The Problem with Black Friday

Bashing Black Friday

Adam Al Desouky and Wade Moldenhauer

     Black Friday may seem great at first, with all the discounts and cheap prices, but should it really be right after Thanksgiving Day?

     Thanksgiving is a day when we should be thankful for what we have, not the contrary Black Friday when people come rushing and fighting in stores to buy the items they don’t have.

     “Black Friday does away with the middleman — in the universe of holidays, it is the only one that exists solely to sell merchandise. It celebrates nothing; it commemorates only itself. It is an annual festival of the cash register,” Bob Green of CNN writes.

     The main issue with Black Friday is its timing. Thanksgiving and Black Friday put together make no sense whatsoever, as the purpose of both holidays defy each other. One event is important as it gathers family members together to be thankful for the things they already have, while the other event is simply people running about and fighting to buy things, obviously opposing the idea of being thankful for the things people already have.

     “Everybody makes a big deal, waking up at 4:30 a.m. or crazy things like that. We like to sleep in and get up to go when it suits us,” Connie Walls of Chambersburg, Pa. said, who was shopping at the Spring Mills Walmart.

     Many workers are not even able to see their families during Thanksgiving as Black Friday is beginning to start earlier and earlier, even hours before Friday begins.

     “The store employees around the country who are upset that the schedules will deprive them of a big part of their holiday Thursday (many of them will have to arrive hours before the customers) and the citizens who fret that the lure of the deeply discounted sales will empty out their home-for-the-holidays family are probably fighting a losing battle,” Bob Green of CNN writes.

     As we all know, there are times when Black Friday goes too far, from a woman pepper-spraying fellow customers to buy an Xbox, to a 34-year old temporary Walmart employee (Jdimytai Damour) getting trampled to death by a crowd of Black Friday shoppers in 2013. The same mob injured an eight month pregnant woman, causing her to miscarry as a result of the trauma. At least three other people were injured as a result of this mob.

     Hopefully in the future, the amount of chaos in Black Friday can decrease, and Thanksgiving can be a time to meet your families, instead of it being a time to fight in stores in order to buy items.