As today is Buy Nothing Day--a day I don't normally observe but would like to apply permanently to Wal-Mart--I feel the need to express my utter disgust at the behavior of the people who callously continued to shop and irately refused to leave the store after officials announced they'd be closing the Wal-Mart.
Excerpts from the AP story via Yahoo News:
Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries.
Police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart doors before its 5 a.m. opening at a mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the employee, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.
"This crowd was out of control," Fleming said. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.
Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."
"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."
Items on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.
Well, enjoy your $9 Incredible Hulk DVD and your 67-cent tubes of toothpaste. It only cost the blood of someone's son and the happiness of a whole family this holiday season.
I mean, seriously! It's frickin' WAL-MART! I've never really understood lining up to shop anywhere for anything, but it completely boggles the mind when something like this happens at Wal-Mart, of all places. Are we so obsessed with needing possessions that we will, in fact, kill for them?
There's a places for overzealousness and tragic fatal stampedes: religious gatherings like Mecca, soccer games, and political protests. Wal-Mart gives mobs a bad name. I am sick to my stomach of the human race today.
4 comments:
I felt exactly the same way when I heard the story. So, these shoppers thought discounted household products justified stepping on a person? Because, there is no way that they could have mistaken a grown man for a rumpled entrance rug, for instance.
I hope that Wal-Mart are charged with inciting a riot and that the security cameras caught the idiots leading the mob into the store so that they are charged with criminal negligence causing death.
This is probably a good opportunity to vow never to shop at Wal-Mart again since it is morally reprehensible to support idiots or shop with them.
While I feel as you do, when the story broke, I noticed a perverse link to some other narratives that have floated around, post 9/11.
I recall the president urging ppl to continue to shop and spend, as a patriotic duty to pepetuate the momentum of the economy, "otherwise the terrorists have won." This after the 9/11 attacks.
So therefore what happened on black friday, at this particular wallmart, was a terrorist attack. Otherwise, why would ppl keep shopping?
That was another thought that had occurred to me--this "duty" to spend during times of crisis, especially in today's fragile economy.
It seems to be a particularly (North) American concept--that shopping will somehow redeem us all. Hell, we even use it as a form of medical treatment--shopping therapy--when we are feeling down, when we need to release our stress. Because really, is there anything more gratifying than fighting the crowds at the mall on a Saturday?
Like any narcotic, shopping can become addictive--the need to acquire things to fill the void inside you can grow until your credit card debt crushes you. The government, big businesses, media and financial institutions all rely on our burgeoning need to have things to keep the economy going--giving out mortgages so people can have houses and cars they can't afford, marketing the latest gizmos of TV, etc. Only now during this financial crisis are we seeing just how flimsy that platform for economic stability is.
This latest tragedy--and the excessive consumerism Wal-Mart encapsulates--is only a symptom of a greater disease. If we kill each other grappling for that 50-inch TV or $200 Xbox, the terrorists don't NEED to attack us: We'll all end up devouring ourselves.
Buy Nothing Day is a chance to reflect upon all the crap we have and don't need--but in reality, we need to extend the day to "Buy Less Everything" every day. It's not to say having things is evil, only that we don't need to have quite so much to be happy.
I'm not sure if it is indeed an endorsed medical practice, as in "go shop for two hours, and then call me in the morning," as much as alcohol or other unprescribed drugs are.
Perhaps we're looking at a social situation on the human condition, which is manifesting itself as hyper-consumerism. We can address and reflect on the buying of material goods, but that doesn't separate out why we feel so empty in our "modern" american society.
The drug user uses drugs to cope and escape from society. And by marginalization, ends up forming their own society with people of like minds that they can connect with.
I contend that the shopper does the exact opposite. The shopper is in fact reaching out, and trying to connect with others - to fill the social void they experience, the need to belong. The problem being that material goods, outside of plush toys, don't maintain and sustain the need to socialize, and connect. Thus they don't connect, or only on a superfical level, as an imaginary/virtual group, ie: "mac user," "nike athelete," "big-multi-player-online-war-crack-gamer." Well, War-crack might be a problematic example as it seems to on occasion, manage to foster socialization, and even relationships online! (go figure - kids these days).
So you while you can "buy less everything" you might need to have an alternative thing to do, like "stop buying less, and blog/play with kids/volunter/talk to your neighbors/etc instead" day.
What always strikes me as unique about our modern society is the ability for me to rub sholders with hundreds of other ppl on a subway crowd, and still feel utterly alone. That isolation I'm sure is doing wonderful things, when applied to a mass of people at large. Good thing the major companies out there have figured out a way to exploit it.
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