1: The Death of Harambe

Our Hero, Harambe.

I'm sure that most, if not all the people that are reading this blog post already know what happened in this event. On May 28, 2016, a small boy had managed to crawl into a gorilla enclosure. Harambe, the gorilla, walks up to the boy and helps him stand up. People standing behind the railings start screaming, as they were panicking and scare Harambe, which causes him to drag the boy across the enclosure to reposition himself further away from the crowd. This causes to officials to believe that Harambe had started to get aggressive and dangerous, so they order the shot to be taken to kill Harambe, which saves the boy. So, you might be thinking: What makes this event so controversial? Many people are enraged at the killing of Harambe, as they believe that there are many other ways to have resolved the incident peacefully. People are also very angry at the fact that the mother didn't get fined, as she failed to care for her child. Many argue for the mother, saying that anything can happen in the split second that mothers take their eyes off their children, but this is definitely not the case. The mother herself stated that her son told her he would be climbing into the enclosure, which she did nothing about. There were 3 entire fences/barricades separating the humans from the animals and she still failed to do anything about her son, as she claimed that she was busy taking care of other kids that weren't her own. There are many reasons that people were mad at this incident, such as the mother being clueless of her son's actions, the panic among the crowd, the decision to shoot Harambe without attempting any other method, and the worst offender, the mom not doing anything when she already knew he was climbing into the enclosure. But there is one reason that sticks out to me. Many believe that the boy should have been shot/left to die instead of Harambe. To what extent can one argue for this? Gorillas are a dangerously endangered species and many people believe that the value of Harambe's life was greater than the boy's. With a simple search on Facebook, you are able to see many posts on Harambe's death and the comments defending this reason. If you browse through the comments, you can see that many of the people who support and defend this reason seem to be in their mid 20s and younger, so it can be assumed that they have not experienced yet what it feels like to have a child, which could possibly be the reason for them believing in this. I, myself, believe that Harambe's life was more valuable than the child's, and probably for the same reason as the others, as I have not yet experienced what it feels like to have a child. Many are also saying that if it was their child, then it wouldn't matter anyway, because if they let that happen to their child, they didn't deserve to have one in the first place. But of course, this argument doesn't exactly work, as you don't just get to execute your child if you feel that you aren't deserving of one. There are many arguments to be made and many ways it could have ended, but what's done is done. Harambe was shot and the boy was saved.

Progress: In this blog post, I was able to write from a more neutral position. I wrote against and for the argument, and was able to see how the two viewpoints contrasted. Writing this blog post helped me be able to better understand that there are many perspectives to a situation, some are right, and some are wrong. I was able to see the argument for his death and the argument against it and was able to make out the details that fit together to make the actual situation, instead of being biased.

Reflection: As I was writing and researching blog posts, I was able to see many more perspectives and learn much more about the situation than I had previously known about. This greatly broadened my knowledge and perspective and I was able to put to put together the logical arguments and perspectives from both sides of the argument to see what really happened. Being able to write about a topic from more than one perspective will help my in my future writing, as I will know what to look for when researching or analyzing and I'll have more to analyze and stronger arguments, as I now know to take note of both sides of the arguments.