How do the mass media contribute to the social and economic advantages of the privileged and the subjection of African American women? Does America really care about providing equal opportunities for African American women? Passionately written and supported with detailed evidence this book shows the deeply rooted abiding cancer of oppresion in American society. It reveals the formal and informal ways in which African American women have been exluded from equal participation before and after the time of slavery. It will shock many who complacently believe that America is already a land on equality and it will give new heart to the many others who experience racism and sexism as daily facts of life.

This book focuses on methods by which individuals in the USA who control societal institutions, particularly the mass media, operate to retain their power advantage while maintaining African-American women in a socially and economically depressed status. The author argues that the mass media play an important role in maintaining a social hierarchy of discrimination because it is the primary vehicle by which ideology is transmitted through news and entertainment. In effect the mainstream media have served the interests of the privileged who have defined African-American women and other disenfranchised segments of the population as possessing certain values, belief systems and lifestyles that do not entitle them to receive more than a minimum of societal resources. This book examines the specific methods by which the American power elite use coercion and consent to maintain an inequitable allocation of resources. The author also considers strategies for accomplishing societal transformation and a reallocation of resources.