COMPETING NEGLIGENCE: ALLIGATOR MOM VERSUS GORILLA MOM

Now, I can't bring myself to post a picture of that cute, little, white baby that was killed by an alligator in Orlando the other day. I wish I'd never seen it. He was anonymous without that picture that's available now. And it broke my heart.

Faceless, it was like he almost wasn't real. 

However, like so many others, I must make this point before I go on with my life. I cannot let the attack of a black woman go unchecked.

Last month, a black woman's son wound up in a gorilla's cage at the zoo. As I said in my previous post, I didn't know that the child or the woman that birthed him was black when I first heard the story. Even when I saw the video, I didn't know. The gorilla was swinging the child too fast; the toddler was a blur

But I should have known based on the response to the near death of this mother's child.

Before I'd even heard about Harambe the gorilla almost killing any child anywhere, I heard about the petition to have the mother arrested for neglect because of something that happened to a child at a zoo. Thousands and thousands of people had already signed it before I knew anything about anything.

I was surprised because:

--I'd never heard of such a petition before
--I have heard of any number of stupid and deadly things happening to (usually white) children at the zoo.  

Well in Orlando, the child died.

The family involved wasn't at a zoo but at a resort. Apparently, white parents (mother and father were there) allowed their child to go into water marked with a clear no swimming sign.

If I saw such a sign I wouldn't have assumed their might be alligators in the water, to tell you the truth. I think it's outrageous that the sign near the resort's lagoon doesn't say, "Alligators may be in the water." It is even more outrageous that there are men hired by the resort, to stand around the lagoon with guns in case they need to kill alligators without that same resort making clear statements to the guests at the resort about possible alligators.

Then again, maybe the resort makes a quickie statement about alligators at check in, hoping you'll forget about it in the confusion and fuss at the front desk so you can enjoy yourself at the beach.

But all of this is beside the point. 

This is the point: There is a sign that says "No swimming." The white parents let their child go in the water.


Not being from Florida, I might have assumed that sign meant many things - like contaminated water. If I saw a sign that said "No Swimming." I wouldn't let me toddler near it. But that's just me.

But that's not the point either. 

The point is that the white parents violated rules, no matter how big or small one might assume the rules to be, and their child paid with his life. 

When the black parents violated no rules at all last month, white folks were calling for

the mother's arrest for negligence.

There WAS actual negligence in Orlando, no matter how big or small you think that negligence was.

So, where are the calls for the white mother's arrest?

Where is the outrage for the overwhelming feelings of protectiveness for the child that cancel out  any sympathy at all for an imperfect mother?

Where is online petition to have the white mother arrested?*

I'll tell you where it is, it's in white folks back pocket along with their unacknowledged, anti-black, racism. 

The white people reacting so sympathetically, despite the clearly marked sign that says "no swimming," don't even know that they are reacting differently this month than they did last month. But I do.

Gorilla Mom was black
Alligator Mom was white

Public responses to similar stimuli should be similar

But they aren't because racism is real, conscious or unconscious




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I've been sarcastic in the post above in order to make a point.  But I have actually read that the resort in Orlando has people on the edges of the water, on boats in the water, looking to shoot alligators that have gotten in. 

So that makes what happened, ridiculous

That sign should say, "Yes Alligators" instead of "No Swimming." But I still wouldn't have let MY toddler near that water. And if the sign had said, "Yes Alligators" we wouldn't have been on the beach either -- which is exactly what the resort was trying to avoid. 

I hope that white couple wins millions.  And I'm so sorry for their loss.

 I hope the black couple wins millions too, for that fence at the Cincinatti Zoo being ridiculously inadequate and for creating the inciting incident toward the vicious racist attack the black couple suffered via various online petitions and the like.

Bottom Lining It: Black people have to be vigilant even in the face of near tragedy. We can't even sneeze without the white majority trying to destroy our lives over an imaginary outrage.

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 *When a toddler wanders off  police are not looking to arrest the "parents" When a child is neglected or gets hurt, they are only looking for Mom.

It's as if Dad doesn't exist or isn't REALLY responsible for the children they bring into the world, not as much as Mom is. Don't believe me?  Watch the news the next time a child is wandering alone on a highway or in the mall. The news anchors always say they are looking to arrest "Mommy" and not "Daddy."  (Patriarchal Society Lesson #1302)