1.
I am thinking of Harambe in the context of my morning read, “Entering the Age of Humans.”
We are mammals and part of an ecosystem, and while I was raised to believe the human creature as the most fantastic and evolved of creatures, when I remember our place in an ecosystem I cannot think so. We are simply members. I teach in an interdisciplinary program now, so I teach more college students in STEM than in English these days. Their appreciation of the effects the smallest change can have on our world persuades me to listen ever attentively to what they have to say. I’m on record as a Bernie supporter and a lot of that has to do with an impatience that is more often associated with youth. When I read articles like “Entering the Age of Humans,” I feel a shift in my middle-aged perception. I realize D.C. is slow moving, but the speed of climate change and the scope of its effects mean that "slow and steady" are no longer practical.
I worked at the Cincinnati Zoo for one year while starting my doctoral dissertation. I could say a lot about that experience. For instance, how wrong I think it is that employees operating the rides outside in the winter were not permitted heavy coats as part of the required uniform at the time. Or the fact that workers only received 30 minutes to eat when the walk from one side of the zoo to the other could take about that long on a crowded day. Worker rights kind of things. I felt like a Marxist den mother after a while. But one thing I will say about the zoo is that when something happens to one of the animals everyone who works there is affected... from the grounds staff to the keepers. You feel like a family. Everyone identifies, to a certain degree, with the zoo’s mission to conserve and care for the animals. There’s an entire backstage area that zoo patrons rarely see, dedicated to the animals’ care and fighting their extinction. Most employees are aware of the debates about holding animals in captivity. Discussions about the problematic position a zoo holds in our culture didn’t happen everyday, but they weren’t rare. No one avoided that conversation. You have a way of being reminded when you work there every day...
One day some rare birds flew out of the bird house. My colleagues and I were both worried for their safety and celebrated their temporary freedom. We were relieved once they were inside their container again. I was working when Akilah died. When we left after closing, we left in silence; no one spoke, as if we were on hallowed ground (It’s blacktop). And it was when I was working there that I learned why the zoo decided not to have peacocks roaming free anymore: children chased them and pulled out their tail feathers. That is frightening and physically painful for the peacock, and they would turn and attack the child.
The zoo is vigilant when it comes to protecting the animals and the patrons from each other. The zoo’s philosophy is built into the exhibit architecture. I remember having several conversations about the philosophical differences between the Columbus Zoo and Cincinnati Zoo exhibit spaces. The Columbus Zoo utilizes glass walls, while Cincinnati Zoo utilizes fences, plant growth, and moats. Columbus patrons can look into the eyes of an orangutan, while Cincinnati patrons often look across a great open space toward an animal in its setting. The Columbus Zoo animals are out and on exhibit for the duration of the zoo's hours. The Cincinnati Zoo animals always have an open exit to a living space patrons cannot see.
I have been thinking about Harambe because I have a sense that his life continued behind the scenes. I’ve read posts on FB defending the mother and emphasizing the speed of children. I don’t want any demonizing of the mother here -- But I am not a parent. I worked at the zoo, and I am childfree. I think of the zoo as belonging to the animals. It is their home. While it is there for human entertainment, it is there to educate humans and to conserve animal life, too. The zoo advertises its work in conservation; it invites patrons to do small things like donating a cell phone or recycling the zoo map. It offers educational camps and overnight visits. I do not think the zoo actually advertises all of the work it does on behalf of endangered species or invites patrons to consider their visit as part of that larger conservationist effort.
Whatever your thoughts about zoos and animals being born and bred in captivity, the Cincinnati Zoo does important work on behalf of endangered species. But Harambe’s death underlines the fact that we endanger these animals even as we try to save them from extinction, the possibility of which we continue to play a part in creating. In the macrocosm that is “the age of humans,” “Human activity has disrupted a complex natural cycle that took millions of years to evolve and stabilise, and that disruption is rapidly changing the state of the planet.” In the aftermath of this microcosmic event, I’ve read a lot of posts describing how the child was endangered. Even Thane Maynard said so in his interview when he described the decision making process behind killing Harambe. The child is -- thankfully -- okay. Harambe is not.
Once the child fell into the moat, the gorillas’ lives were also endangered. There is an entire apparatus in place at the zoo to protect human life, that values the human lives of patrons and zoo employees over those of the animals. Harambe’s death exposes this largely invisible fact. We placed more value on the child’s life than we did on Harambe’s, even as Harambe is part of an ecosystem to which we all belong, even as we looked to breeding him to help save his species. (He was 17 years old, and just approaching the maturity necessary to breeding. From a conservationist perspective, losing Harambe is a huge loss for the zoo's work.)
A zoo is an ambivalent space, but when it comes right down to it the apparatus is on our side. I realize the fall was an accident, but killing Harambe was no accident. The explanations of how fast a child can move don’t really address this issue. When a child falls down the stairs he does so in his own home and is the only one hurt. When a child runs into the street, her life is the only life endangered. I realize these comments are written in defense of the mother who needs all the support she can get, but the analogy breaks down once the child is being dragged by a gorilla and you shoot and kill Harambe to save him.
