I first saw mentions of this day during the time when protests were at their peak. It was right around the time when a bunch of people replaced their social media profile pic with a black square, then the idea seemed to fade away. And just as I was about to make a purchase (non-black-owned) in the wee hours of this morning, I got a reminder that it was Black Out Day 2020, and I wasn’t supposed to purchase shit unless it was black-owned.
Buying shit is more often than not a hard decision for me, because I’m on a limited budget. I always vacillate between the questions, to buy or not to buy, before being swayed either way. So ultimately it wasn’t that difficult when I ended up leaving my cart – though I didn’t empty my cart. As a matter of fact, when the clock strikes 12am, I think I’ma high tail it on over there and see if my items are still safe.
For what it’s worth, I made the choice to participate. I didn’t buy nothing today (I know that’s a double negative). I didn’t buy any fast food, or go to the grocery store. I didn’t so much as do my laundry today. I was going to have dinner from a Jamaican restaurant, just to find out that the place has been shutdown a couple of years already. It’s funny, I kept saying, I’m gonna go there, I’m gonna go there, and now there’s no there there anymore. Anyway.
Around two in the afternoon, I visited Twitter and the hashtag wasn’t even trending. I barely saw it in my Twitter feed and absolutely nothing in my Instagram feed. I searched the hashtag on Twitter and found a bunch of small businesses putting themselves on with the tag line “it’s free to retweet.”
While that’s cool and all, I’m just wondering how successful this day really was, and where’s it all going. I wish there was more build-up and marketing leading up to the day. Perhaps even a march with speakers outlining its importance, the goals, the agenda. Also, I’m not certain of the significance of July 7th. Was that just random? But if Tuesday’s the theme, maybe the Tuesday after Black Friday would be a good day. Or hey, maybe even Black Friday itself would be better suited for the cause – who knows?
Maybe these questions have already been answered and I just need to do my research. I realize these are grassroots movements and people can only do so much. But now more than any other time it’s much easier to galvanize people behind a common cause and raise money. And if this economic movement is going to have any legs, there’s definitely more to be done.
But you gotta start somewhere, so I’m happy to support the start. And if those sandals on sale are no longer in my cart, well hey, I guess I didn’t need them anyway.
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