Black Friday: A day for adults to act like animals
Andrea Sessions, Editor-in-Chief
December 5, 2011
Filed under Opinion, Top Stories
With the surfacing of the annual Black Friday horror stories, once again mankind has proven what lengths of brutality cold hearted humans will go to save a few bucks in a downward spiraling economy. With several instances of hospitalization, arrest, looting, mugging, fighting and even death, this year’s day of deals definitely owned up to its name.
For years, people have gathered outside of stores hours before their opening Thanksgiving evening to get in on these Friday specials to die for, and that’s the problem. The frenzy retail stores and advertising have created through their hype has driven people to extremes. People who, on any other day, would otherwise sway away from conflict partake in violent behaviors over as small of things as waffle irons on this “holiday.”
Things get bloody on Black Friday, and this year was no exception. In fact, it was perhaps the worst year of all time. This year’s “Bloody Friday” claims some savage acts, and as human beings we should feel ashamed to be associated with the morbid on-goings that took place.
Within an Arkansas Walmart and Raymore’s own Walmart, crowds of people fought over $2 waffle irons, using the items themselves as weapons to keep their claim over them. At a Los Angeles Walmart a woman yielded pepper spray upon 20 customers to ward them off so she could get the upper hand on some discounted Xboxes, inflicting injuries on several shoppers, some of whom were children.
At a Carolina Walmart an off-duty police officer hired by Walmart as a Black Friday security guard also used pepper spray to keep back rowdy shoppers. An Arizona Walmart was evacuated due to a bomb scare. Robbers outside of South Carolina Walmart shot a woman and police tased a man within an Alabama Walmart.
Enough mayhem went on within Walmart to deem Black Friday as black indeed, but the list continues to go on outside of Walmart locations. It comes as no surprise that fights broke out at other stores, many stampedes left people trampled and gunfire erupted at other locations leaving another person shot.
Then there’s the shoplifting, of course, as if prices weren’t already enough of a steal. In one case, the suspicion of stealing landed one man brutalized by police. Grandfather Jerald Newman was suspected of shoplifting when he placed a video game in the waistband of his pants to free his hands so as to save his grandson from being trampled by the crazed crowd. The situation ended with Newman slammed headfirst into the ground, knocked unconscious and bloodied. Police found handcuffing him more of a concern than the fact that his head rested in a puddle of his own blood.
Perhaps the most upsetting story of all is that of Walter Vance, though. When he collapsed in a West Virginia Target, shoppers completely ignored his lifeless body, stepping over his body and stampeding it for their deals. Vance was later pronounced dead.
It’s sickening to think that people hold saving a couple hundred at the most at a higher priority than having common fellowship towards other human beings. The moment when stores open their doors mirrors that of a herder opening the fences for cattle or sheep. The moment in which employees give the call for shoppers to start grabbing items from the piles reflects vultures viciously picking away every last scrap from the carcass of an animal, leaving behind only the bones, or in this case the pallet in which the items rested on moments before.
What is so appealing about associating with pig-pen behaviors? Acting so distastefully, with the complete lack of compassion or rationale, throwing out any intellectual thought and running completely on animalistic drive not only makes Americans look like complete and utter fools, but radiates the extent of pure greed that directs this country.
Black Friday benefits the economy, but unfortunately the violence that it brings does not benefit the country. Adults should be mature enough to take a step back and think before they act like animals. Yeah, it’s disappointing when items are all out, but is it really that difficult to brush it off and go find another deal instead of fighting over it? This country has enough day-to-day violence without this special Friday.
Undermining the severity of the violence simply because no violence related deaths occurred does not make this aggression and carelessness justifiable. What will it take for the country to say enough is enough, for people to decide that maybe these outstandingly awful and disgraceful actions are not okay? Will it take multiple deaths directly correlating with peoples selfish behaviors? Surely, hopefully, it won’t have to come to that.
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