The Cristal Boycott

Rap music was truly only a music of black folks for a short while. It's commercialism led to content changes that degraded its ability to be a positive force in the black community. Most rappers are little more than slaves selling lyrics written by whites who have no interest in promoting black culture, unity, or any type of healing or positivity to the descendants of
colonization.
If anything, most rappers are race traitors and deserve what they inevitably get, which is ripped off and pimped.
That's nothing new.
What is interesting is that black folks , for whatever reason, believe that money can shield them from prejudice and that certain companies care about their business.
Jay-Z's boycott of Cristal is a case in point. It's too late to advocate a boycott of a product when you have millions of recordings that reference the popular drink.
Rappers routinely endorse products produced by groups of men and women who would call the police or kill them outright if they ever attempted to associate with them or saw them where they live.
Why do black folks demand to give their money to people who hate them?

Data Mining and the Matrix

The Black Economist (as one might imagine) has a great deal of interest in data mining and the resulting predictive analytics. Blackness is a quantifiable (as well as qualitative) variable after all.
Recent revelations of it taking place on a grand scale with data provided by phone companies is the very tip-top of a large iceberg running head long into civilization as we know it.
There are no constraints on the government asking other entities for the same assistance. That, given the large amount of information they already compel and possess, can lead the mind into conspiracy theories far beyond any imagined in the Matrix (Hal Varian's or the movie, take your pick) if only because they would be 'real.'
Many large corporations base critical business decisions on analysis of customer and market data so it is no surprise that the government does the same thing. The governments use of such techniques is far more dangerous however because while you cannot be forced to patronize a business the government does compel you to participate.

American Coup

This is the story of the only recorded overthrow of a lawfully elected American government. The elected officials were, of course, black.