A shove to the ribs, a crushing boot on the feet and a swinging shopping bag to the head as you maneuver through the line of yelling people. You may have been shopping Nov. 23, the day after Thanksgiving, or you were training for the TV game show “Wipeout.” If you didn’t plan on aggressive wrestling; perhaps this type of shopping was not for you.
Black Friday could easily be tagged as the most dangerous shopping day of the year. On this day, sleep-deprived people are baited with historically low prices on a limited amount of much-wanted merchandise found in a building maxed to capacity with fellow shoppers. Forgive the inability to utter “thank you” for keeping a store open when holidays are traditionally meant for people to be off work. Target, Toys’R’Us, Banana Republic, and Raleys are just a few of the retailers who were doing business some part of Thanksgiving Day.
The nauseating news of Walmart employee Jdimytai Damour being trampled by shopping crowds after being caught in the store entranceway in 2008 is what it took to implement security and order. You’ve probably heard of more recent stories of injured shoppers, such as the fight in Roseville Galleria. Even security carries death on its hands according to the recent event in Lithonia, Georgia when Walmart security killed a suspected shoplifter. Bringing sale items out on pallets and allowing snarling earthlings to practice survival of the fittest fuels greed. Damour didn’t have a chance.
Walmart did not close for Thanksgiving again this year but instead stayed open 24 hours, as they did last year. The news the retailer would be open on Thanksgiving Day was stunning—but only for a moment. The biggest day of shopping is Black Friday, dubbed for its ability to attract enough shoppers to move retailers’ financial books out of the red and into the black. Long lines of consumers, starting as early as midnight, will wait to shop. Midnight? Midnight is for lovers and star watchers, not shopping.
Jamal Johnson, a Walmart employee who spoke of past Black Fridays, says people line up throughout the day. Some folks had camped out in tents and lost their place in line.
“They were fighting for positions in line,” said the 21-year-old. “Nowadays it’s a lot safer because they make you line up and create certain lines to get what you want.”
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some of the technologically based items for sale are destined to drop in price, some within the year, like computers and iPads.
Walmart patron Luz Stumbo, 62, says she went last year with her son and daughter-in-law with the mindset
of being a helping grandma. She thought she could hold a place in line. “I didn’t like it,” said Stumbo. “It brought out a really ugly side of me. People were digging boxes before it was time.”
Stumbo felt an unfairness about it all and found herself peeking and standing next to pallets, too. Then the anger came out when people cut in front of her family. Thinking back, she says, those reactions seemed right. Today, not so much. Walmart employee Julie Williams, 51, worked Thanksgiving Day, and said Walmart was open 24 hours because they didn’t want people getting hurt. When asked about the lack of holiday celebration, she said she liked the pay.
If a holiday is defined as any day exempt from work, then families have been creating their own holidays to fit their work schedules for years. If a holiday is a day fixed by law when ordinary business is suspended (and is exempt from tax) to commemorate an event or a person. Some retailers have lost theirs.
Have we lost ours?
Perhaps we could have a holiday of civility, titled Damour’s Day, and serve turkey.
