Photo courtesy of Slate.com.
Black Friday, America’s annual homage to rampant consumerism, is not only the day after Thanksgiving, it’s also the perfect enemy of the day we give thanks to all the things that really matter in life: family, health and harvest. Conversely, Black Friday celebrates stuff we don’t need, and so often shows just how ugly we can be when trying to obtain it.
And now Black Friday wants to move in on Thanksgiving’s mojo by infringing on the original holiday. Local retailers are complaining that local blue laws won’t allow them to open on the most widely-celebrated and uniquely American of holidays.
The Providence Journal strips the story across the top of A1 this morning, while down page you can, if you look closely, see this headline: Record number in RI seek food assistance. In one of its typically right-skewing online polls, more than 80 percent of respondents say stores should stay closed on Thanksgiving.
RI Public Radio last week let a little astroturfing slide on the subject, calling Paul DeRoche the director of the Rhode Island Retail Federation. In reality, he’s the lone member of that “federation” and is better known as a lobbyist for the Providence Chamber of Commerce.
Ted Nesi inadvertently amplified the poor-Black-Friday narrative with an Executive Suite interview of the owner of longtime local not-quite-as-big box store Benny’s.
And Patch, which broke this non-story locally, didn’t try to hide its bias at all and just turned its coverage into a free ad for Walmart.
Which is what it is.
The retail giant wants more opportunities to sell its junk to consumers, so it sent out a couple press releases and whispered in the ear of some local pro-business groups and just waited for the the media to do it’s thing.
But as the rest of the country is learning that employees at thousands of Walmarts from Washington D.C to Seattle are planning a strike to protest being forced to work on Thanksgiving, the media here is largely simply parroting Walmart’s talking point that Black Friday is being oppressed by anachronistic blue laws.
If anything, as a society, we should be working on ways to extend the Thanksgiving mojo not the Black Friday vibe. One way to do this is to participate in Buy Nothing Day at the State House, where Greg Gerritt will be collecting clothes to be shared with those who can’t afford to participate in the Black Friday madness.
There is a simple way to save even more during the sales on Friday.
Buy nothing.
Great post Bob.
This whole “Christmas creep” thing is getting ridiculous. ”Black Friday,” usually about a month before Christmas, was a term created in the 60′s and 70′s:
>>
Origin of the term
Black Friday as a term has been used in multiple contexts, going back to the nineteenth century, where it was associated with afinancial crisis in 1869 in the United States. The earliest known reference to “Black Friday” to refer to shopping on the day after Thanksgiving was made in a public relations newsletter from 1961 that is clear on the negative implications of the name and its origin in Philadelphia:
The attempt to rename Black Friday was unsuccessful, and its continued use is shown in a 1966 publication on the day’s significance in Philadelphia:
The term Black Friday began to get wider exposure around 1975, as shown by two newspaper articles from November 29, 1975, both datelined Philadelphia. The first reference is in an article entitled “Army vs. Navy: A Dimming Splendor,” in The New York Times:
The derivation is also clear in an Associated Press article entitled “Folks on Buying Spree Despite Down Economy,” which ran in theTitusville Herald on the same day:
The term’s spread was gradual, however, and in 1985 the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles were still unaware of the term.[17] <<
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)
This is NOT a “tradition” in any sense of the word – it is a marketing tactic or ploy that has expanded far beyond its original concept. The attempt to expand it ever further is simply unacceptable. Can’t these merchants at least draw the line at midnight? Why is it necessary to encroach any further into Thanksgiving’s family orientation to force workers in to work on Thanksgiving itself, luring bargain-seekers to do the same?
I will not be joining the “Black Friday” crowds – it is my choice as much as it is everyone else’s.
Projo Poll:
Should stores be allowed to open earlier on Thanksgiving day?
“In one of its typically right-skewing online polls”
How do you get a ‘right-skewing’ on this particular poll?