Personally, I’ve never gone Black Friday shopping. Something just seems unethical about getting up at 2 am to stand in a line of hundreds or even thousands of people all waiting around in the cold getting ready to frantically run around a store and buy things before other people can…but maybe that’s just me. Don’t get me wrong, I love saving money and being able to afford good Christmas presents for my loved ones and treating myself to items I may not buy if they weren’t on sale, but I feel like Black Friday is too extreme.
I’ve always been made fun of by most of my friends because they all love to go out for Black Friday. I get asked each year to go to the mall or some random store, and I always say no.
My dad works in retail, so he’s always hated dealing with this crazy day – maybe I get my perspective from his stories, but it all just seems ridiculous to me. I remember my dad having to go to bed early on every Thanksgiving night because he knew he would have to wake up at some ungodly hour to open up a store for the Black Friday shoppers. In recent years, he’s even had to leave in the middle of the afternoon on Thanksgiving because stores decided to start opening at 5 or 6 pm the night before Black Friday. This has caused my family’s yearly Thanksgiving dinner to be interrupted and we have been forced to make it earlier. This is where I start to dislike Black Friday.
If you think about it, Black Friday has almost become another American “holiday” that sometimes overshadows the actual holiday of Thanksgiving itself. Does that make any sense? It’s almost as if we think we’ve given enough gratitude for the year on Thanksgiving that we are then allowed to buy ourselves endless amounts of things the next day as a reward. Doesn’t that devalue the whole point of being thankful and appreciative, though? Doesn’t that prove that we are not thankful enough if all we want is more?
I’m not saying that all those who go Black Friday shopping are rabid and ungrateful and selfish. I’m not trying to make you feel like you are a terrible person if you do go Black Friday shopping; I’ve considered it in the past myself. I’m just saying that the subliminal message behind the day is one worth mentioning.
The name “Black” Friday itself was created out of frustration with the day. According to Kimberly Amadeo’s article “Why Is Black Friday Called Black Friday?” the name was originally coined by the Philadelphia Police Department to “describe the mayhem surrounding the congestion of pedestrian and auto traffic in the downtown area” that often resulted in violence.
There are also several Black Friday horror stories out there that make me question the day’s morality. We’ve all seen the videos of people sprinting past each other and arguing over who grabbed what item first, but there is much, much worse than that. During this past Black Friday alone, two men were shot in southern New Jersey outside a mall. Another man was shot and killed outside a Walmart in Nevada. Fighting broke out at stores in California, Georgia, and countless other locations. Deaths and injuries on this day often occur as a result of being shot, trampled, burned, stabbed, or beaten, though there appears to be no limit on the extremes that people will go to in order to get what they want. How does the day continue if we know it is causing unnecessary violence and deaths? There’s even a website to tally up the Black Friday death count.
So, what good comes out of this? Is it really worth it leaving your house in the middle of Thanksgiving night – where you’re proving your appreciation for all the stuff you have – to buy more stuff? Should we get rid of Black Friday? Should we at least limit Black Friday to the actual Friday itself? Should we only allow a certain number of customers at each store? Should we put laws in place that protect shoppers on this day? Hopefully, society will realize the damages of this “holiday” before it goes too far.