GATHER round there's a chance of an online bargain later this month as part of Black Saturday.
Hang on, I imagine you're thinking that's not right; 'isn't that the name given to the deadliest day of bushfires in Australia?' and 'doesn't he mean Black Friday'.
You're right on both scores.
To underline the stupidity and offensive nature of companies promoting Black Friday sales in Australia you just have to ponder how insulting it would be to have a Black Saturday retail celebration.
Yet there will be firms embracing that name with disregard to the fact Black Friday was bestowed on Victoria's most lethal bushfire tragedy before Black Saturday.
Black Friday should evoke tragedy for us, not spruiking of cheap deals
There were 71 lives lost in the blazes which occurred 80 years ago this year and burnt two million hectares after days of record high temperatures.
While the communal memory of what occurred in 1939 may no longer be strong, we all should know that on a Friday this month firestorms flared across northern NSW.
Four people, two men and two women, perished as a result.
In light of that, it's all the more stunning that companies would want to use Black Friday as a marketing gimmick.
Of course, the problem is that it has been imported from America without any deep thought about what the words have historically conjured up in Australia.
Giant firms, such as Amazon and eBay, have promoted the concept which refers to the day after Thanksgiving, a US public holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.
Unsurprisingly these American companies appear to have no idea that Black Friday has a different connotation in Australia.
Sadly, Australian companies have piggy-backed on the sales stunt and Sydney social researcher Mark McCrindle claims it will become bigger.
It is understandable in a digital world and given the cultural dominance of the US that such a concept can get toehold in Australia.
But that does not mean it should be adopted in ignorance.
Would we tolerate a sales celebration centred around Remembrance Day? Unlikely.
Certainly not when it comes to Anzac Day, which is subject to trading restrictions and is also subject to an act of parliament that protects the commercial use of the word Anzac.
The feebleness behind the take-up of Black Friday in Australia is underlined by the humdrum origins of how the description came to be given to the retail rumble in the US.
It was inspired by the huge number of shoppers who descended on the city of Philadelphia in the 1950s for sales which were held on the day after Thanksgiving which also happened to be the eve of a big college gridiron match.
It's a long way from the solemn meaning of Black Friday to the historically-minded in Australia.
Just to reinforce the common use of the descriptor black when it comes to bushfire disasters across the wide brown land there have also been Black Sunday, Black Tuesday, Black Thursday and Black Christmas conflagrations in Australia.
You could not imagine Americans being too happy about a sales pitch tied to tragedy in their country.
However, sensitivity to foreign cultures is something conglomerates appear to have a blind spot with at times.
Only last month, as part of Halloween dessert advertising, McDonald's in Portugal flogged their ice-creams under the slogan Sundaes Bloody Sundaes.
Any U2 fan could tell you that is in poor taste with the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre that claimed 14 lives in Northern Ireland the inspiration for the Irish band's 1983 song Sunday Bloody Sunday.
McDonald's apologised and withdrew its advertising.
It is a shame a similar outcry has not prompted a large-scale backlash to those marketeers and their firms who are debasing the cultural significance of the term Black Friday in Australia.
The heartache of bushfire survivors remains deep-rooted, whether that be from Black Friday in 1939, Black Saturday in 2009 or that awful Friday in November 2019.
Black Friday should evoke tragedy for us, not spruiking of cheap deals thanks to ignorant American companies and their gormless Australian imitators.
