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America’s officially in a recession. The unemployment rate is at its highest in 14 years. Many corporate giants are begging for bailouts. Yes, the Dow and Nasdaq slips and slides daily. Millions of Americans are facing foreclosure. A lot of us are also uninsured. Don’t worry though; Circuit City gave away free Blackberrys, Best Buy had thousand dollar Visio markdowns, Wal-Mart had Nintendo Wiis for half off, a 30-year-old man was trodden to death beneath the feet of eager shoppers, and… wait, where I am going with this?
Despite America having no money, Black Friday sales went up 3% from last year. According to the National Retail Federation, more than 172 million shoppers showed up for the biggest shopping weekend of the year, up from 147 million last year. On the day after Thanksgiving, millions waited for hours—some had been there for days—camped out in front of the store that would reward them for their perseverance. In some parts of the country, that perseverance paid off in unfortunate ways. In Long Island, New York, one Wal-Mart employee died after being stampeded by a pack of hungry bargain chasers while opening the doors to the store. At the same store, a woman nearly miscarried after being knocked over. Two men shot each other to death at a Toys’R’Us in Palm Desert, California over a toy.
All of this is tragic and disgraceful, but both shoppers and retailers need these deals and steals as a result of a muddled economy. Shoppers are always happy receiving discounts. Many businesses prayed that Black Friday would boost their profits; many retailers were more than happy to offer generous discounts to lure shoppers into their stores. The government encourages Americans to shake off recession, exhorting them to spend more money. But we can’t divert the blame onto others.
Here’s the thing that bothers me: according to shoppers who witnessed the trampling of the 30-year-old worker, only a few people stopped to notice. Are bargains more noticeable than humans?
“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs in The New York Daily News.
“Utter chaos,” commented Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming, also in The New York Daily News.
I don’t encourage materialism. Put those feathers in your cap if you must, but be civil. We Americans pride ourselves on our civility. As humans, we place ourselves atop the Hierarchy of Life, we are supposed to have a conscience that sets up apart from beast. Is abandoning our civility really worth being the first to get to that cheap flat screen TV? How about a man’s life? An unborn child’s?
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving; a holiday where Americans discard the greed within and give thanks for what they have. But news of deaths and videos of ravenous mobs mere hours later casts a dark shadow over the spirit of the holidays and provokes moral pondering over the cost of crazed consumerism, for me at least.
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