Busboys and Poets Welcomes Dr. Jared Ball
Date and Time
Apr 19, 2026 5:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Apr 19, 2026 5:00 pm
14th & V
Jared Ball and special guests will discuss myths of financial literacy, including buying power, Black dollar circulation, and entrepreneurialism, and their relationship to shaping public opinion and suppressing radical political movements. Dr. Ball will share some insights into the research and reception of the work and will also discuss forthcoming work and its further investigation into the rise, dissemination, and impact of Black capitalist narratives.
Author Bio:
Jared A. Ball is a Professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. and author of The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power (Palgrave, 2020 / 2nd Edition, 2023). Ball is also host of the podcast “iMiXWHATiLiKE!”, he can be found @imixwhatilike on most social media, and his decades of emancipatory journalism, media, writing, and political work can be found at imixwhatilike.org.
About the Book:
The second edition of 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. A new foreword by Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New School (in New York, USA), and a new chapter on cryptocurrencies are included in this new edition.
