Today is the day after Thanksgiving, also known popularly as "Black Friday." This day is known by some as a day when you can get great deals in stores that apparently only come on this day. In pursuit of obtaining great items at the cheapest prices possible, there are always headlines of overcrowded stores, where fights break out and/or where there are literal stampedes, and all sorts of other insane headlines that betray the greed of so many in our society. I find it disturbing, and frankly disingenuous, that the day after a holiday in which we are supposed to be mindful to be grateful for all of life's blessings has become known for the worst, pettiest aspects of our too often mindless consumerism.
When I was younger, it seemed enticing. I remember feeling amazed that you could go to the stores at the wee hours of the morning, and find some great deals. I never actually did go on such overnight or early morning shopping escapades, but shopping on Black Friday was not abnormal for me, admittedly. But as the years went on, and the headlines grew more serious and more horrific, it was hard not to see that there was something terribly wrong with this "holiday."
Now, I stay away from stores and shopping as much as humanly possible on this day. Not sure how many "Black Fridays" that I have managed not to go shopping or spend money at all on this day, but this particular "Black Friday" was another day where I was able to avoid going to the stores, or even spending any money. It has become almost a point of pride for me to avoid going shopping on this particular day, of all days.
Some years ago, I posted a blog entry about all of this. It seemed worth sharing again here today. The specifics of the headlines may be different at the end of this day, but my guess is that they likely will be very similar to other headlines from "Black Friday" for past years. This is one set of circumstances that seems to bring out the worst, particularly among many Americans, every single year. So without further ado, here is what I wrote about this day some five years ago now already, on November 23, 2018:
It is no secret that there are many paradoxes in the United States right now.
However, one of the most glaring paradoxes happens to fall on this day each year. Because just one day after sitting down and having dinner with family, with the design being to focus on all that we have to be thankful for, tens of thousands of Americans (conservative estimate) will wake up super early, or perhaps even camp out, in order to go to stores and malls to get what are supposed to be the best deals out there for all sorts of things, although the main focus usually is on electronics, and perhaps toys.
What we see on our television sets are images of stores that are jam-packed with people, waiting on long lines to get into stores to pick up the great deals. Often, we see people losing control, racing and even elbowing some people out of their way to get to these consumer goods at allegedly slashed down prices. What we read about in the headlines is even more horrifying, with people inevitably being injured from fights and from being trampled on by these mobs.
And again, the most depressing aspect of all of this is that this "holiday" comes one day, literally, after the one holiday where we are all supposed to take some time to think about what we are thankful for. It hardly seems possible that these people who are lining up, camping out, and too often losing their minds to acquire cheap consumer goods, like the latest iPhone, are actually genuinely thankful for all they have been blessed with in life. After all, if that really were the case, why go out on a frigid night and leave the comforts of home in order to stand on line for hours, in the dark, in order to obtain still more stuff?
Now, when I was growing up, Black Friday was not nearly so big of a deal, and it did not usually make the kind of news headlines that it tends to do now. It was a day when most people had off, and the stores offered what were supposedly the best deals of the entire year. So, it was a bit like Memorial Day sales or Labor Day sales, except that it fell about one month before Christmas, and was supposed to be the day when you could get the most extreme savings. Black Friday also marked the beginning of extended holiday hours for stores, and many stores continue this tradition, opening earlier than normal, and closing later.
But then, at some point, one of the big stores had the idea to open earlier than anyone else. Perhaps it was 6am, or something like that (I cannot specifically remember), and that made waves. Then, other stores started doing the same, and pushed the opening time even earlier. Before long, it was 3am. Then, it was midnight.
Now, it seems that many of these stores begin opening on Thanksgiving evening, which had formerly been one of the most sacred days on the calendar, if you will. In some cases, certain stores force their employees to work on Thanksgiving, and there was a bit of an outcry over this, for a while, although it never generated the kind of controversy that expressing "Happy Holidays" seems to have done.
Let us be clear: Thanksgiving itself has a troubled history. After all, the experience of Native Americans is, slowly but surely, becoming more familiar to Americans, and so the fact that they do not celebrate Thanksgiving, that for them, it is a reminder of a genocide that they were forced to suffer through, and that this holiday essentially honors that genocide for them, should tip everyone off that Thanksgiving is not simply this innocent holiday where we finally take a moment to truly be grateful for all that we have been blessed with in life.
But if there was any ambiguity left, if many felt that people truly were sincere about their gratitude for all of life's blessings, the recent trend of Black Friday madness and greed and excess certainly should cast all doubts aside. If Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday that aspires to the best that Americans have to offer, than Black Friday is a "holiday" that, instead, illustrates the worst that Americans can reveal about themselves.
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