Jdimytai Damour was described as a “gentle giant” by his many friends and family members.
Mr. Damour, 34, was trampled to death last Friday at a Wal-Mart store on Long Island, New York, where we was working as a temporary maintenance man. A throng of “Black Friday” shoppers had been lining up all night, filling sidewalks in front of the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. At about 5 a.m. those at the front of the crowd – estimated at about 2,000 – began banging the door to the Wal-Mart until it shattered. They rushed into the store, pushing Mr. Damour to the ground and trampling him to death.
The horrific event didn’t prevent people from shopping as usual for the rest of the weekend; indeed, there were those who complained when the Valley Stream Wal-Mart closed for several hours following Mr. Damour’s death. Still the holiday vulture-merchants cackled on, inviting spending-by-computer on Cyber-Monday.
So this is Christmas! Has the sacred season come to mean shoppers killing a man to get a deal on gifts they will supposedly give to honor the birth of Christ? Indeed, while merchants call it “Black Friday” because it is traditionally the day in which retailers go from red ink to black in profit mode, it now has earned the name for another reason. The frenzy of greed, mayhem and destruction it unleashed the day after Thanksgiving trampled and killed the very meaning of Christmas.
This must not be. This must be stopped by good and faithful people who know the season is about giving to one another, about God’s gift to us, about light banishing darkness. We must turn our backs on “Blitz Lines” and “Door Busters.” We must reject the “spend to the end, shop ‘til you drop” messages of Wall Street and Madison Avenue.
This season, we must step up the fight to keep Christ in Christmas. The memory of an innocent man crushed to death by frenzied shoppers calls us to do more. It calls us to actively oppose the commercial Christmas and the callous merchants who market it. Instead, we are called to be generous to the poor and needy. We are called to consider giving a donation in memory of Jdimytai Damour to a favorite Catholic charity.
And we are called to pray that Emmanuel may soon come to ransom those held captive by greed and selfishness, and save His people – to save us from ourselves and the dark side that whispers, “Forget Jdjimytai Damour. There are only a few shopping days left ‘til Christmas.”
Come, Lord Jesus.
