Julianne Malveaux: Give a child a book for Christmas

by Julianne Malveaux (TriceEdneyWire.com)—They don’t call it “Black Friday” because they love Black people; they call it Black Friday because many businesses are pushed into the black (from the red ink of losses to the black ink of profits) on that day or into the holiday season. In just the three days from Black Friday until Sunday, November 26, online sales jumped by more than seven percent, according to one of the credit card companies that tracks spending from credit receipts. Even with economic anxiety, people are spending money. If your email inbox is anything like mine, you are barraged with ads and promotions offering 25, 50, and even 75 percent off. These retailers aren’t giving anything away for free. A 75 percent offer means they had marked the product up by three times what it cost them to produce it to get their retail price. The original tag may have said $99.99. Trust and believe that the item didn’t cost more than $25 to produce unless it has been sitting on the shelf for so long that it is cheaper to mark the item down than to use shelf space for something else. Books are the same way. Booksellers...