Students talk about Black Friday

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has become the traditional starting point for the retail Christmas season. Shoppers, on the look out for the best sales, are known to arrive early and wait in line for hours.

For many shoppers, Black Friday is a day-long event in which they go to as many stores as possible and search for the best deals of the shopping season. Others prefer to avoid the crowds and the mob mentality that sometimes leads to pushing, injuries and worse.

In New York this past Friday, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as a crowd, which had begun to gather around 9 p.m. the night before, forced its way through the doors as the employees prepared to open the store. We asked VCU students what they thought about Black Friday shopping and the incident in New York.

“I know that my dad shopped at Circuit City this year, because we’re from Richmond and that’s a Richmond-based company, but he also read in the newspaper that there were 600 people in front of Best Buy in the morning and only about 200 in Circuit City . I think people should be supporting the area companies a little more.”

Dylan Holt, accounting major

“I think it’s pretty stupid that something like that (the Wal-Mart employee’s death) has to happen. I think there’s ways to go about it where you can regulate the amount of people that come in your store at one time.”

Alex Bailey, undeclared

“I thought it was ridiculous, because people trampled a man for a DVD player or a TV when his life was more precious than those items and I felt like he lost his life over something so small. It makes me feel like people place more value on things than they should for the holidays, which should be more about spending time with your family, instead of seeing the cheapest thing you can buy.”

Vnai Bell, finance major

“I went shopping with my wife in Wal-Mart. Not too many people (were there) but the prices (were) very good.”

Chen Kai, art education major

“I worked at Toys ‘R’ Us. It was a little intense. (There were) a lot of people. (It was) really busy. It’s kind of ridiculous that it comes to that (the Wal-Mart employee’s death), that people can’t just calm down a little bit. Everyone’s going to get in, so it’s sad.”

Kyle Patton, psychology major