I haven’t really engaged with the story of Harambe the Gorilla all that much because I want to keep on liking other people as much as I can.
However, the annihilation of the parents and in particular the mother of the boy who was rescued from the Gorilla enclosure last week has overwhelmed our social media feed and really sickened me.
I’m not pro killing animals, but I’m also a carnivore so can accept that in terms of being outraged by animal cruelty I don’t really have that much of a leg to stand on.
I’m also not pro zoos particularly but again that said through a mouth full of lamb has a bit less weight to it.
Watching the two and half minute video on YouTube of what was in all a 10-minute ordeal, I felt anguish for the mother who can be heard off camera saying “Mommy loves you, I’m right here.” in an effort to calm her stricken 3-year-old. Online commenters mocked her words which is so brutal and unfeeling. Apparently their abundance of compassion for Harambe, does not stretch to a petrified, stricken mother. In ridiculing her; they are ignoring that those moments were surely the worst of Michelle Gregg’s life.
I can see in some ways how it is easier to love animals than humans. They are beautiful creatures and their lives, of course, do matter. Humans are not pure like animals. Humans can be ugly and callous and cruel and hypocritical and insensitive – as the online shamers of Michelle Gregg and her husband Deonne Dickerson perfectly illustrate.
The New York Times ran a piece entitled “Who is to Blame When a Child Wanders at the Zoo?” which to me is asking the wrong question. What I would like to know is why is “blame” our first port of call? Investigation is necessary, and accountability is necessary. But knee-jerk blaming is irrational. There seems to be a willful ignoring of the key fact that these parents didn’t make a decision that resulted in the death of an endangered animal. They didn’t set out to lose track of their son and destroy an innocent animal. A terrible, tragic accident befell them. They nearly lost their son; the zoo lost a beloved son. It’s a tragedy. There are no winners, but there also doesn’t need to be further degradation of our humanity with the continued online tormenting of these people who on that day proved only that they are fallible.
Outrage has become a sport and a pastime. The criticism of Michelle Gregg has deviated far from the fact that she had a momentary lapse and has spiraled into a morbidly gleeful frenzy of abusive racism, sexism (so so much has been made of “where was the mother?”) and even fat shaming.
The online petition Justice for Harambe is nearly at their goal of half a million signatures calling for the family to be investigated, which may take place if the Hamilton County Child Protection Services believe there is deeper issues at play in the family. Either way investigation and prosecution by officials will surely be more measured and less humiliating than the wretched online persecution the family have faced at the hands of the righteous anonymous mob.
It’s a tragedy. The Facebook page created as a tribute to Harambe uses a quote from Paul McCartney in its main image: “You can judge a man’s true character by the ways he treats his fellow animals.”
Apparently, we humans are not deserving of such consideration. Not when we’re women or black or overweight or distracted or just not perfect.
As for the 10 times I totally could have been the Gorilla Mum?
Well, there was that time that I wasn’t perfect. And that other time that I wasn’t perfect. Oh and the time one Tuesday that I wasn’t perfect and another time one morning that I wasn’t perfect and that time just a few hours later that afternoon that I wasn’t perfect. The time I was nearly perfect but wasn’t quite. Another time that I thought I was being perfect but wasn’t… And so on and so on.
