It amazes me that society can remember a name, but so quickly forget why that name matters.
In May, when social media broke out in outraged discussions about the death of a gorilla in a Cincinnati zoo after a child fell in his enclosure, I was excited for discussion about whether humans are too quick to end the life of another, particularly a life in our care. I thought Harambe’s death would make people acknowledge that we are too quick to make life-or-death decisions. I didn’t agree with those who were blaming the child’s mother, but I was impressed that it seemed like our society was in agreement that a life lost was just that — a loss.
But now, if I hear Harambe’s name mentioned one more time, I might scream. I don’t know how it happened but somehow, society has managed to take this tragedy and turn it into a meme. It’s suddenly become funny to Photoshop your face onto Harambe’s body while affectionately saying, “Dicks out for Harambe.”
Our society laughs at something that isn’t funny.
George Orwell wrote a story titled “Shooting an Elephant.” In it, the main character fatally shoots an elephant after it kills a man in Burma. He does not approach the elephant to see if it is violent, because he is afraid of looking foolish. So he shoots the elephant multiple times. Its death is painful and slow. Orwell wrote the story to demonstrate power and insecurity, but it ties back to the Harambe situation well.
Harambe was put into the care of humans and we were supposed to protect him. We had complete power over his life: where he stayed, what he ate and who saw him. There’s a lot of speculation that he didn’t want to hurt the child who fell into the enclosure, and an expert at ABC News said the video shows that Harambe was more frightened than anything else. Many say he should have been tranquilized, but a spokesperson for the Cincinnati Zoo said they had no other choice and that they had to protect the child. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t know if it isn’t.
What I do know is that an intelligent creature was put in a no-win situation. He was scared, powerless and given the worst outcome. When you make light of a situation like that, you’re basically saying it’s OK. Harambe was an intelligent creature whose life was cut short and it’s not funny under any circumstances.
There will always be a few individuals who take a horrible situation and make it worse. It started with people saying that Harambe was “just a gorilla” and we needed to get over it. Next, a Facebook post reading “RIP Adam Goodes” under a picture of Harambe was leaked. Adam Goodes is a former Australian athlete who was once called a gorilla because of his indigenous heritage. After that, Harambe was continually used by some as a racial slur. Even though both of these examples are obviously horrible, they’re not commonplace. It seemed that most people understood that devaluing a life because he wasn’t human and using Harambe as a mechanism of hate is wrong.
That’s why it’s so hard for me to understand why it isn’t universally understood that making fun of Harambe and claiming that it’s out of love is just as bad. I’ve seen everything from Harambe Halloween costumes to Photoshopped faces onto his body and odd lyric changes to “tribute” him. What I don’t see is a lot of pushback condemning making a joke out of a tragedy from the general public. Instead, I see people laughing and sharing links on Facebook and Twitter.
Yet, still whenever I bring up how tasteless these things are, I’m met with a response along the lines of “I love Harambe and he didn’t deserve to die.” That’s exactly the point.
With social media, society could have opened up a discussion about how we treat other creatures, how we approach situations and how we can avoid future tragedies. I truly thought that was the discussion that was going to be had initially and it just wasn’t. When a tragedy strikes, it’s horrible to make a joke about it no matter how much time has passed. No life deserves to be cut short and when it is, society should have a mature conversation rather instead of joking at a dead soul’s expense.
