This is Jdimitai Damour. I am remembering him again this year, on Black Friday, as I have every year for the past several. If you are curious as to why, you can read about it here.
It's just been a few years since his death, at a Walmart store in New York, and even in that short time it seems Black Friday has gotten even more insane. For example, tonight I read where many stores didn't open at midnight...they opened at 10 pm.
A church member just posted that as he was driving back from Fort Worth tonight, every single Walmart and Target store parking lot was filled.
Let's be clear: there is nothing about Black Friday even remotely connected to the real meaning of Christmas. Not even in the slightest.
Let's be also clear: to stand against the orgy of Black Friday is not to stand against the interests of working people. It's to stand FOR them. It's to stand up for better working conditions, reasonable working hours, and, by God, decent wages...so that one day folks like Jdimitai might not feel caught in a forced-choice between not making ends meet and working on Black Friday.
He still is, to my mind, still the Martyr of Black Friday. And his death, literally and figuratively, teaches volumes about what is wrong with this country.
We have not only not learned a thing by his death. Instead, year after year, we march on in an orgy of consumerism that, by its very nature, can never be sated.
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