black leaders, the NAACP as a group has remained officially neutral...
...When Gladdis Hellman, publisher of World Tennis Magazine, decided in 1971 to organize a women's tour, she had no trouble lining up the athletes...
...and James Hargrove, president of the National Black Police Association...
...Because New York's proposed smoking ban is the most comprehensive, the Tobacco Institute has been particularly aggressive, fearful the legislation might set a precedent for other jurisdictions...
...The arrangement has proven such a boon for women's tennis that the inherent conflict between unhealthy cigarette smoking and healthy tennis has never become an issue...
...EYES ON THE LIES How black leaders and cigarette companies have turned indoor smoking into a civil rights issue by Susan Milligan S cott Stapf sat before the New York City Council in January and warned of an impending problem of massive racial discrimination against black New Yorkers...
...They are a bunch of hypocritical bastards," says Tatum...
...Roughly 39,000 blacks died last year from smoking-related diseases...
...Its "You've come a long way, baby" image would fit well with the growing women's tennis circuit...
Vol. 19 • June 1987 • No. 5
