Being a person obsessed with language in all its odd manifestations, I decided to look up the origin of “Black Friday,” and here’s the best and the worst that the internet has to offer.
First the worst: The day after Thanksgiving was “when slave traders would go into town to show off their best slaves,” offering to sell them at a discount so plantation owners would have all the “help” necessary for the onslaught of winter. Contrary to popular opinion, Shakespeare in his play Otello did NOT use the line, “The Moor, the merrier.”
And then the best: The day after Thanksgiving was “when retailers had one last chance to offset all their losses from January through mid-November,” by offering to sell their shoddy goods at a discount, thus moving from being “in the red” to “in the black.” To hide their dark intentions, the retailers enlisted the help of Santa by dressing him up in red, accompanied by his favorite reindeer, who had a red nose.
And there you have it. It matters not which one you pick because, in my opinion, all Fridays matter. After all, wasn’t it on a Friday that Christ died on the cross, to save us from the gross consumerism of Christmas which begins the day after Thanksgiving?