November 25, 2007

• Save it for your bumper sticker.

  No Shopping Friday has been the topic of many blogs this week and has got me rilled. Ready for a rant? Here it goes:

  While I’ve never done any shopping the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Black Friday, (I hate shopping on a regular day), I almost wonder if, like many socially conscious movements, the Say No To Black Friday movement is an elitist one based on upper-middle class, suburban assumptions. (I only say “suburban” because things tend to be homogenized there, making it easy to sometimes forget that there are people unlike themselves in the world; the diversity of an urban setting makes this quite difficult for city-dwellers).

  Many Americans live in a hideous cycle. Unskilled American laborers make tiny salaries; as U.S. factories close, lots of people, without the privilege of higher education, are forced into low-paid, service-sector jobs. The factory jobs that once paid unskilled American laborers a livable wage are sent overseas to malnourished children in browner countries who will work pennies. This leaves unskilled American laborers little choice but to buy those cheap, child-made goods that put them out of work or in lower income brackets in the first place. And what better time to buy them than when they are even cheaper than they usually are, on Black Friday?

  Now, when people buy those cheap, child-made goods when they can afford not to, when gluttony at Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t enough and a little spending frenzy is craved: they should skip the whole feeling guilty part and just stop. (They will probably find the superior quality of socially concious products and the feelings of connectedness when buying from independently owned shops worth the higher price, if nothing else.) No Shopping Friday should be directed explicitly at these upper-middle class types. But as No Shopping Friday seems lacking in target audience, it grates on my nerves.

  There are many, many people who cannot otherwise afford our culture’s holidays without Black Friday. Lots of people in my immigrant neighborhood earn modest salaries and have large families. Many were walking around on Friday with shopping bags filled with winter coats for their kids, and other necessities that are expensive when you have kids that grow all the time, both physically and mentally. These neighbors of mine are just trying to live in a societal structure that is intrinsically flawed.

  I am not saying that the notion of personal responsibility that No Shopping Friday promotes should come to a screeching halt. I just feel compelled to say that instead of spending so much time fueling a movement dedicated to a surface “statement,” we might find more productivity in rekindling a revolutionary-mentality in our society.

  I feel like we are in this strange era, unique to history, where instead of rising up and causing a ruckus about injustice, we are encouraged to feel guilty about it. The rampant injustices of our age are caused by a  relatively small group of people in this world run by monopolies, in this country where politicians are bankrolled by corporations. Why are we citizens not storming these fat cats with pitchforks and torches? People used to laugh in the face of jail time – change used to be something people fought for. And by fight, I mean that people were willing to die for the change they wanted to see. And most of the time, that was their fate. Why instead do we sit around blogging, “not shopping,” and comforting ourselves with cushy feelings of moral superiority?  Do we not want change enough to  sacrifice anything? Are we too comfortable – is there just too much to loose? Does it have to do with propaganda and media machines – are we afraid of being shipped off to Guantanamo just for talking about a revolution? Is our lack of citizen action due the feeling that we’re living in a country where you can be snuffed out for even thinking about change, stopped before you’ve even begun?

  I don’t know the answer. And at this moment in time, I am just as complicit in my “non-action” as anybody. Or perhpas I’m being nieve and Homeland Security is on their way to my humble abode as we speak, just for my authoring of these thoughts. In any case, I refuse to feel guilty for trying to live in this oftentimes shitty world to the best of my ability; guilt is a useless emotion that encourages weakness, making me an easier person for those capitalistic monopolies to suppress.

  Also, it is important to remember – especially in this information age – that sucessfull revolutions require much more than soldiers wielding pitchforks. They require teachers, lawyers, engineers, farmers and healthcare providers. They have artists and poets and writers. They have philosophers and union leaders. They have speeches and performances and discussions. They have elders and families and neighboors. They are bigger than politics. They are more akin to religion. They require, above all else, a community.

  So am I supporting Black Friday? No. Am I supporting No Shopping Friday? No. Am I calling for something bigger, something bolder? Am I calling for everyone, from unskilled American laborers to cushy suburban dwellers to unite, rise up, and get their revolution on? Absolutely. I’m also calling for all of you who are building the educated, conceared community that is needed for change to stop feeling guilty and stand tall. You are doing the right thing. Now do it loud.
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  Discuss.

  • 12:38 pm
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