Amber Randall, DCNF
Black Lives Matter and other groups plan to block white-owned Chicago stores on Black Friday to bring awareness about police shootings, economic issues and alleged racism.
Local churches, Black Lives Matter and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression will block stores along Michigan Avenue and prevent customers from entering stores for the second year in a row, reports Crain’s Chicago Business.
A big part of the protest is to force on people that it’s important to shop at businesses that aren’t owned by white men, Kimberly Veal, a leader of Black Lives Matter, said. It’s not yet known who owns the businesses that will be targeted as part of this effort.
“One of the cornerstones about why we’re boycotting on Black Friday is to attempt to redirect people to businesses owned by people of color and women, and explain why it’s important to patronize these businesses,” Veal explained.
Last year, protesters blocked shoppers from entering stores on Black Friday to protest the death of Laquan McDonald, a black teen shot 16 times by an officer. Dash cam video revealed the teen ignoring officer commands to stop as he walked away from officers with a knife in his hands.
Police had to help shoppers get into the stores; as one person tried to enter, protesters screamed “Shut it down! Shut it down!”
After last year’s protest, stores’ sales were 25 to 50 percent below their expected projections, according to staff and managers.
A sales associate at Aldo said that her store under-performed by $18,000.
“We were down a lot. We were budgeted to make $37,000 but we only did $19,000 — customers told us they were concerned,”said Sarah Midoun.
One of the protest organizer hopes that this year’s protest will have a larger turnout.
“We’re expecting a bigger turnout this year, though this is not an exact science. The reason we’re looking for a bigger turnout is that Trump is the president-elect and, boy, are people pissed,”Frank Chapman, a field organizer with one of the organizations involved, said.
He added that not only race brings the protesters together. “We’ve been calling everyone who has a grievance: the African-American community, Latino people, the white working class,” Chapman explained. “I’m not going to write the white working class off as racist.”
Follow Amber on Twitter
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- The Florida candidate laser-focused on eradicating horrific animal crimes - March 22, 2024
- Sabo: ‘Rush was our GOAT, there was no equal and he made it look easy’ - February 18, 2024
- Dana Bash appears to want to crawl out of her own skin when Ramaswamy ‘goes there’ on J6 - December 7, 2023
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
BPR INSIDER COMMENTS
Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!
