Only this year in Chicago, Illinois, not everybody was interested in buying. Some instead suggested a boycott amidst the Holiday shopping spree to condemn violence. They used Twitter hashtags such #NotOneDime and #RedistributeThePain, to condemn Black Friday’s consumerism in the “wake of an ongoing systemic violence against African-Americans” in the United States.

On October 20th 2014, 17 year old Laquan Mc Donald was killed in Chicago by a white police officer, who shot him over 16 times¹. Charges were filed against the officer recently this week. Last Friday, on November 27th 2015, protesters demanded a federal investigation into the Chicago Police Department by locking arms outside the doors of some major retailers, preventing shoppers from entering, and compelling people to use “Black Friday” as a day of resistance and service to racial justice instead.

A brilliant use of a signifier’s equivocal to make a statement about the crucial events taking place in the US; this year alone, over 303 black people were killed by the police and intense protests occurred all over the country².

¹ CNNNewsUS.com (Thursday November 26th, 2015)
² www.theguardian.com (Edition of Friday November 27th, 2015)