Some students think Black Friday should have a name change. Image via Unsplash
‘Sounds racist’: Students say Black Friday must be renamed
‘Black Friday sounds offensive’: Students in the US have agreed that the world’s biggest shopping day should have a name change.
Some students think Black Friday should have a name change. Image via Unsplash
American students were recently questioned about their thoughts on Black Friday. In a video that was shot on the Florida University campus, the reporter asks her fellow students what they think about the name. Many of them answered that they think the name should be changed because it sounds “offensive.”
A lot of them changed their tune after hearing where the ter originated.
US students say Black Friday must be renamed because it sounds ‘offensive’
Black Friday is known as the busiest shopping day around the world as many people flock to stores across the world to get their hands on bargains and discounts.
The term Black Friday first became popular in 1869, when the gold market crashed in the US sending the country into a financial crisis. History reports that a year after stores struggled to make a profit, they finally came “out of the red” and into the “black”. This occurred on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
In recent years, however, people have said that the discount shopping day came to be because slave owners sold their black slaves at a discount the day after Thanksgiving.
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While no real evidence of this has not been recorded anywhere, it has seemed to have impacted the students at Florida University in the US.
Many of them are of the opinion that the name Black Friday should be changed to something less offensive. Speaking in a video that was recorded by a fellow student, many of them remark that they would not be supporting Black Friday.
“I kind of agree it should be changed just because Black Friday sounds offensive,” says one student while another says:
“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.”
Not everyone thought it needs to be changed though
Some of the students quickly changed their tune when they heard where the popular shopping day originated from.
“If it’s not about skin color then I don’t see that there’s a problem,” said one.
Another student responded: “If you want to just rename it to, like, spare the feelings, then that’s not helpful.”
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