Is Black Friday racist? University of Florida students demand change of 'offensive' name
The students were questioned in response to Chicago Tribune’s 2019 article -- titled 'Black Friday should be renamed so it is not ‘discriminating and profiling against black people’'
University of Florida students reportedly told a Campus Reform reporter that they want to change the name of Black Friday -- a colloquial term for the Friday following Thanksgiving -- because it sounds racist and “offensive”. One student told Ophelie Jacobson, “Honestly, I'm down to rename that,” but when they were informed about the history behind it, several changed their stance.
As per reports, the students were questioned in response to the Chicago Tribune’s 2019 article -- titled “Talk of the County: Black Friday should be renamed so it is not ‘discriminating and profiling against black people’”. The opinion piece written by an anonymous writer read, “The name of the shopping day after Thanksgiving should not be called by the name of a nationality. Black Friday should be called Holiday Buying Day, Spending Day, Charge Card Day, Green Backs or something other than black, which is discriminating and profiling against black people."
Is Black Friday racist?
When Jacobson asked students of UF if they want to rename Black Friday, one of them said, “Honestly, I'm down to rename that. I don't like the name Black Friday. I never really have since I was small. Whenever I would go to stores, everything would be jammed packed and I would see workers, kind of, it sounds wrong, but they would lean more toward the lighter skinned people. Like, they would assist them.”
Another one stated, “I think that equality’s important. I mean, I think it's definitely a valid opinion.” But then the student reporter told the students at the Gainesville campus, “The term Black Friday has nothing to do with race.” As per MailOnline, Black Friday was named to mark retailers' profit in the businesses and going “into the black” on the day after Thanksgiving.
Jacobson also asked the youngsters, “'Should we still change it?” To which, one told her, “No. If it's not about skin color then I don't see that there's a problem.” Another added, “If you want to just rename it to, like, spare the feelings, then that's not helpful.” The third one stated, “It's just a word. Like, it's a color.” And, the fourth one remarked, “Everything will be found offensive at one point.”
However, a student after understanding the meaning of Black Friday said, “Capitalism isn't really my big favorite thing, probably not I just think that it really perpetuates just this consumerism and just exploiting labor for our own personal needs and wants.”
Meanwhile, people on Twitter reacted to the news of renaming Black Friday. A user tweeted, “I swear to god people think ANYTHING sounds racist now a days.” Another one commented, “A whole generation completely paralysed by potentially offending people if they use the wrong words. Traditional media inc social media has a lot to answer for.” “Let’s just change economics to suit 0.0000001% of people who get offended by everything apart from their reflection,” the third one added.
A tweet read, "A pity that other Wokes do not study the subject before damning it out of ignorance," and another one stated, "Worth keeping it and adding Black Saturday, Black Sunday as well, just to offend the Woke W@nkers."
