Black Friday and the Native American Day
Black
Friday and the Native American Day
Black Friday is now
international known as celebration for offers to get at a cheap price products
they have been longing for.
Exist different
theories of the origins of this. 1st mention of this is in September 1869 when
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, 2 Wall Street financiers, decided to buy all the
national gold to sell it at enormous prices after. Unfortunately for them the
plan was discovered by the president and aborted. That made in collapse all the
country going bankrupt everyone of the Wall Street from barons to farmers.
Even if that is the
first mention does not mean that is the true origin of this celebration.
Appeared at some point another theory that around 1800's Southern Plantation
owners would buy the slaves at a discount price in the day after Thanksgiving.
This has no solid proof or base therefore it is not taken in consideration.
Retailers do have their
own version of the story making cheap offers during this time of year for
clients to spend their money on discount merchandise.
The reality is that it
all started in 1950's, where after the Thanksgiving holiday ended was the big
annual Football game going on, so people with tourists made chaos back then
buying, shoplifting and getting all the place blocked. The origin of the name
it was given by the police of Philadelphia because it happened Friday and
Saturday, also they had a lot of work and could not get a day free neither
having any break, continuous work which was exhausting.
Between 1961-1980 the
stores tried to change this into a positive thing but with little luck. In the
late 1980's retailers made the concept "red to black" and the day
after the Thanksgiving holiday marked the occasion when America's stores
finally could make a profit.
Black Friday is today
integral part of the Thanksgiving celebration. It also marks the Christmas
season of shopping in US. Parades were during this period very loud and the
stores took advantage of this to create advertising. Because of this it became
a rule to not do any advertisement for Christmas before the parades ended. This
was another reason why it was put in late November to give more time for the
Christmas season.
Black Friday is in
essence a commercial holiday where millions of Americans stand in line from
night, in poor weather conditions, to be the first in lines when the shops are
opened at 5 am, in hope to get their desired products at a discount price.
Another thing that is very
important but left behind is that Thanksgiving is in the 4th Thursday of
November month, which is also Native American Month, a celebration of abuse and
atrocities done to these people, also having on Black Friday, the next day
after Thanksgiving, their Native American day.
In 2009 the President
Barack Obama signed the "Native American Day Resolution" to be Friday
after Thanksgiving known as "Native American Heritage Day".
This at superficial
level may seem very good to happen but in reality is not like that. The day was
put after the colonials betraying and abusing the Natives not before, also
another issue is that these days are irrelevant because everyone is in vacation
and nobody has interest to study or promote the Native culture or values.
Native American Day
deserves honourable recognition and should not be associated with the huge
amount of suffering they have had to deal with during centuries with
Thanksgiving but also it is in connection with a commercial holiday. So their
day is not even their day is shadowed by the commercial Black Friday.
Another aspect is that
capitalism expanding is exactly the opposite to the Native values. Black Friday
is a day of excess of food and greed to buy material products, nobody putting
any attention to this culture or people, which itself is right after the
holiday that abused these Indigenous people too.
