White House honours “patriot” gorilla Harambe on 10-year death anniversary
Who would have guessed that the White House would deem one of the only “true patriots” in America the overly memeified gorilla, Harambe?
In 2016, Harambe was shot to death in the Cincinnati Zoo, Ohio, after a three-year-old boy climbed through a barrier and subsequently fell 15 feet into the ape’s enclosure.
Video captured the gorilla pulling the boy through water, though the child only sustained minor injuries. However, security staff at the zoo shot and killed the silverback to save the child.
The gorilla enclosure was reopened a year later after calls for safety improvements; the walls were higher, and more barriers were in place.
On May 27th, the government official account celebrated what would have been the animal’s 27th birthday.
They mourned, “an icon that became part of internet history, American culture, and an entire generation’s timeline”.
The White House added, “Tomorrow marks 10 years since we lost him. Ten years since the moment the world stopped scrolling and collectively mourned something bigger than a meme.”
Though Harambe’s name was a lasting buzzword for funny social posts, the White House encouraged X users to think deeper about the meaning of his death, as Harambe was “a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity.”
Beyond this, the lengthy post added, Harambe represented “the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe.”
The bizarre post concluded, “Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on. Gone, but never forgotten. Rest easy to a true patriot.”
After the incident, Trump, speaking as a presidential candidate at the time, mused that it was “so beautiful to watch” Harambe interact with the child.
“It was almost like a mother holding a baby … looked so beautiful and calm, and there were moments where [it] looked pretty dangerous,” he shared.
Despite his evident soft spot for the gorilla, Trump conceded that zoo staff didn’t have a choice when taking the animal’s life.
He concluded, “You have a child, a young child is at stake, and you know it’s too bad there wasn’t another way.”