I really think it was a random choice at first: let’s heavily market this particular product to this demographic segment and see what happens. We saw what happens, and since the white executives gave even less of a damn about the mortality of Black customers as opposed to others they kept going with it.
A reminder that every destructive organisation you can think of, from fossil fuel companies to defense contractors to anti-choicers to opioid-pushing pharma firms to the GOP (and a special shout-out to the NRA) is using the PR and marketing playbook created at the request of the tobacco industry by Edward Bernays and his successors. It’s one of the many reasons I still consider it the most deadly and evil industry in human history.
