On Saturday, May 28th, a 4-year-old boy fell into a shallow moat which surrounded the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. Between that had been a 3-foot barrier and through a 4-foot hedge, which he was able to get through. This led to security officials fatally shooting the gorilla, Harambe, who had been getting closer to the boy.
However even though it is now in the past. The circumstances leading to the death of the rare gorilla, who was 17-years-old, has driven individuals into a frenzy on social media over the weekend. In forty-eight hours it quickly went from just being negative assumptions about the boy’s family to then vulgar parent-shaming. It is longer about the death of the gorilla, people are just blaming others.
The boy was released by Monday afternoon from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. After which the parent-shaming posts began, they were giving indirect death threats to the mother of the young boy. This then leading the Cincinnati police to take action.
There was one post on Twitter which was directed to The Enquirer’s account Saturday, it read, “shoot the mother.”
There was also a Facebook post from a woman in North Carolina which read, “I had MUCH rather see her dead than the gorilla.”
Many felt that she did not have any remorse over the gorilla’s death. Not only that but after identifying the family to be African-American, casued further parent-shaming to ensue.
There have also been petitions created, one which is seeking to have the mother charged for neglect and being held responsible for the death of the gorilla. They also seek to have her children removed from the parent’s care. This has garnered more than 200,000 supporters as of Monday.
There is also another petition which wants to hold the zoo responsible for what happened. They are stating negligence and asking for the zoo to be criminally and financially responsible. This has gathered around 70,000 supporter.
There was also a memorial vigil, promoted on Facebook, for Harambe, which drew around 50 people to the zoo on Monday (which is Memorial Day, which is a day set aside to honor the veterans and of those who have died). It was the only day that allowed people to actually attend.
Many have replied to this saying that “We are honoring them by exercising the rights they died for.”
There is also a small movement which has started in support of the boy’s family. They are saying that no matter what when children are involved the parent’s cannot control everything.
The entire incident has received a lot of media coverage. It is sad that instead of mourning or looking at the better side, everyone is only seeing the bad. There are also less discourteous ways of going about dealing with the issue.
There are also people dying all over the country and the world, yet there are many who choose to ignore that. In this and many other instances we are provided a wrong and the ability to use that as a basis to prevent it from happening again.
