I just heard from a local retail worker that our Suthun Giant retailer WALMART (yeah, that's right, I'm naming names) has told its employees that they should no longer refer to Friday after Thanksgiving as Black Friday, but rather refer to it as the 'Event.' Their reasoning: It is more PC and less racist to use "Event".
Let's contemplate this a moment. Some director of internal idiocy at Walmart has determined - through many hours of study (read: woke from a long nap) to decide that the word BLACK in "Black Friday" refers, in some twisted way, to race. And further has somehow convinced others at Walmart's Suthun headquarters to agree with him. (Well, he is the director of idiocy, now isn't he?)
Back in the 80's, I worked retail. The phrase Black Friday always made us shudder in thoughts of hundreds of shoppers descending on our cash registers waving their checkbooks and semi-precious metal charge cards in an effort to buy those special gifts for the holiday season. I never NEVER...repeat NEVER EVER heard this phrase used as a reference to race. Not having worked retail for some time, I made a quick phone call to some friends who own retail stores, work retail and are seemingly on the cutting edge of retail (if that's possible) and they all agreed: No racial tones ever meant, construed, or implied. Not to be one to rest on a single fact, I then went to a couple of co-workers who are of African Descent. When I told them of the reference, they both stared at me like they were waiting for the punchline. Then they both said at almost the same time. "That's stupid..." 'Nuff said.
Black Friday carries two connotations in its name. First is a reference to Black Monday, October 29, 1929 when the US Stock Market crashed and there was a run on the banks. A similar effect can be seen in people rushing into stores on that fateful Friday (after Thanksgiving) causing the new moniker to be invoked. Second is a nod to the fact that the day after Thanksgiving supposedly the average retail business begins working in positive numbers, hence "in the Black" and not "in the Red". (I would suppose that this means that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving should be referred to as Red Wednesday...but I doubt that moniker will ever catch on as it might also be deemed too racist.) I'm not sure how any retail business could work nearly 11 months in the red, but let's not dwell on that. Let's dwell on the idiocy from Wally-World.
Black Friday has nothing to do with RACE, the song "Black Friday" by Steely Dan or the film "Black Friday" starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff (1940). I'll get up on my Suthun Soap Box for just a moment and state that a) Black Friday will ALWAYS be known as Black Friday regardless of what some dipwad paranoid peon at WalMart may think and b) it's obvious that the Director of Idiocy at Walmart is not originally from the South.
A guy like that gives 'being suthun' a bad name.
He probably drinks one of them flavored designer light beers, too.
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