Saturday, November 25, 2017

Merry Black Friday Protest!
Whitney Kimball
Today 2:51pm

Protesters on Michigan Ave in Chicago in a “march for justice.” Image via AP.

As television tells us, the central theme of Christmas is not Jesus or family time, but SAVINGS. It’s about exhausted post-Thanksgiving moms piledriving each other for last year’s repackaged Christmas offscourings, now in Blu-Ray, or with more Hanson! Or maybe not. Yesterday, bands of protestors expressed that rather than elevator jingles, they’d rather have social justice this year.

Marches commenced in Chicago and Seattle; though smaller than previous years, Black Friday protests are becoming a bit of a holiday tradition in both cities. In Chicago, for the third year running, a small group of protestors marched on the third anniversary of the release of a video of the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was killed by a white police officer, the Chicago Tribune reports. In Seattle, for the fourth year, a few hundred chanted “Black Lives Matter on Black Friday,” congregating at the Macy’s tree lighting, according to KIRO7.

In Saint Louis, Missouri, nearly 100 folks from a clergy and activist-organized group No Justice No Profit temporarily shut down the Galleria Mall in a protest against the gamut of issues, from corporate abuses (names here), voter dilution, and excessive force by police officers against the black community. The protest was reportedly peaceful until the police showed up, after which point it turned “quite violent,” an eyewitness told ABC News. Settle in and watch police slam protesters to the ground so that jolly, jolly shopping may resume. Seven were arrested, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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