Ferguson Protesters Boycott Black Friday With #BlackOutBlackFriday
The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition has reportedly asked consumers to show their respect for Brown, a black unarmed teenager who on Aug. 9 was shot and killed following an encounter with a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and abstain from shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend.
On Tuesday, the grand jury decided not to indict the police officer, Darren Wilson, setting off protests in several cities across the U.S. With the exception of riots in Ferguson, nearly all of the protests were peaceful.
The idea of boycotting one of the most important selling days of the year for many retailers took on a life of its own on social media. On Twitter on Tuesday, there were a plethora of posts relating to the boycott, such as #BlackoutBlackFriday: A Nationwide Day of Action & United Retail Boycott. One post read: “Can you do it for 1 day? America spends 50 billion over Black Friday Weekend…Money runs this country, not justice…Close your wallets…Let the stores see Red.” Another post read, “If they don’t value our lives, then don’t value our dollars.” But Branding Gladiator wrote, “boycott COULD be impactful IF it didn’t also hurt minority businesses…ahem can yawl rethink this?”
Related: Home for the Holidays? Not for Workers at Many Major Retailers
Dacia Polk, a member of the New Black Panther Party, was quoted in several publications as saying, “There will be no business as usual. Until this nation begins to place value on black lives, there will be no value placed on this business, because black lives matter.”
Calls to the New Black Panther organization were not returned and a spokesman for fergusonaction.com said, “We are not able to address inquiries for the New Black Panther Party.”
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