From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
“Why is Black Friday called “Black Friday”? Seems pretty simple – it’s the day retailers go “into the black,” or turn a profit for the year. But it turns out the term has a darker, less happy origin. In 1966, Black Friday was the name the Philadelphia Police Department gave to the Friday after Thanksgiving. The police hated the day — massive traffic jams, overcrowded sidewalks, lots of shoplifters — all because downtown Philly stores were filled with shoppers taking advantage of the first holiday sales. The goal was to make it a day that shoppers wanted to avoid. The negative name started to spread outside Philadelphia a few years later. In a 1975 Associated Press article, datelined Philadelphia, a sales manager at Gimbels was quoted as saying, ‘That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’” By David Reiter Nov 25, 2011 12:17pm
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/black-fridays-dark-origins/
Leave it to the racist Philadelphia police department to come up with a term that uses the word “black” in a negative connotation. Originally “Black Friday” was a pejorative term given to the day after Thanksgiving by the Philadelphia police department due to the large crowds that came into center city to take advantage of the sales offered by the downtown retail stores. The police didn’t like the traffic snarls, the parking problems, large crowds, the shoplifting, petty crimes arguing over items etc. The retailers loved it but the crowds caused logistical and human relations problems for the police, the transportation authorities and others. But eventually the idea of a day of huge sales caught on with the public due to the nexus of massive advertising dollars and media promotion. Now the annual day after Thanksgiving advertising and buying spree is a cultural and economic phenomenon we take for granted.
Due to the success of after Thanksgiving sales campaigns, the influence of the business community and media coupled with the mindlessness of consumers, “Black Friday” has become a term of endearment for retailers and the public at large. It’s ironic, because this is one of the few times the word “Black” has taken on a positive meaning in this country. America has a long and unbridled tradition of racial bigotry, color cast and policy whereby almost every use of the word Black has a negative meaning. But Black Friday is good for retailers and media.
The US economy has changed in the last few decades. During the era of acquisitions and mergers in the late ‘80’s and into the 1990’s the financiers and corporatists made a conscious decision to gobble up as many profitable businesses as possible including black businesses. The reasons were varied some wanted to enhance their bottom line. Others wanted to consolidate and own as much as they could including successful black businesses. We witnessed white corporations buying BET, Essence Magazine, and attempts to buy the Parks Sausage Co. as well as profitable local businesses like funeral homes. Simultaneously our communities were targeted by immigrants as potential gold mines for small entrepreneurs. We saw a greater influx of Koreans, Arabs, Chinese and others ethnic groups coming into our communities setting up businesses and as Malcolm noted, “Taking the money out when the sun goes down”. We make others rich and it doesn’t seem to bother us one bit that other folks come into our communities, make their living, support their families, get rich and take the money out.
I don’t begrudge people making a living, just not at our expense. Especially not when there is obvious collusion with the banks and financial institutions that routinely deny us business loans, who red line our neighborhoods to depress the value of the land while at the same time foreigners with capital come into our communities set up shop and make fortunes off of us.
Much of this is our fault. It appears we have lost our minds. It seems we have acquiesced and resigned to being on the bottom of a morally depraved and predatory culture. Somehow the election of a bi-racial man, who has done nothing for us since he took office, makes simple minded black people believe we have arrived in the Promised Land and we live in a “post racial” America.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Post racial America is one of those terms like “separate but equal” that have been foisted upon us by the ruling elites and their corporate mind control apparatus that contain no truth whatsoever. During the period of racial apartheid (segregation) blacks and whites were kept separate through laws and extra-legal violence but conditions were never equal! Today’s America is anything but post racial; even the most naïve black person can see this when it comes to how much of white America feels about and deals with Barack Obama.
We cannot control what whites and others think about us or how they choose to deal with us; but we can control our own actions. We can research, plan and execute programs that benefit us. In my opinion, the problem is, we no longer have leaders who think in terms of holistically elevating our people. Where are leaders like Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad? Who is espousing self-reliance, thrift, economic development and Ujamaa on the local, regional, national and global levels? Where are the black banks, the black credit unions the black entrepreneurial academies and training programs? Where are the Black leaders with vision, gumption and organizing skills? Life is not a spectator sport, we are the ones we have been waiting for and it’s time for us to step up, step out and make it happen.
In his monumental work Blueprint For Black Power A Moral, Political and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century Dr. Amos Wilson wrote, “The establishment and control of an Afrikan American market economy is imperative for the enrichment and empowerment of the Afrikan American community. The main reason the Black community is commercially and politically exploited by aliens is that it lacks a financial system which provides for its self-sustained and self-financed development… As we emphasize in this volume the Afrikan American community does not suffer from an absence or inadequacy of financial resources which can be used to maximize its wealth, economic and political power. What the community lacks is a domestically based financial sector which functions to collect its monetary and savings resources and transform them into working capital used to finance the development of Black owned and controlled commercial, economic and cultural establishments.” Chapter 18 Benevolent Fronts Assault Local and Global Afrikan Markets Page 465.
Dr. Wilson is saying we are not destitute in the sense we lack resources, we are in the condition we are in because we fail to galvanize and pool our resources, focus them on practical and attainable goals and put them to use to build an economic infrastructure that benefits us collectively. It’s no secret other ethnic groups pool their resources to capitalize and support one another in business, using their collective merchandising power to control for example the gasoline filling stations, beauty supply, hair care, dry cleaning and nail industries in our communities.
To survive and begin to thrive as a community, we have to support each other economically. We have to go back to Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of starting black banks and credit unions to promote savings and economic growth within our communities. In the long term we need to establish pools of credit and savings because this is a capitalistic society and to build anything we need start up capital. We need to think in long range terms of being able to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves and provide shelter for our people. Short term we need to locate and support black businesses, trust one another, expect and demand high quality service and customer relations.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do we solve monumental problems? We solve our problems by taking them on strategically and effectively. Take one step at a time. Think tanks are nothing new. We’ve always had them but unlike today when all we do is talk back in the day our real leaders took action and did so selfishly for the greater good. If we are to move beyond a colonized status we must begin to work together, plan and strategize ways to empower ourselves economically through commerce and skills so we are not totally dependent on others. We need to begin imagining ourselves as economically self-sufficient and sustaining and make it real. What if we practiced Black Friday among ourselves 365?
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https://theblacklist.net/
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