We have yet to check with our editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., but according to New York Knicks guard J.R. Smith’s Instagram page, Black Friday is historically linked to slavery.
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On Tuesday evening, Smith posted the following message linking the biggest shopping day of the year with a “historical” factoid claiming that the day after Thanksgiving was when slaves were sold for half price:
Smith followers disagreed: “It’s called Black Friday because businesses get into the black (profit) for the year, because it’s the biggest day,” one user wrote. Smith quickly deleted the post, but not before users shared the image on social media.
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