Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving Thursday in the U.S., when many Americans have the day off from work and use it to begin their holiday shopping, is generally considered one of the busiest shopping days of the year. The day gets its name from the prospect that the heavy shopping on this date will push retailers' balance sheets out of the red and into the black.
Despite the bad economy this year, countless American consumers still camped out for hours after Thanksgiving dinner outside their favorite shops in order to be at the head of the queue when the shops opened early Friday.
OK, that's fine. If people have nothing better to do, and they have the money to spend, that's their business. Go for it.
But what happened this year on Black Friday at a Long Island Wal-Mart is bigger than that, and much more heinous, be it intentional or not. It demonstrated that some Americans will put their desire to be first in line for that limited inventory of 50-inch televisions above all else -- even if it means that another human being has to die in the process.
If you haven't heard the story, here is a summary, courtesy of the New York Daily News:
A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.
The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.
When the madness ended, 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker Jdimytai Damour was dead, and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.
This is America on shopping adrenaline, credit cards, selfishness, and competitive greed.
What seemingly matters to the American consumer -- even today, apparently -- is keeping up with the proverbial Joneses, and exceeding them at any cost. Shopping has become a sport, and consumerism has become a contest, even in what might be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
If your neighbor has a 40-inch television, you have to run out and buy a 50-inch TV with more proverbial bells and whistles -- whether or not you can afford it.
And, if someone stands in your way, trample him to death, damn it!
How cheap really is that big TV if it costs you your soul?
http://www.maryshawonline.com
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated.
I'd like to read something on the psychology of this obscene behavior. Barring starvation, I can't imagine wanting anything so rabidly that I'd stampede into a store.
If trampling others in a rush to shop were not bad enough, the yelling out in anger that they had to leave (stop shopping) - so the store could close to do an investigation due to the death of the trampled - is absolutely barbaric. I hope that surveillance cameras will help bring some of these lunatics to justice. Though, how likely is that?
by
Hope Hofmann (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 17 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 8:04:50 AM
At least a few people are beginning to realize this, if that is any consolation.
On large tv screens: Recently I was at the Clark Planatarium in Salt Lake City, where they have some wonderful shows and standing displays. One display regards energy. You turn a crank to make various bulbs light up. Running the 25 watt bulb is more than most people would be able to do for five minutes. Reminded me of the 40 watter we had on a generator in high school physics--which wore me out quickly, though I was lifting weights and in remarkable shape.
A week later in Costco I climbed behind a large screen tv (not their largest) to see what the wattage draw was: 2,700 watts. We burn coal here to accomplish that, and fire up nukes and dam rivers elsewhere, so we can watch sitcoms, FOX News, boxing, football, and inspirational consumer ads up the yin-yang, as we sit around getting fatter by the minute on junk food.
The dinosaurs did very well by comparison, hanging around for some 200 plus million years. We've been here about 40,000. Blessed be the dinosaurs! Even though some of them had attitudes toward other species, they didn't wipe out the entire planet.
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 81 quicklinks, 125 diaries, 776 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:31:22 AM
I live on Long Island a few miles away from the incident. We do our part every Black Friday by keeping our distance from any mall and shopping, if at all, for food. The news media and the corporations work together each November to turn us into lemmings, so we do the opposite. If Walmart wants to do something for the memory of this poor soul, stop using the term "Doorbuster specials."
The police here say that they can't prosecute based on the video. I don't want to tell them how to do their jobs, but it seems to me that the first people they'd talk to would be customers who made major purchases on their credit cards before 5:10, and see if those people match the images on the video.
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Terry Ballard (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 13 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 12:35:01 PM
But ... but... there were BARGAINS on plasma TV's available!
I don't think you fully understand the basic issue that's involved here! I understand that this Walmart was offering GREAT PRICES on plasma TV's! To restrict shoppers would be tantamount to restricting consumers' freedom to act in their own self-interest. If we did that, the next thing we'd have is socialism, for crying out loud!
You can't have it both ways. Either you're on board with capitalism & all it implies for consumer behavior, or you want to turn the US into a gulag with secret police & a Politburo.
