Commentary

Posted in: Commentary
Bargains to kill for
By Mitch Traphagen
Dec 4, 2008 - 7:22:49 PM

According to our modern traditions, Friday was the beginning of the Christmas season. A season of cheer and goodwill towards our fellow man. Well, except for at least one man, anyway. Two thousand people crowded outside of a New York Walmart waiting for the great deals they couldn't possibly miss, and in their urgency to buy more junk - and several dozen of those people killed the guy that opened the door for them. The crowd trampled the man to death. According to the video, dozens of people simply walked or ran over the guy, hundreds all streamed past the man as he lay dying in order to buy a bunch of crap they probably don't even need in the first place.

Goodwill towards men. Holiday cheer. Merry Christmas.

Two years ago I covered the Black Friday opening of a Target Store in suburban Tampa. I don't know how many people were waiting outside for the store to open but I couldn't see the end of the line from the front of the store. No one tried to kill me as the store manager let me into the store shortly before opening. I positioned myself off to the side of the main entryway, watched as the customer service manager rallied the troops at the cash register and then experienced the stampede as the doors opened. People rushed in like crazy - like opening a faucet the size of Niagara Falls. But no one was killed - I can't imagine that anyone could have been killed. Certainly the people were in a mad rush to buy crap but I sensed no blood lust. I think if someone had fallen, others would have stopped to help. Not to mention, that particular Target placed two burly looking guys on either side of the doors - now in hindsight, that was not a bad precaution.

What have we become as a society if people can wantonly kill another human being for the sake of a cheap television? I would imagine that few of the people waiting in line had considered themselves murderers in the seconds before the door opened. But some of them are that just the same. I wonder if they feel proud of the bargains they scored? Certainly, it was no accident - the man was six foot, five inches tall and weighed 270 pounds. People had to be awfully determined to get past a guy like that. Obviously they were. I had no idea that imported electronics could bring about such a frenzy.

I don’t know anyone who would walk over a dying man to get a low price on a big-screen TV. I believe that the people I know would stop and help the man, forgetting all about the cheap junk lying just a few feet away. I prefer to believe that most people would stop and help that man.

In that sense, perhaps he did not die entirely in vain. Perhaps, as a society, we can learn from this - we can see with new eyes the insanity that caused his death. Christmas is not supposed to be about cheap crap from a global conglomerate’s big box store. Christmas is so much more - the value is in the feeling you have in your stomach when you picture the scenes from your childhood - or imagine the scenes of your family and friends together in the coming days. For those of faith, of course, it is even much more than that. It is not about crap - your parents, your children, your friends - they would all rather have you than the junk you can buy in an enormous discount store.

Of course I never met 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, but I wish he were still with us. I wish that my imagination could not have been stretched to believe a crowd of people could have killed him for the sake of greed and materialism. But this holiday season, I will remember him. I will think about his family and friends. I will even think about those who killed him. This is, after all, the season of goodwill towards men. Perhaps Mr. Damour’s legacy will remind us all of that.

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