Setting the Record Straight: Thoughts on Wal-Mart Trample

Among the typical Black Friday news coverage of consumers waiting in lines for hours to take advantage of door prizes and great bargains, etc, etc, news of a fatal store blitz in a Long Island Walmart made headline news. The frantic crowd charging full speed ahead was caught on a video camera and sadly a store worker was trampled to death as a result.

As I watched the video, which was not the incident itself,my familiarity with cyber-racism heightened my expectation of racist remarks once I noticed the ethnic make up depicted in the video-predominantly Black teenagers. On practically all major News sites there are opportunities for viewers to leave their video comments and in practically all videos that depict a crime where suspects are Black, there is sure to be racist comments left.

In a nutshell, the argument is that unacceptable human actions are because of the suspect’s or group’s ethnic make up, but somehow this argument only applies to non-white suspects. Questions as to why unacceptable behavior from white suspects is never attributed to their ethnicity are ignored.

While store blitzes in the early morning hours of Black Friday is a familiar image, the one that took place at Walmart in Long Island stand out because not only were there injuries, but someone also died. Was this the only Walmart in America that had drooling consumers anxiously rushing in to buy, buy, and buy? No, this is typical of Black Friday. Was this the only crowd that was (depicted) predominantly a black crowd? Of course not. Yet, the racist commentary continues.

You who is reading this note, perhaps you have been duped by racism and you too have thought in the same irrational sense fallaciously attributing unacceptable behavior to one’s ethnic make up.

If so, what about the Italian Hall Disaster in 1903 known as the 1903 massacre? Or what about the Barnsley Public Hall Disaster in 1908 in England? How about the incident called, The Camp Randall Crush, in 1993? Moreover, what explains the incident at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1979? In all of these incidents there were crowds who disregarded their fellow citizens as they trampled upon them. The ethnic make up of the human stampede was not Black but White.

The truth of the matter is that unacceptable human actions are not because of one’s ethnic make up, rather, they are attributed to lack of self control, selfishness, greed, carelessness, and individualism which are found in all human beings.

On that note, lets look to Jesus our ideal perfect human being and rush towards him, the best gift that anyone can have.

Read about Walmart incident here