By now this is old news:
A stampede of shoppers in a Valley Stream Wal-Mart on Friday morning left one worker dead and at least three patrons injured after an impatient crowd broke down the store doors and trampled the seasonal employee, Nassau police said. Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, was pushed to the ground by the 2,000-plus crowd just before 5 a.m. as management was preparing to open the store, which is located across from the main Green Acres Mall building. Hundreds stepped over, around and on the 34-year-old worker as they rushed into the store.
You can see this as so symbolic in terms of the effect that caplitalism has on workers and people of color, but sometimes it’s exhausting and almost feels disrespectful to disect everything that way. Are there better ways to die than others? It seems like such a waste of life in any case. In the part of The Accidental American that I read before I had to return it to ILL, the authors talked about the importance of people and immigrants in particular being able to have work and a life that was interesting and dignified.  This just seems like an example of how far we have to go – this makes me think of the horrific, but seems devoid of any interesst or dignity.