Like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Black
Friday celebrates bounty and benevolence, writes Greg Beato. But
because Black Friday is so deliberately bacchanalian, a suburban
Mardi Gras where the beads have been upsized into brightly colored
boxes filled with children’s toys and the goal is to test the
absolute load-bearing capacity of today’s all-plastic shopping
carts, it’s natural to focus on its most negative aspects—the
deaths that have occurred when crowds got out of hand, the lesser
acts of mayhem that sometimes take place as shoppers get swept up
in the scrum of the housewares aisle.

Ultimately, though, Black Friday is more about accord than
chaos—witness the increasingly the frequent invocations about Black
Friday as a cherished “family tradition.” Indeed, Black Friday is
not just a highly inclusive holiday that draws participants from
all creeds, colors, classes, and political persuasions—it’s a
holiday that does so in shared public spaces. And outside of jury
duty and events like St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras, Beato
writes, where does that happen anymore? Thanksgiving and Christmas
are largely private affairs, celebrated at home with only select
invitees in attendance. Black Friday is for anyone who wants to
show up.

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