Its not a racist term
Today is the day after haloween. Oficial start of the holoday shoping season. You probably thought it was the day after thanksgiving. Sorry, but it got moved up. Stores are putting their displays up today.
You probably also though that the oficial start of the holoday shoping season was called ‘black friday’ because of the black and red inks used in accounting. Sorry, but thats not true either.
‘Black friday’ is actualy a term used as a scrcastic comparision to the ‘Black Tuesday’ stock market crash of 1929. The idea being that both days are amazingly stress inducing. When I was working in the restraunt business we did the same thing by calling mothers say ‘Black sunday’.
Research has discovered that the first time that the day after thanksgiving was called ‘black friday’ was in the mid 1970s. It was caled this by bus drivers, taxi drivers, and police, all of whom complained abotu the trafic. The theory of acounting practices first was put forth years afterwards. There is no evedence that any account ever calld the day after thanksgiving ‘black friday’.
In 2005, the acounting practice theory got picked up by the news wire. Probably because they looked at the wikipedia article on black friday and on that day it happened to make refrence to the acounting theory. Since then the wikipedia article has been corected and contains mutiple refrences suporting the fact that ‘black friday’ has nothing to do with ink color.
Yet the story of ink color continues. Passed from one person to another in naritive urban folklore. News outlets repeat it as a throw away ‘bit of trivia’. Not because they researched it and found out the origin of the term, but because everyone else they talk to says thats the origin. And they all say it because they heard a news report once that said it. And the news report said it because people were saying it. And people said it because of the news report that said it.
And the news report said it because they saw it on awikipedia page years ago. A wikipedia page that has since been fixed.
Reality is not based on what is true. Reality is not even based on what the majority of people think is true. Reality is based on what the majority of people say to eachother. Unfortunatly, this can lead to some nasty issues in regard to sexual freedom.
You have probably been told that Alabama baned genetal piercings. Or was itMississippi? Well, wherever it was, those intolerant religious zealots just hat sex so much that they baned genetal piercings. They think its their duty to tell other people what to do with their bodies. You have been told this, and have probably yourself told it toothers. But did you ever research the facts?
Well, for starters it was Georgia. SB 418. Also refred to as the Amirah Joyce Adem Act. The purpose of the bill was on the issue of female genetal torture. Throught most of the history of the bill, piercing wasent refered to at all. Piercing only got added in by accedent toward the end of the life of the bill. Once it was discovered that this new wording of the bill would limit the rights of women to choise to do what they want with their own bodies, the bill was reverted back to its original wording. The measure to git rid of the new wording and go back to the old wording passed unanamously.
The verson that would have accedently baned piercing never made it out of commitie. In the end, neither did the reverted version of the bill. It had been re-worded again after the piercing language had been removed. The new-new-version sat on a buricats desk untill the General Asdsambly enbded, at witch point the bill passed into oblivion. Not only is genetal piercing legal in Georga, genetal mutilation never got around to being made iligeal.
Now that you know this are you going to repeat it? This little bit of trivia will get filed away in your brain, but will there ever be a time where the conversation you are in might cause you to recal this? And even if you do repeat it to the people you know, how many of those people will repeat it?
Compare yourself to someone who isnt aware of the facts of the Georga Piercing bill. Conversations about how BDSM is being opresed by the evil government happen all the time. And during those conversations, the uninformed will blistfuly repeat “Ya know, Arakanas or Virginia or someplace pased a low againt genetal piercings. Those evil politicians just want to tell us what to do with our own bodies. We are living in a police state.” Everyone listining will nod their head solomoly. And they each will file this bit of trivia away untill the next time the topic of opresion comes up.
Unnatural fear of the ‘outside’ world, and an us-v-them mentality, are warning signs of a religious cult.