On This Day in History: May 28
Harambe
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Jesus Christ that fucking gorilla.
Harambe, a 440-pound western lowland gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo, had turned 17 the day before. Then on May 28, 2016, some three-year-old boy got away from his mom, crawled through a bush and fell into the gorilla enclosure. Harambe started dragging the kid around, banging his head on the concrete. Zoo officials made the heartbreaking decision to shoot the gorilla. And then the world went to shit.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 28, 2016--
“The gorilla was protecting the child!” “Why didn’t they just tranquilize him?” “They should have shot the kid instead!” “They should have shot the mother!” There is more to unpack here than a dead hoarder’s storage locker, but let’s give it a go.
A bunch of respected wildlife experts weighed in, saying shooting Harambe was the right call, so all the armchair gorillologists can shut the fuck up. Tranquilizers take a long time to work and Harambe, who was already aggravated by all the bystanders misplacing their excrement, could have been further agitated. Primatologists insist the choice was either the gorilla, or the child. And that’s where the douchebags really came out.
There were those who valued the life of the gorilla over that of the boy. There are billions of humans, but not many gorillas. Should have let the kid die, they said. Speaking of disregard for human life, plenty wanted to kill the boy’s mother too. Almost every parent knows that you can helicopter like mad, but then you can blink, and your kid disappears. Because kids are assholes. But all the perfect parents said no fucking way my kid would have gotten away from me.
The boy and his mother are Black, and being that this was America, the attacks on them were racist as fuck. Over half a million people signed an online petition to have the boy’s parents investigated and held accountable for Harambe’s death. Never mind the eyewitness accounts saying the mother was vigilant and that the boy got away in a split second. Call child protective services!
About a week later, outrage fatigue set in and the memes began. A lot of them had to do with fake mourning. There was this thing called #DicksOutForHarambe that I never really understood why it took off. I love a good lowbrow joke, but that one never struck me as terribly funny. The memes were often intended to express both amusement and a sincere sense of the loss of a majestic creature; he’s been referred to as “Schrödinger’s meme.”
The following November people weren’t yet done with Harambe. There were accusations that so many wrote in “Harambe” on ballots in the 2016 presidential election that it led to Trump being elected. And while a few people did “vote” for Harambe, tales of several thousand doing so are demonstrably false.
The same week Harambe was shot, a thousand people trying to immigrate to Europe drowned while crossing the Mediterranean, but the internet didn’t give a shit.
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
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"Almost every parent knows that you can helicopter like mad, but then you can blink, and your kid disappears."
And then the parent gets accused of helicoptering, so let the child get a few bumps and bruises. It'll ToUgHeN tHeM uP aNd NoT bE sUcH pAnSiEs wHeN ThEy bEcOmE AdUlTs.
I don’t really agree that kids are assholes. Sometimes it can feel that way when you are in the thick of it and exhausted, but really, this child was just doing what children do- exploring, investigating and learning. I do agree that even the most attentive parents can’t supervise perfectly always, because we are human. Sometimes bad things just happen. If the child had somehow gone off into a lake and drowned, no one would be saying “That lake should have a better fence around it!” Danger is everywhere and we all do our best to protect little ones. It is unfortunate that the gorilla had to lose his life also doing what came naturally to him, but how about we all just be sad for everyone involved and try to learn from this event instead of attacking people who are already feeling irreparably torn apart?