Two small children, two sets of parents, a tale of white privilege in America. I can’t be the only one who is watching the news and social media posts with contempt, I just know I can’t be. I am not one to sit silent and watch nonsense go on around me and today is no different.
Out of respect to the family yesterday I tried hard to keep my articles focused on the issues at hand, the missing child and the fact that the body of 2-year-old Lane Graves had been found.
Today is a time to talk the reality of the aftermath I’ll tell you now if you have an issue with someone calling people out for white privilege just close this now.
I wish I could say the news coverage and the way the death of this precious 2-year-old is being discussed shocked me. I can’t. I am a Black woman in America and it is constantly thrown in my face that although the rules of our society say that everyone should be treated the same it rarely happens.
I dare you to think back to almost three weeks ago. A Black mother with three children took her eye off her son for a minute and the 4-year-old fell into the gorilla pit at the Cincinnati Zoo. The gorilla grabbed her son, dragging him off and eventually was killed by zoo officials to rescue the boy, who suffered serious injuries. People were outraged that ‘poor Harambe’ was killed to save some little Black child. Oh how the internet went crazy. The parents were immediately to blame, the father’s criminal record was shared all over the internet. People called for the mother to be arrested. The parents received death threats. The comments on the news posts were horrific.
My 15-year-old son came home from school one day and asked me what I thought of the gorilla incident and people’s reaction. I had to have the heartbreaking conversation with my son explaining that the life of an animal will always be more important to mainstream America than the life of a Black boy. Now as 2-year-old child has died under the watch of his parents I watch mainstream America blame Disney.
Take off your hate tinted glasses for one minute and think realistically. The mother of the child who’s son fell into the gorilla pit could have been ANYONE. How many of us expect that we can fall into an exhibit at a zoo? Don’t you assume the zoo has done everything possible to prevent things like that? I do, most people would. Now ask your self objectively if parents allow their 2-year-old to play in the water, at night, when no other people are in the water and NO SWIMMING signs are posted, who is to blame? How is Disney the bad guy and the parents are the innocent victims?
These parents broke the rules and as a result their child died. I can name 5 Black males accused of rule breaking who died without trial or conviction and the nation rejoiced and blamed them. Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Samuel Dubose. These parent broke the rules and their son died and Disney is to blame? Yet it’s not understood when some blame the police or neighborhood watch when Black rule breakers die.
So if you’re Black and break the rules you deserve to die? If you’re white and break the rules and die the nation mourns? If you take your eyes off your child and a gorilla grabs him in a zoo you deserve death threats but it you’re white and an alligator kills your child while you’re ignoring posted cautions you get a GoFundMe page. Oh did I mention the GoFundMePage thats collected over $13,000 for the family in just a few hours? Disney also comped not only the family but many others that are staying at the resort where the alligator attack happened. The resort has 867 rooms,I wonder how many Disney had to lose money on over these rule breakers.
Surely there will be a settlement to follow. If Disney dared to blame the parent who were blatantly at fault, the public backlash would be incredulous.
Five alligators were caught and killed while attempting to find Lane Graves on Wednesday. One gorilla died and the world was ready to crucify a mother of three and vilify her husband, Where is the public outcry? Where is the backlash? Why is no one blaming the parents? Oh….White privilege…how can I forget what this country is built on.
