Matt Walsh Deserves Black Thanksgiving

Charting Course ^ | 11/15/2014 | Steve Berman

[lifeofgrace]

Matt Walsh takes on Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving 1, Matt 0.  Here’s the play by play.

Matt says that stores like Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Kohl’s, Sears and Target (he calls them godless, anti-American) have ruined Thanksgiving by moving their opening times to Thursday afternoon versus the traditional Black Friday midnight madness.  He further sins by mistaking J.C. Penney as J.C. Penny’s, only proving further that in the halls of retail Valhalla, Matt really belongs in Helheim.  The man obviously doesn’t know his cufflinks from his garters.

He reserves his special venom for Kmart (who owns Sears), which will keep its stores open all day Thanksgiving.  And for people who pride themselves on being the first living beings not wearing blue golf shirts to enter a Best Buy for the big sale--two women are camping out for 22 days.  In Vegas.  Anything can happen in Vegas.  Matt compares a 7-11 in Podunk to a Best Buy in Vegas.  C’mon, Matt, everything is larger than life in Vegas, so get off their case and let what happens in Vegas, stay in Vegas.

But seriously, Matt’s point is that this ever-earlier opening for after-now-during-Thanksgiving sales is evidence of out-of-control consumerism.  Like somehow gluttony and buying sprees of the filthy rich are related to the mom who wants a Frozen Sparkle Elsa doll and to pay less than $25 for it.  Or the guy who wants a new 60” TV to watch football without paying $900.  These are just people who want a bargain, because money is scarce these days.  Not everyone is up for a 4am shopping trip to Walmart, where in 2008 a mob of 2,000 crushed Jdimytai Damour to death.  Hey Matt, a leisurely stroll to Target or Kmart at 6pm might save a few lives.

Matt spends 407 words railing against people buying stuff.

We need you to buy. We don’t need you to be a human, we don’t need you to be a citizen, we don’t need you to be a capitalist, we just need you to be a consumer, a buyer. If you are alive you must buy. Buy like you breathe, only more frequently.

Outside of the reality-denial zone in Matt’s bedroom, or his porch, or wherever he spends his time writing unshaven in his fuzzy slippers and Hershey-kiss boxers, the days between Black Friday and Christmas are the most important retail days of the whole year.  Entire stores, companies, and product lines are made or broken in that short 27-day frenzy.  And poor Matt complains about six hours, because it’s about buying stuff, and interrupting his beer-drinking, football-watching, nap-taking, turkey-stuffed evening.

Here’s what the people who run the stores, and pay the people who work there, think.

According to [America's Research Group’s] research, if a customer enters a retailer's store for its Black Friday sales, there's a 70 percent chance they will return two or three more times during the Christmas season. If they don't walk into a particular store in those beginning days, there's a 30 percent chance they won't come at all that season.

"If you look at the last six Christmases, the retailers who have won the early-bird-special war have won the Christmas war," [Britt Beemer, chairman] said.

People shop on Black Friday for one big, neon-lit reason:  50% off.  I realize that Matt likes to pay full price for everything, because he must be made of money, and uses real money for his $100 bill toilet paper.  But the rest of ‘Murica isn’t flushing cash down the commode, so we have to get our sorry butts down to the store when the discounts are offered.

Not that we’re buying the stuff for ourselves, anyway.  See, there’s this day, it happens every year on December 25, when we get up early, run down the stairs, or down the hall, and lo and behold, there’s a stack of things under a lighted tree in our living rooms.  These things are shiny, wrapped, and they’re called gifts.  People buy them for us, because that’s what we do on Christmas.  Matt obviously needs a lesson in American traditions and Christian holidays, because he doesn’t know that all that stuff we’re buying on Black Friday is given away just 27 days later.

But that’s not the real beef Matt has with shopping on Thanksgiving.  Nope.  He goes all religious on us, saying that Black Friday desecrates the spirit of Thanksgiving.  That somehow in the middle of the blessing over the meal, people will break for the door to get to Walmart.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts yadda yadda — gotta go, Walmart opens in ten minutes!”

And when has it been different?  How about “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…oh my God, did you see that tackle?”  Football cannot possibly desecrate a holiday dedicated to God and His blessings, but shopping can.  And now we get down to the biggest bee in Matt’s bonnet:  that employees at these retail outlets have to work on Thanksgiving so that we can shop.  Yes, there it is, Matt Walsh, the worker’s friend.

