Thanksgiving is over. We tucked our turkey-filled tummies into bed Thursday night and woke up to our 4 a.m. alarms Friday morning transformed - from thankful, peaceful, satisfied omnivores to greedy, restless, wreck-less cannibals. The world we woke up in on Black Friday was a world where dogs eat dogs and dads shoot dads.
As always, Macy's paraded in the shopping season. Santa Claus waved to us all from his festive float, sending simultaneous excitement and dread to the hearts of spectators. He reminded children that the day is fast approaching when the toys and gadgets advertisers have implanted into their dreams will be their very own. He reminded economically strained parents that their bank accounts could make or break those dreams. Perhaps we can blame the economy for the heightened desperation that made this year's Black Friday even darker than usual. After all, the term originates with Black Tuesday, that fateful day in 1929 when the stock market crashed and launched this nation into an era saturated with desperation.
Black Friday turned a Toys "R" Us in Palm Beach, Calif., into a battleground as two men gunned each other to the ground. Upon hearing the gunshots from the next aisle over, one four-year-old grabbed his mother's leg, and told her he didn't want to die. The woman thought the violence erupted from a scramble for a sale. Shoppers fled from the store, shaking and crying, and sought refuge in a nearby gym.
But these were not the first of Friday's casualties. Across the country, hours earlier, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, was trampled to death by an angry mob of shoppers, forcing their way into an unopened Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y. The mob literally knocked the building's sliding doors off their hinges, stampeding toward discounted TVs, ignoring the man on the ground, the three others (including a pregnant woman) who were later hospitalized for their injuries and the announcements asking shoppers to leave so traumatized employees and police could remove the body from the storefront. Who has time to be human when $2 DVDs are on the line?
"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity." These words, spoken by Myrob E. Forbes, president of Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company in January 1928, were eaten by him later. The fool's paradise Forbes believed himself to inhabit then and the state of denial we fell asleep to last Thursday were both very much interrupted.
It's funny how easily we forget to remember what we have when, shoved in our faces, is what we can get for cheap. It's funny how quickly humble circumstances can turn to desperate times and then to savageness. It's funny how proficiently we deflect the blame, pointing fingers at the "hard times" and even the convenient "collective other." It's a shame, we say, that the world is so materialistic, so shortsighted.
It's more than a shame. And it's less than funny. And all of us, at least in part, are to blame.
Today is Cyber Monday. Over the weekend, the "blackness" that hovered above outlet malls and super stores has seeped into cyber space. The National Retail Federation unofficially declared today the beginning of the online shopping season. In a way, today marks the opening of a safe haven. Online shopping allows us to get what we want without endangering our lives. The shipping and handling costs are well worth the peace of mind, but now, retailers are even eliminating that obstacle for us. If you spend enough with them, they'll waive the shipping. They're smart. They're adapting to the dangers of today. They're capitalizing on them.
Whether you brave the storm and head back to the malls, or click your way to Christmas, remember the madness. Be wary of the power of commercialism. Remember what it does to people. If we let it, it can bewitch us, deceive us and rob us of what makes us human ... the very thing that was so prevalent just days ago ... gratitude.
Samantha Strong is the Issues & Ideas Editor at The Daily Universe.
Copyright Brigham Young University 1 Dec 2008
