It’s early November, and reporters are already talking about the importance of “Black Friday,” and whether consumers will be big spenders and keep the economy moving (the standard Keynesian myth).
I’ve campaigned for some time against this depressing term for the day after Thanksgiving and busiest shopping day of the holiday season. I prefer to call it “Green Friday” for a variety of reasons (see below), and I’m happy to report that some retailers are now using this positive alternative.
For those of us in the financial world, Black Friday has a strong negative connotation, referring to a stock market catastrophe. The first Black Friday occurred on September 24, 1869, when Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempted to corner the gold market. The attempt failed and the gold market collapsed, causing the stock market to crash.
There have been other black days on Wall Street: Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929), Black Thursday (October 31, 1929) and Black Monday (October 19, 1987).
More recently, stock markets crashed around the world on another Black Friday, October 10, 2008, just three years ago.
It turns out that the first time Black Friday was used by retailers was in the Seventies, when police and bus drivers in Philadelphia complained about the heavy traffic and over-crowded sidewalks downtown during the first shopping day of the Christmas holiday season. The shops and streets were crowded all day long.
A 1975 AP story reported: “Store aisles were jammed. Escalators were nonstop people. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season and despite the economy, folks here went on a buying spree. … ‘That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today “Black Friday,”‘ a sales manager at Gimbels said as she watched a traffic cop trying to control a crowd of jaywalkers. ‘They think in terms of headaches it gives them.’”
However, merchants objected to the negative connotations of Black Friday. By the early 1980s, they began to circulate an alternative theory based on the accounting practice of being “in the black.” According to this theory, Black Friday is the day when retailers no longer have losses (“in the red”) and instead start making profits (“in the black”).
As one reporter summarized the new view: “If the day is the year’s biggest for retailers, why is it called Black Friday? Because it is a day retailers make profits — black ink, said Grace McFeeley of Cherry Hill Mall. ‘I think it came from the media,’ said William Timmons of Strawbridge & Clothier. ‘It’s the employees, we’re the ones who call it Black Friday,’ said Belle Stephens of Moorestown Mall. ‘We work extra hard. It’s a long hard day for the employees.’”
Still, Black Friday has a stigma attached to it, and is no term of endearment to most people.
Is there an alternative?
For several years now, I’ve campaigned for a better choice: Why not call it Green Friday? I give three reasons:
First, green refers to the color of the dollar bill. Since the Civil War days, the U.S. dollar has been called “The Greenback.”
Second, green is one of the most popular symbols of the Christmas holiday season.
Third, “green” is a positive term for a clean, sustainable environment.
Good news! According to Martin Bosworth of Consumer Affairs, many retailers are now referring to the day as “Green Friday,” in order to avoid the negative connotations of using the word “black.” Mitch Goldstone, an online photo shop owner and credit card reform activist, has been calling it “Green Friday” as a “day without credit cards.” Goldstone recommends that shoppers use cash to pay for gifts on Nov. 24th, in order to draw attention to the high merchant fees banks that card issuers charge stores when consumers buy goods with credit and debit cards. “We’ve been drawing a lot of attention,” Goldstone said. “It’s being observed by a lot of big companies.”
So from now on, let’s call it “Green Friday.”
Mark Skousen is the editor of Forecasts & Strategies and the producer of FreedomFest, the world’s largest gathering of free minds.