General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums#HandsUpDontSpend: African Americans call to boycott Black Friday over Ferguson decision
If you agree, please spread the word..thank you.Activists plan to protest grand jury decision with economic boycott on major US shopping weekend.
Black consumers plan to protest with their wallets over what they say is a failure of justice in Ferguson, Missouri. On Monday, a grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson on any charges in the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition is calling for a national boycott of Black Friday, a major US shopping holiday that follows Thanksgiving, and throughout the weekend. Organiser Dacia Polk told St. Louis radio, "Until this nation begins to place value on black lives, there will be no value placed on this business because black lives matter.
Boycott advocates hope they can harness African Americans' collective purchasing power, an estimated one trillion dollars. Organisers also plan to walk through malls in silent protest.
Boycott supporters tweeted using #BoycottBlackFriday , #BrownFriday , and #HandsUpDontSpend , a reference to the "hands up don't shoot" chant from many Ferguson protests.
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201411251817-0024376
Response to Jefferson23 (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)justice...ok?
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)They visited my thread earlier today, you gotta see it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5870857
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Response to NYC_SKP (Reply #5)
Name removed Message auto-removed
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Response to Jefferson23 (Reply #4)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Response to Jefferson23 (Reply #9)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)We just weren't his type.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)uponit7771
(90,371 posts)... to spend even before talking to each other about it
Once we saw the evening news I could tell how much they were hurting...
They're not spending shit this Friday... might make scratch but it's actions that could be taken
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)RichGirl
(4,119 posts)My plan was to not go shopping...but now I have to plan on shopping and not go...so I can boycott.
spinbaby
(15,095 posts)Black Friday is always buy-nothing day at our house. We spend the day at home eating leftovers and watching old movies.
Response to spinbaby (Reply #10)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)avebury
(10,953 posts)instead of mindless shopping. For example giving the gift of your time like volunteering at a nursing home, volunteering at a animal shelter, volunteering as an advocate for at risk children, and so on. You can give your time to elderly relatives who could use help aroung their home. You can always donate to a worthy cause on behalf of someone that you bought a gift for in the past, particularly if you choose a cause dear to the heart of your loved one.
One year our office decide to forgo gift giving and collect money for the backpack program. For every $200 they receive, a child gets a backpack of food every weekend to help them have enough to eat.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)avebury
(10,953 posts)their back on the materialism of the 1%ers and instead take back this country strictly be choosing to adopt a better sense of values where the sense of true communities can be developed. If the masses would decide to pull together it would be hard for the elite to pull us apart. That is the kind of stance that the elite would not know how to deal with.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Friday's the day I finally get to rest after busting my butt for the last week getting the Thanksgiving baskets ready for our Title I students. Next week we have to start getting the Christmas baskets ready and the angel tree ready, plus this weekend I've got to write my guardian ad litem court report and finish my class on the effects of trauma on children in the foster care system.
I was a little flippant, sorry. You make a good point, but you also illustrate my pet peeve: we can make the world a better place all year long, not just because it's the holidays."
I don't believe in an afterlife, but I do believe that it's our responsibility to leave this world better than we found it.
avebury
(10,953 posts)If the masses made the decision to adopt a different life style that is not about I, I, I, Me, Me, Me and become more active in their communities there would be more unification as a people. Being a participant in your community does not require that you have a lot of money but can be about giving of yourself and your talent and matching up wants and needs. It becomes about being their for the elderly as well as the children. You choose to create a society that works for all and is not about serving the needs of the uber wealthy. It could become all about taking back this country. The last thing that the 1%ers and MIC want if for the masses to get along and learn to work together against them.
We need a 21st century version of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Hope this hurts businesses...
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Thanks.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)when it affects them monetarily.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Cha
(298,074 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Cha
(298,074 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)measurable response, we'll see.
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)Exactly what is this suppose to do?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Boycott advocates hope they can harness African Americans' collective purchasing power, an estimated one trillion dollars. Organisers also plan to walk through malls in silent protest.
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)A delayed purchase is still a purchase.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)silent protests through malls.
