I suppose my first mistake was paying attention to what they say on The View. That will get you nowhere good.
Now I don't really know what makes Joy Behar an authority on anything, and I suspect there is no answer to that question, but if she's The View's expert on matter of commerce and/or racial sensitivity then they're in serious trouble.
Ms. Behar, offering some sterling analysis of the cultural phenomenon known as Black Friday, suggested the other day that it sure seems kind of racist to call it that. Another panel member suggested - in jest, I think (I hope?) - that maybe it could be called African-American Friday.
Do you think they really have no idea what Black Friday is? Do you think they're like most liberals in that they're so obsessed with race they see it in absolutely everything? This may be a fool's errand, but I'm going to try to explain this:
Ms. Behar, back in the days when businesses kept their ledgers with pen and paper, you used two colors of ink to indicate profits and losses. When you lost money, you recorded those numbers using red ink. When you made a profit, you recorded those numbers using black ink. That's why losing money put you "in the red" and making a profit put you "in the black."
The day after Thanksgiving has traditionally been the biggest sales day of the year for retailers, so they call it Black Friday to indicate the massive profits they expect to make on that day. See? It's a good thing! Black. Good. Racist? No.
I guess political correctness has now become so knee-jerk that some people only need to hear the word "black" uttered in order to start howling racism. They don't even need to know what the word is referring to.
I'm glad I could explain. That doesn't mean she could understand. Especially since I don't suppose she really ever wanted to in the first place.
