Its All About Raleigh - Frayser - North Memphis November 2015 Its All About Raleigh-Frayser-North Memphis | Page 4

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I TS A LL A BOUT R ALEIGH -F RAYSER -N ORTH M EMPHIS

Should Black People Boycott Black Friday?
Dr. Noel G. Hutchinson
while expected, in taken for granted.
Reading this, at least for me, generates
some valid questions. What if we could
harness that economic power to
strengthen our community economically? The reality is that if we can—
which I strongly believe—then we
should.

$1 trillion, and projected to be $1.3
trillion by 2017.
These are the reported numbers of
Black spending power according to Resilient, Receptive and Relevant: The African
American Consumer 2013 Report by Nielson in conjunction with the National
Newspaper Publishers Association, a
group of over 200 Black newspapers
founded by the publisher of the Chicago Defender in 1940.
Our spending power is greater than
the Gross National Product of most
nations.
To add further emphasis to the power
of our collective consumerism, this
same report in its executive summary
highlights that of the $75 billion spent
on media advertising, only $2.24 billion focuses on Black audiences. In
other words, our strong consumerism,

This then leads to the question of the
hour—should Black people boycott
Black Friday? Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is regarded as the beginning of the general culture. Its positivity reflects the enriched coffers of
many merchants outside of our
community.
This year The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan calls for a boycott of Black
Friday, encouraging us to keep our
money in our pockets and spend what
we need in our communities. While
saying this, he also had emphasized us
getting back to the spiritual celebration of Christmas instead of the commercialized one. If we were truthful,
many persons—including several
Christian pastors and community activists—have said the same thing
across the years, but now the clarion
call is getting needed attention.
(Continued on page 12)