Skip to content

Black Friday

BDS Activists Plan Black Friday Protests Against HP’s Support For Israeli Apartheid

By Kit O'Connell for Mint Press News - AUSTIN, Texas — Though best known for their computers and computer peripherals like printers, companies under the Hewlett-Packard umbrella are engaged in another profitable, and far more nefarious business: enabling apartheid Israel to track the movement of occupied Palestinians. Activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are calling for a week of action against HP beginning on Black Friday, the high-volume shopping day that occurs after Thanksgiving.

Ferguson Protesters Surprise Macy’s Black Friday Shoppers In NYC

More than 200 people angered by a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer for killing an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson sought to disrupt Black Friday shopping in New York with a protest in front of Macy's flagship store. A small group of the protesters took their rally to the Manhattan department store's ground floor for a few minutes, as staff and shoppers seeking post-Thanksgiving bargains looked on in apparent surprise. Some shoppers took pictures of the protests with their cellphones. Many protesters said they were encouraging a boycott of Black Friday to highlight the purchasing power of black Americans and to draw links between economic inequality and racial inequality. "Voicing your opinion is not enough," said Sergio Uzurin, one of the protesters. "You have to disrupt business as usual for this to happen and that's the only thing that's ever made change. It's the real way democracies function."

Ferguson Black Friday Shuts It Down

As the crowd swelled it took over both floors of the mall and about half the stores pulled down the security gates to close their shop. Many of the workers inside the stores stood behind their gates and clapped, chanted and filmed the protest. The best moment was when two women in Macy's uniforms led the rousing chant "No Black Friday". Twice during the 90 minutes we were there a mass die-in was held to remind everyone that Michael Brown's body was left in the street of Ferguson for four and one-half hours after he was shot dead. Many cops from various law enforcement agencies were brought into the mall but they were helpless - it was impossible to distinguish the protesters from shoppers as many mall customers were clapping and filming the action with their cell phones. Many actually joined the crowd as we walked through the mall.