Long live Walmart! Long live consumer freedom! That man who got trampled died a hero's death in the service of free enterprise. It was a shame for him personally, but in the larger picture, he gave his life for a noble cause.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1298 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 12:48:58 PM
"A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him."
Several of of brave troops also died last week in this horrid and illegal war in Iraq, but we didn't hear much about it from our so-called liberal, mainstream media did we? Nope! It's quite sad on both accounts. What are we going to do about it? There's nothing much you can do. People shop and men start illegal wars for profit.
But I digress.
Imagine though for a moment what those very same shoppers will do if and when we see a depression in this country? And there's no food on the shelves? Then we'll really get to see what frenzied looks like won't we.
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Munich (1 articles, 82 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 1015 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 2:25:34 PM
I was fortunate enough to get a rental car out of NYC after 9/11 and begin the continent-long drive back to Oregon. Along the way I was horrified to hear the message of "consumerism = patriotism" distributed by the Bush Administration. By spending money we don't have, we prove that we are free?
Once upon a time people created; now they consume. Those of us who create are marginalized because we don't... consume enough. Amazing.
There are too many of us and we're too busy acquiring in an attempt to feel somehow whole to be able to easily recognize one another's humanity. Maybe an economic crash will be good for us -- or maybe it will just show us to be the shallow and mindlessly luxury obsessed animals some claim we are.
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Theresa "Darklady" Reed (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 25 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 2:39:39 PM
Granted, this was a horrible event, and the people involved were stupid, selfish, and out of control.
But generalizing that the entire country is a bunch of slavering plasma screen hyenas because a few idiotic nutjobs in Long Island are dehumanized selfish pigs is a reach. Long Island is the overlarge bedroom community of NYC, where people step over freezing homeless men on subway grates all winter long. The desensitization and sensory shutdown of everybody living that lifestyle is enormous.
Take way down- closer to its roots- if you're going to say that we are all responsible for that poor man's death. Take it down to the fact that our society is hypnotized, desensitized, and completely tuned out to its own feelings. Take it down to the fact that most people here who would say they "have good jobs" have resigned themselves to a joyless cycle of indentured servitude- not to people, but to corporations- and they use up their life's energy on the acquisition of plastic toys that will break soon enough to keep them on the hamster wheel. And those toys are built by other slaves for far less return on their life's work.
Take it all the way down. That man died an ugly death and for no good reason. The rest of those people- and many others across the country- are dying far more slowly, and just as ugly- crushed beneath the weight of a meaningless existence- but for the same no-good reasons.
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Jennifer Hathaway (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 161 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 8:30:56 PM
Mary, you're dead right. Consumerism has become the religion in vogue for the majority of Americans. As for me, I'd much rather partake of the theology of the guy I saw on a TV documentary in Canada. His name was something like Brother Bill and his was the religion of STOP SHOPPING. Get the heck out of the plastic boutiques and do something worthwhile with your life. That one of those lunatics in Long Island was screaming, "You can't close this Wal-Mart. I've been waiting for this since yesterday morning!" is a testament to the idiocy that pervades our nation. Like W said following 9/11. "Wanna do the patriotic thing? Go shopping!" As an individual, I can't make all that much of a difference but if it's any consolation, I HATE shopping.
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Larry Retzack (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:58:51 PM
Let me repeat the first poster's subject line: DISGUSTING!
Yeah, great way to have a "Merry Christmas" after you kill someone to try to buy a gift. And that guy looked like he was a pretty big guy -- hundreds of people must've stomped him and not gave a damn. How disgusting... I hope those people never get a good night's sleep ever again, and I hope they have a terrible Christmas.
Disgusting is actually too nice a word to use for those idiotic animals. We're supposed to be celebrating the birth of our saviour -- I'm sure He's thrilled.
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shielah jones (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 92 comments)
on Monday, December 1, 2008 at 9:58:51 AM
Americans have been trampling over people in their quest for Plasma TV's for decades. It was not a mistake that the twin towers were taken down - it was a message.
Perhaps the credit crunch will get the message accross with more effect as you trample over more of your own.
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matabele (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 12:17:57 PM
12 comments
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