It’s the holiday season again and time to decide where to shop based on people’s skin color — or so says Black Lives Matter.
The group for the seventh year is urging people to boycott stores owned by White people and only to patronize Black-owned businesses.
“When buying items, spend exclusively with Black-owned businesses from Black Friday through New Year,” the group said on its website and Instagram promoting its annual #BuyBlack campaign.
The group argues that “white Capitalism” created police to keep down Black people. It cited several shootings of Black people by police in stores, including the fatal shooting of John Crawford, a 22-year old Black man at a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio.
Mr. Crawford had picked up a BB rifle that was for sale. He was shot by city police after another shopper called 911 saying Mr. Crawford was pointing the gun at people. The shopper who made the call later blamed Walmart for not keeping the BB rifle in a box.
“As we prepare ourselves for the holiday season, we are bombarded with ads that seek to whip us up into a consumerist frenzy. Black Friday sales are being rolled out weeks in advance of Thanksgiving and, at every turn, white-supremacist-capitalism is telling us to spend our money on things that we don’t need, to reap profits for corporations,” Black Lives Matter said in a statement.
“Targets have been affixed to the backs of Black people like, #JohnCrawford and #StevenTaylor, who were murdered by police inside Walmart stores; like #YuvetteHenderson and #RedelJones, Black mothers who were accused of petty thefts before their lives were stolen by police; and like #AlbertRamonDorsey and #DennisToddRogers, who were gunned down when 24-Hour-Fitness locations called in police on Black male patrons…twice,” the statement said.
Mr. Crawford’s killing also prompted the group to call for “challenging people to ‘dream of a #BlackXmas,’ to intentionally use our economic resources to disrupt white-supremacist-capitalism and build Black community.”
• Kery Murakami can be reached at kmurakami@washingtontimes.com.
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