I have walked zoos differently ever since working in one. When I visit the zoo now, I still feel how I need to work on the animals’ behalf. I have come to understand my visit as part of that work. I believe it would be good for the zoo, the animals, and the patrons, if everyone were encouraged to think of a visit to the zoo in these terms, alongside the fun we have there.
I am not surprised by how many of the discussions in the aftermath of Harambe’s death have dealt less with the gorilla and more with the mother’s (ir)responsibility. I research medical history and the cultural attitudes regarding motherhood -- attitudes which are surprisingly similar today despite all the medical “progress” we’ve made regarding female anatomy, pregnancy, and childbirth since the classical, medieval, and early modern periods. According to one old wives' tale, if a pregnant woman feels startled when a hare leaps from a bush into the road, then her infant may be born with a harelip. “It’s all the mother’s fault” is not exactly an original claim.
My study of the cultural attitudes toward motherhood began as a strictly academic project. However, I’m now in my mid forties without children of my own. I’ve lived through the commentary on my body and whether or not I’ll have children through several life phases, and I am to the point of conceding that I have been, to a certain degree, the subject of my study. By not having children, I created a kind of negative space in which to make an "objective study." I have no child to serve as a cathexis, no child who underpins my scholarly concept of motherhood, or my feelings about Harambe’s death. But this negative space also leaves room for personal questions: in the absence of a child, what do I have (aside from my study)? What cultural assumptions will swirl into consciousness here? Those assumptions are fond of making themselves felt, and some of them have appeared since Harambe's death as parents and non-parents became entrenched in their respective positions.
Overall, I find the comments and assumptions I am dealing with in my forties far worse than any I received in my twenties. They are less absurd and more insidious. In my twenties, people simply assumed I would eventually have children. I didn’t see any need to tell them any different. It was none of their business anyway, and I tend to keep an open mind about things. I enjoy telling the story from my bellhop days: two different guests took me aside as I carried heavy luggage to warn me “You will ruin your womb!” Two separate occasions at least a year apart. Direct quote, word for word, two times, two different people. That cracked me up at the time. I’d been working on theater sets and hanging lekos for years by then, and I have many other organs more likely to be strained when lifting a bag. (In my thirties, I could simply say “Not during graduate school.” That was easy to say and easy to understand.)
But now in my forties, I have no easy blow-off-the-question answer. Unlike in my twenties and thirties when people questioned my future, in my forties the questions and assumptions focus on the life I live now. And because I am sharing my life with some of these people, it is harder to say that it is none of their business. I have absorbed enough of the cultural BS about motherhood to feel self conscious about my childfree status. Sometimes I feel defensive and even invite comments. It is a way of picking on myself, of holding myself responsible even for the children I do not have and that our culture assumes I should. After all, as Judith Butler points out, our body shares space with other bodies; it is always vulnerable to the other’s gaze; it is never completely our own even when we want it to be. I can feel anxiety whenever motherhood or parenting is a topic of discussion outside of an academic setting because of the assumptions made about non-parents.
For example, when discussing Harambe's death, parents have commented that non-parents "have no idea how fast a four year old can move!” We can have such an idea, actually. We are fully capable of all kinds of kid oriented ideas. We can even know how fast a kid moves because we see kids run... like at a nephew’s soccer game, or in the grocery store when a stranger’s child runs right into our cart and it bashes us in the belly, or, worse, when a child runs out in front of our car. But boy, does that kind of remark cause some anxiety on this end, even when I understand the defensiveness every parent reading the comments about Harambe’s death must feel. Commentators, many of them non-parents, are scapegoating the mother. There’s a long historical tradition of leveling blame on mothers, especially when experiencing such feelings as shock and grief. That historical context matters. (That's why I study it.) But let’s not short change each other by ignoring our capacity for understanding or falling into a cultural split. Everyone is avoiding the real tragedy here. The boy is alive, so now we are faced with the fact that Harambe is not. And we are all culpable in that, especially those of us who visit or work in a zoo. Guilt and rage are not easy emotions to process, so we’ll make sure the mother feels (and, thus, is made responsible for) every ounce of our feelings, or we'll shut down and say those without kids can never understand (and so are not held responsible for the vitriol they spew).
2.
