As you have likely heard, on this past Saturday a 4-year-old boy fell into the gorilla habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo. A gut-wrenching decision was made by the zoo to shoot and kill the gorilla to protect the boy and rescue him from the habitat.
The fallout over the incident has taken a decidedly racist turn as the public has now discovered that the boy and his parents are black.
Laura Collins, in Cincinnati writing for the Daily Mail, published an absolutely despicable piece on the young boy’s parents, including every detail of his father’s criminal history.
The actual lede and headline for her piece was all about how the young boy’s father, Deonne Dickerson, had committed crimes before.
Buried deep in the story was the fact that he is gainfully employed and appeared to be a loving father from the myriad of photos found on him. The story, a hit job on Dickerson, has already been shared over 26,000 times on Facebook. Their tweet about his criminal history was one of their most popular of the day yesterday.
What Laura Collins and the Daily Mail fail to share is that it does not appear that the boy’s father was even at the zoo with his family on Saturday.
Why then mention him at all? Why name him? Why spell out every mistake this man has ever made if he wasn’t even at the zoo when this happened?
Even if he was there, do you sincerely think anyone would be talking about his criminal history if he was white? I don’t.
A leopard mauled a young child who scaled a fence at the Kansas Zoo. Not a single report mentioned the criminal history of anyone involved.
In 2014, two jaguars mauled a toddler who fell into the jaguar exhibit of the Little Rock Zoo. The child’s identity, the identity of his parents, and their criminal history was never mentioned.
Fifteen years ago a child fell into another gorilla exhibit and was rescued. The criminal history of the parents was never mentioned.
At the Pittsburgh Zoo, a child lunged from his mother’s arms into the African spotted dog exhibit and was mauled to death. The zoo actually settled a wrongful death suit with the family. I searched all morning to see if any media outlets mentioned the criminal history of the family. They didn’t.
A tiger at the San Francisco Zoo mauled a 17-year-old boy to death. A drunk family member was witnessed taunting the tiger beforehand. The zoo settled with the family. Again, not a single story was written on the criminal history of anybody in that young man’s family.
Did anyone in the media even think to search the criminal histories of these families? It sure doesn’t look like it and that’s a good thing. It’s irrelevant.
So why in the world is the criminal history of this young boy’s father in Cincinnati being spread all over the world other than the possibility that racists saw an opportunity to do what racists do? Even if the young boy’s father was there, is the suggestion that he had criminal intent by allowing his son, who he is shown doting on all over social media, fall through the enclosure?
People often ask why guys like me “make everything racial” as if we made the system this way. We didn’t. Race and racism are obviously deeply entrenched in this ugly world and stories like this are required to fight back against it.
This young family could’ve lost their son. They experienced the same type of accident that white families have experienced for decades, but instead of being shown mercy or compassion, they are now enduring unthinkable attacks on their character.
America. 2016.
