Posted on 08/05/2015 12:32:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me.
So sorry about Cecil.
Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe?
Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.
My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.
Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?
In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.
When I was 9 years old, a solitary lion prowled villages near my home. After it killed a few chickens, some goats and finally a cow, we were warned to walk to school in groups and stop playing outside. My sisters no longer went alone to the river to collect water or wash dishes; my mother waited for my father and older brothers, armed with machetes, axes and spears, to escort her into the bush to collect firewood.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Goodwell Nzou is a Zimbabwean doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.
they only do that in Detroit
Maybe they cry for polar bears?
No, most don't and none of them would care if they did know.
Excellent idea, Goodwell.
Having some help when drawing water is always good.
Black lives don’t matter.
they don’t cry for Argentina, either.
Americans who can’t find Zimbabwe on a map are applauding the nation’s demand for the extradition of the dentist, unaware that a baby elephant was reportedly slaughtered for our president’s most recent birthday banquet.
Africans understand that Lions are food. Babies are living spirits that will inhabit eternity. In fact, God only mandated the killing of animals for eating after the fall. The Gospel story is in this act...something must die for us to live. Otherwise it is us that will die for our sins.
My college friend’s dad is from what used to be called Zaire. He had a saying: “Animals belong outside, or on my plate.”
To liberals.
If not for the big game hunter dollars the only lions would be in a zoo.
I am amazed the NY Slimes published this piece.
Cecil the lion Oxford University study funded by pro-hunting groups
"It has been revealed that the prestigious university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), which had tracked Cecil since 2008, is part funded by conservation group Panthera and an organization named the Dallas Safari Club – both of which support ‘sustainable’ hunting."
Eff Cecil
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