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)But any boycott should be long lasting until certain demands are met.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Until the whole damn country understands that ALL lives matter.....we have work to do.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I don't usually make a big deal about Black Friday, but I think it is not a good idea to boycott the locally owned businesses. Sure, boycott Walmart and Radio Shack (are there still Radio Shacks?), but I will go out of my way to buy from an independant, locally-owned store or restaurant.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)*Organizers also plan to walk through malls in silent protest.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I have not been inside an indoor mall since 2010. That visit was in Arizona and I was looking for a public blood pressure machine for my then 78 year old father. I'm spending the Thanksgiving weekend with my father before he flies south for the winter.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Have a happy Thanksgiving.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)who come to our home for Thanksgiving to skip the Black Friday shopping.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)maced666
(771 posts)Sales well into Thursday, sales before, sales after. And boycotting a day does no good if you go and shop for whatever a week later anyway.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Be there if you dare.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)And continue your negativity. Be a part of the problem
certainot
(9,090 posts)republicon radio, which has been instrumental in making excuses for wilson and the cops and the racism, just like they did for zimmerman, attacking and demonizing "thugs" travon martin and mike brown and their communities and families and protestors for daring to stand up.
it enables prosecutors like mcculloch and the republican party to use these tragedies/crimes for political purposes and gives them confidence ot try anything and get aawy with it because they know the talk radio teabaggers will be getting their backs unanimously.
it is also true that republicon radio depends heavily on college and pro sports teams and their african american athletes. more than 28 % (170) of limbaughs stations do (70+ universities).
getting those schools to honor their mission statements and look for apolitical alternatives would destroy that massive propaganda operation and the racism and hate it generates for the GOP.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)There was a statement that right wing talkshow hosts never take calls from people who disagree with them. I have a lot of years experience in the broadcasting and media relations business. Talkshow hosts, from either the conservative or liberal side, or even an apolitical talkshow host LOVE taking calls on-air with people who call in to disagree with them. Their egos demand it.
certainot
(9,090 posts)callers. they do love a set up call where the liberal is an idiot of someone with an accent of inflection. i have also heard what sounded like a series of callers working together to sell, for istance, the talking points used to sell the iraq attack. i've been banned, a friend of mine just got banned.
they also have their pet callers. the locals that i know do take liberals sometimes but are quick with the cutoff button. it's a great opportunity for liberals to be heard by tens of thousands and if they're quick and good it counts.
most liberal talkers i've heard love con talkers and like thom hartmann and randi rhodes (used to) move them to the front of the line. no con talkers do that.
i've seen screenshots of some of the call screening software they use but can't find it anymore- like they took it off, but i haven't checked recently. have you ever seen that stuff? where the good callers are happy faces etc and the liberals are devil emoticons..... that could be used to bump paid callers from think tanks etc to the top of the line.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)Limbaugh does not get many callers who disagree with him because most liberals will not make the effort to try and get through. I do know that if a calker who does disagree with him gets to the screener, that call is usually bumped to the top of the list. I am sure there are local hosts across the country who avoid callees who challenge them, but they are in the minority, I am quite sure. (I first went into the broadcasting business years before talk radio became a common format.)
certainot
(9,090 posts)screeners in the business. if they disagree its VERY uncommon and usually they get dumped and he gets pissed at snerdley or whoever. one caller managed to get through and punk him (mike something) a few times- great stuff. but with that call screening software they can prioritize their callers. there are callers they let through 'regularly' but then some caller gets through that says " i love you rush and i'm so excited, i've been calling for years and never got through". limabaugh has to be very selective or they'd get a load of racist goobers getting through. it is useless for any liberal caller to try to get through unless they're as savy as mike.
hannity is so stupid they have to be very careful. many of his sound like paid callers and they love the ones with accents and urban drawls/
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)Limbaugh does not get too many calls disagreeing with him is because there are not too many liberals who will go throufh the torture of trying to get in.
I am notva listener of Limbaugh. I will confess to listening to his show during Gulf Storm. I had recently moved to a market that broadcast his program. There was a lot of national pride at kicking Sadaam's ass. It's too bad the U.N. Did not allow the coalition to finish the job. Of course that might have just accelerated the pace to what Iraq is today.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)start buying Ferguson. Mondragon started under a dictator that was killing the people, with a police that replaced one murdered by the dictator's police, and among people with not enough education. Today they control their own destiny, no longer asking, and the dictator is dust.
The little bit of rioting is understandable, though it is just inflammatory. The boycott could show how much money black folk spend in the economy, but I doubt most folks will get it, so they need to build on it. And there doesn't seem to be much of a demand, other than "respect us", which isn't going to happen.
On the other hand they could pool that money use it to gain power. Then they could make that city, and others, what it could be. Find people who want to work together, (if they include all colors, it would be even stronger) and take that place over.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)And join the boycott. That's something YOU can do
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)who watched while the criminals in the banks were made richer than they ever have been in history (now THAT is a riot, eh?) as a matter of policy because, we were and are told "it's good for us"...