Look. Let me introduce you to a non-parent, non-mother, fascinated by cultural attitudes about motherhood, non-blaming person (that’s me): I’ll be the first to admit that I have always held a great deal of ambivalence toward motherhood. I am the oldest of 5, and I was cast in the role of a mini-mom. I don’t think anyone was happy about this arrangement. Every evening before bed we kids would clean our playroom, pick up the blocks, put the games back on the shelf, etc. If a younger sibling did not want to pick up the blocks (or the legos -- a definite pain in the butt because our parents made us separate all the pieces), my mother would sometimes short cut the argument by turning to me to say, “Rachel, you’re the oldest. Set the example.” And then I would have to pick up that toy so that my sibling knew what it looked like to pick up what she or he did not want to pick up (and I suppose follow suit... some day). After supper I’d wash the dishes while my mom cleaned the table and swept the floor. The rest of the family would be watching the television. This was not fun “mom” time. She checked for pieces of food I may have missed. (I was “responsible” for those bits of food.) I also knew I would get in trouble if one of my siblings was not in bed on time when I was babysitting. One night I dragged one of my sisters across the living room floor to get her to bed on time (Yes, she received a healthy rug burn), rather than deal with my parents’ upset when they got home. (Not upset about the rug burn.)
I felt my responsibility for the behavior of my siblings acutely, and my siblings had to deal with me as the measuring stick of their behavior alongside my mean treatment of them. This is not a good model of motherhood, let alone sisterhood, but it is the model I was raised with and the part I was expected to play. And it took a long time to rid myself of the resentment I felt at always having to be “the responsible one.” So imagine my feelings when someone made the following comment just a couple of years ago:
“You do not really know what it means to be responsible until you have a child.”
Context matters. The Cincinnati Zoo makes this argument in every open air exhibit. The comment has bothered me for so long because, as a child, much of my identity was based on my being “responsible.” That word provides a structural framework to my psyche. The weight of responsibility fluctuates: sometimes I can brush it off; sometimes I still feel “the weight of the world on my shoulders” (another refrain from my childhood). It can be an awesome and inhibitive weight. It is really not healthy all of the time. I feel a lot of responsibility. But when I read essays written by other childfree or childless people, almost all of the writers feel the need to say something along the lines of what I am about to say:
“You’re right. I will never know the responsibility of having a child.”
My point is that, even with my background and the emphasis my parents placed on responsibility, I would not presume to know the responsibility of having a child. I am aware I do not have one. My other point is that the speaker can not know the responsibility I felt for my four siblings, or the responsibility I now feel as a forty something without kids. The speaker will never have my four siblings or my upbringing. The speaker will never not have kids while in the fortieth decade. And by the way, the responsibility I feel now without kids is different from the responsibility I felt in my twenties without kids or in my thirties without kids... and thank goodness it is different from the responsibility I felt growing up as a mini-mom.
My point is, also, that while we humans may not always know an experience, we can certainly imagine it. We can learn to understand. I have always wanted to suggest to this person that it might do you well to contemplate not the “freedom” you suspect I have without children, but the use to which I put that open space. That space allows me to feel a responsibility beyond any singular child or biological family unit. I have no cathexis-child that channels my processing of Harambe's death, or any subject, for that matter.
I’m not sure any of the comparing between our mutual groups serves much of a purpose when it is made with no mind toward context, human development, and personal integrity. Yet, the outrage over the avoidability of Harambe’s loss in comments takes the form of a binary that either demonizes or defends the mother who never even entered the gorilla’s space. None of it really tries to understand the significance of Harambe’s loss in a larger context or pauses long enough to feel the 400+ lb. loss. Even “RIP” is a wishful denial -- of guilt, of sorrow. Harambe is not resting. Harambe is dead. It is easier to blame the mother’s irresponsible parenting or another group’s inability to understand a child’s fall than to examine what a zoo is, to contemplate how we inhabit its space or participate in its work. A zoo, like (non)motherhood, is an ambivalent space. These categories of understanding contain contradictory ideas and conflicting expectations. A little boy and Harambe broke all of that open.
One evening after I got home from a day at the zoo, I realized I had the keys to the train in my pocket. The maintenance crew tests the train every morning before the rides staff arrives, so I needed to return the keys. One of my supervisors let me back into the zoo on her way out. As I walked back to the train station in the early night, I realized, as if for the first time, that I was in the animals’ home. The zoo is a different place at night without all of the patrons and employees. The litter is gone; the trash cans are empty. The train and carousel are still and locked. No one shouts or calls out, or pushes you out of the way for a better view. The animals are alone, alive in the quiet, probably happier for it. I slipped the keys into the train station’s ticket booth and walked slowly through the zoo to my car, passing no other human. I stopped to watch the lions pacing back and forth. I listened to their roars, just the fence between us. I drove back home to the hum of our refrigerator, the whir of a/c... to Aaron in our Ikea bed.
At night, zoo animals do not live to educate, or to entertain... (that was my day job, driving the train). They do not need to defend their tail feathers. At night, they live to roar, groom, to roll in the dirt, to have sex, to shit, to smell what the wind carries, to pace before the fence, to sleep. Outside, they might catch tiny versions of the wild to which they are so ill equipped to return and which is increasingly ill equipped to receive them. These days I think of the zoo as a new kind of halfway house: its animals are half way from nature (or further still), half way to domesticated (not even close), never fully both. It is our job, all of our jobs, to protect them from ourselves.