Now I’m going to speak to Matt directly.  Read this carefully, Matt.  Hover over each syllable.  Move your lips if you have to, but I know you’re smart enough to get this.  Retail workers working on Thanksgiving is no worse than any other worker working on Thanksgiving.

Blasphemy!  Sacrilege!

Matt, while you’re sitting there sipping your beer and munching on turkey, whether Kmart was open or not, thousands of people would be working on Thanksgiving.  Hundreds of restaurants—open for business.  Where do you think people who don’t slave over a hot oven for five hours eat their turkey dinner?  A quick check on OpenTable (fine dining) shows 7 restaurants in Silver Spring, MD, your stomping grounds, with no availability at 7pm.  It seems that people have reserved all the tables.  On Thanksgiving Day!  Two other restaurants have a table, if you want it.  Better act fast, because they’ll probably be gone soon.

I guess, Matt, you can call out Americans’ fascination with dining out, and our attachment to food, food, food, and our gluttony, and our large portions, and our overweight, face-stuffing culture.  You can relate that to Thanksgiving, and call it Fat Thursday, because many families have their tradition by going out to eat instead of making their mothers and wives cook for three days so they can skeletonize a turkey carcass in an hour like a school of famished piranha descending on an unfortunate victim.

You can go back to traditional gender roles, where a woman’s place is in the kitchen, roasting a turkey to perfection, while the man of the house sharpens his electric carving knife, ready to flawlessly dissect the drumstick from the thigh and serve his perfect family while they sit with their hands folded neatly on their laps, heads bowed in thankfulness and prayer.

But you can’t help noticing that many families don’t have Dad at the head of the table.  That’s because Dad (or Mom) is a police officer, a firefighter, a paramedic, a doctor, or a nurse.  These people have to work on Thanksgiving, because crime, fires, and sickness don’t take a day off.  Then there are the families where the father or brother or sister isn’t there because they are off fighting someone’s war, or on a ship at sea, or wearing the uniform of our armed forces somewhere far away.  Wars don’t honor our holidays either.

Matt, we won’t even mention the football players, the traditional game, that the Detroit Lions always play, who have to work on Thanksgiving.  And it’s not just the 22 men on the field:  trainers, coaches, bus drivers, concession stand cashiers, cooks, referees, cameramen, reporters, photographers, sports anchors, master control operators, directors, and technicians also have to work on Thanksgiving.  They are not at home sipping beer and eating turkey.  And nobody’s getting all bunched up in the pantyhose over their work conditions.

The weather man on TV, the air traffic controllers dealing with flights and the busiest travel days of the year, pilots, mechanics, flight attendants, ticket counter people, gate attendants, and even the hapless TSA screeners.  They all have to work on Black Thanksgiving, and they don’t even have the option of going to Walmart to get the big TV at 50% off.

Matt, the size of your hypocrisy is poking out of your now-too-small shirt.  You’ve eaten too much of your own cooking and it’s made you intellectually fat.  You say Thanksgiving is just a holiday but stuff, things, toys, gadgets is what life is about.  You’re being sarcastic of course, but really you’re being mean.

People deserve to shop if they want to, just as much as they deserve to watch football, drink beer, and eat turkey.  In the end, someone’s got to do the job.  I applaud the companies that give their employees the day off, especially the retail companies you mentioned.  It’s great to have the family at home.  But until you also give the other people who work on Thanksgiving, sometimes year after year, a break, you’re just talking turkey.

Matt, you deserve your Black Thanksgiving, and I hope you enjoy it knowing how many people it took for you to take a day off.  Maybe you should deport yourself.  I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would volunteer to fly you there—somewhere, anywhere but here.

 

[happyhomemaker]

When I was single I worked in the restaurant business and always loved working holiday shifts. Lots of people don’t have close family and happy to have a friendly waitress to serve a nice meal and chat them up for a bit. Did anyone ever consider how many people without family would love to go out on Thanksgiving to shop so they can be around people? I am tired of people who insist that people are godless heathens who may want to get out on Thanksgiving to not feel so lonely and out of place. Heck every commercial makes it seem that everyone has huge happy families all eating turkey together and having perfect family get togethers

[x]

Pray to Black Jesus, then.