Morons of the Internet: Fusion

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we have another pop culture phenomenon that's allegedly racist. However this time black right's activists have crossed the line by trying to claim that people who make Harambe based jokes are racists. That's right, we're now trying to censor gorilla based memes.
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http://fusion.net/story/346541/death-to-harambe-memes/
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If you've never been on a place called 'the internet' before then you might have missed the recent memes dedicated to the gorilla who was shot after a boy fell into his enclosure. These 'Harambe memes' are absolutely hilarious, but not according to this internet publication, which is so pissed off they've put this article in an 'enough' category, so I think we know to expect zero journalistic integrity throughout this whole piece. Unsurprisingly we begin with some unqualified statement that in no way tie black people and the African population to racism. I am however very interested in finding out how we can be racist towards gorillas, being as the last time I checked gorillas are a different species to humans and not a different race, although I'm sure this author would claim anything is racist given half the chance.

We then discover that the reason Harambe joke have stayed around for so long is because of racism. We'll ignore the fact it might be inexplicably funny to a great many people, like every single other long lasting joke, because again when faced with a needed explanation you can always rely on the easy escape route; to claim something is inherently, if not explicitly racist. Maybe at one time Harambe was used as a cultural critique, but just because a phenomenon started by Africa Americans is subsequently developed by others does not instantly make the product of this change racist. To simply state that Harambe is a symbol for black people without any form of formal explanation is just moronic. That idea has just been plucked out of thin air, and resembles more a wild conspiracy theory than an actual serious point. Yes black people have been compared to gorillas before, and yes Harambe is a gorilla, but that doesn't instantly mean there's a causative relationship between those two statements.

Not surprisingly it's only the 'sensitive white people' who are making the Harambe jokes. That has to be a fact as it follows the narrative of this piece. The assumptions continue into the next paragraph as well. Of course there's always going to be examples of a small minority using this meme to be racist assholes, but this is then applied to a general argument centered around how everyone should stop using them, so where's the evidence for institutionalised racism from this meme? Just because somebody uses a symbol as a tool to be racist doesn't automatically mean that the given symbol is inherently racist. So unfortunately there's plenty to argue about here, you just choose to plainly ignore the formal argument in favor of your narrow minded horseshit.

I often go on about the importance of evidence in making an assumptive point, and this article is a great example of what I'm talking about. Later there's a single example of a college that actually has a Harambe safespace aimed at African Americans, which according to this author is all the evidence needed to assume this meme is universally racist. Of course everyone knows the jokes on the internet are based around that one safespace at a university they've probably never heard of; at least that's the only factual piece of information the reader is presented with.

Just a side note. As a zoology student I should inform you that it would simply be fallacious to state that an organism is 'less evolved'. Evolution is not forward thinking, nor does it have an end goal. Evolution is a constant process that relies on an environmental pressure that is different in every single organism, so to then measure that on a qualitative scale is fundamentally flawed. The source you provide equating evolutionary principles with racism takes pitiful assumptions surrounding Darwin's views on race and claims his theory championed white superiority, which is just unfounded nonsense.

'The fantasy is a more worthwhile story than the reality'. That may just be the most hypocritical statement of all time. I honestly cannot believe you've just said a statement as naive as that when you're own article revolves around a self imposed narrative. To summarise there is no clear argument here contrary to what the author would have you believe. As far as I'm concerned this man has not provided a shred of evidence in this whole piece. This is just a vague commentary on personal feelings, so why the fuck has this writer jumped to such a huge conclusion here? To say this whole article is making a mountain out of a molehill would be a huge understatement. To paraphrase this whole article: 'Boo-hoo, an internet meme hurt my feelings, so I'm going to shame everyone that my inherently race based philosophy dictates.'

There is the odd external source dotted around to try and back up these frail points, but they all follow the same flawed pattern. Not only are they all terrible sources for journalistic integrity, but they all simply point a finger at white people and screams racism despite any evidence. The mental leap here is that because some black people have been compared to gorillas in race hate crimes, Harambe must therefore be a racist symbol and not simply an innocent meme. This is simply a moronic assumption to make. Of course the Harambe meme isn't a racially motivated joke. That would be like saying 'here comes dat boy' is xenophobic because French people are often compared to frogs. Honestly this article is a bigger fucking joke than the Harambe memes themselves.