Fuck yeah!!
I am kinda doing it by default anyway, so I don't need you to tell me what to do. Never have, never will.
Just out of curiosity, does the boycott have a demand? Anything concrete which could be measured, or is it supposedly to prove a point?
It will take some money out, but does anyone really think people who make $500,000 a minute give a flying rat's ass about some pissy amount Americans spend, btw? We are net importers, which means they are making the majority of their money outside this country. Who this will impact are a few stockholders, and whatever employees they don't need to not sell some shit.The money this country makes them is simply not that big a percentage to get all worked up about. The impact will be local, and might well hurt people they didn't intend to hurt.
That is not a problem if there is a strategy to achieve something. In Montgomery they wanted to ride as equals, in other actions it was to get a the Civil Rights bill passed or open a school system. There is a specific demand, and the action continue until they win, quit, or die.
So, does this boycott have a demand? I haven't heard.
Or is this just a bunch of loudmouths egging on something that may well hurt people who have very little, while the instigators won't feel very much at all?
rurallib
(62,483 posts)first for Walmart workers and then when this travesty happened it pretty much told me quit supporting the bastards.
TinkerTot55
(198 posts)...to do ABSOLUTELY no shopping on Friday and through the weekend.
As with the bus boycotts during the Southern Civil Rights struggle, economic clout ( and the withholding of such ) can accomplish MUCH more than people realize.
Sales occurring this weekend are used as a prediction of holiday sales, and mark the period when many businesses begin to turn a profit for the year.
Calling for a boycott, and having a successful boycott, in ALL spending activities, will hit TPTB* right where it will hurt them the most: in $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/11/20/walmart-workers-strike-gear-largest-black-friday-protest-yet/
Twenty-three Walmart workers were arrested last Thursday for blocking an intersection in Pico Rivera, Calif., outside a Walmart store in the Los Angeles suburb. Those arrested are part of a larger movement of Walmart and other low-wage workers across the country demanding not only higher wages, but better hours, working conditions and an end to corporate retaliation against their organizing efforts.
Thursdays arrests followed a historic sit-down strike in another Los Angeles-area Walmart store, in which off-duty workers placed green tape with the word Strike written on it over their mouths. Protesters lined store aisles as customers walked by, chanting Stand up, Live Better! Sit Down, Live Better!
The sit-down strike is an old favorite in the labor movement, and a recent favorite among the low-wage workers rapidly joining it. The tactic was popularized in the 1930s, when workers with the freshly founded United Auto Workers sat down on a General Motors assembly line in the companys heart, Flint, Mich., to secure union recognition. The UAW strike was meticulously planned, after researchers found that there were only two GM plants in the country that produced the dies out of which car bodies are made: shutting down the Flint plant, Fisher Body Plant Number One, essentially meant shutting down General Motors.
As labor historian Phillip Dray writes in There Is Power in a Union, auto makers were especially vulnerable to sit-down strikes because manufacturing in the auto industry was based on the continuous flow of production, and the cessation of work by even a handful of men in one department could bring an entire plant to a halt. When the strike ended after a recognition agreement was reached in early February, the UAWs membership grew exponentially from 30,000 to 500,000 workers nationwide in the year after the strike.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)ellie
(6,929 posts)will learn. Cut off their money.
I hope this happens.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)on Thanksgiving weekend. Be happy to not do it. Success, I hope, for all who boycott.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)That will make a big difference.
Not going without letting them know is less powerful, I think.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Response to Jefferson23 (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)By Edward McAllister and Daniel Wallis
FERGUSON, Mo. Fri Nov 28, 2014 8:28am EST
(Reuters) - Protesters in Ferguson, Missouri began targeting Black Friday sales at major retailers overnight in a new tactic to vent their anger at a grand jury decision not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teen.
Kicking off their latest strategy inside a Walmart in another nearby suburb of St. Louis, about 75 demonstrators protested peacefully, chanting "Hands up, don't shoot!", bemusing bargain-hunters pushing their brimming shopping carts.
They dispersed peacefully when ordered by a small group of police, moving on to a Target store where they staged a similar demonstration. More protests were planned for Friday.
Ferguson became a flashpoint for often troubled U.S. race relations after officer Darren Wilson shot dead Michael Brown on Aug. 9. The U.S. Justice Department is probing possible civil rights abuses, and President Barack Obama has called for reflection on the difficulties minorities face in the country.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/28/us-usa-missouri-shooting-blackfridaysale-idUSKCN0JC0CY20141128