Thanks for saving my daughter.... here's a punch in the face 👊👊
This recent incident in Florida hit close to home for me. According to this article, a good samaritan who helped a toddler find her father was assaulted and then smeared on social media as a predator.
The incident
Apparently, the man (who has a family of his own), noticed that two-year old girl was wandering around by herself at the park. He went to help her, and began asking other adults if they could identify her, or if they were her caretaker. As he walked to the parking lot to continue asking others, someone accused him of attempting to take the child. When the father finally noticed, he began to punch the man and called the police.
Once the police arrived, however, they checked with other witnesses and corroborated the man's story, and no charges were pressed on either party.
To make matters worse
After the incident, the father and bystanders did not issue any apologies and then went home. To make matters worse, during the commotion, several onlookers took photos of the man and then plastered them on their social media accounts, accusing the man of being a predator. These photos were picked up by their friends, and now the man's image is all over the internet with the association as a predator.
Because of all this...the man sadly left town with his family for fear of his safety.
What gets me about this incident
- It's sad to me that we live in a culture where this would happen -- for two reasons:
a. There are predators out there, and so the fears of the crowd weren't completely unwarranted.
b. The power and virality of "crowd-think" can quickly ruin your life. One classic technique is that the more two things
are associated (even if it's a lie), the more people will eventually absorb them as truth. We got a lot of that in our last
election. What about this guy now, with the association of his picture and "predator"?
- A living commentary on double-standard gender roles.
As gender roles and associations continue to change in society, these events spark conversation about the role of gender and young children.
Would this have happened if the good samaritan was a woman?
Would this have happened if the care-taker was a woman?
Is there a rational or irrational fear around men and children?
What does this say about changing gender roles as you have more male primary caretakers?
As a father of three young girls, my heart goes out to everybody in this situation. If I saw someone walking around holding my daughter, and others accused him of kidnapping....I'd probably get pretty heated myself.
At the same time, wouldn't you want to help a lost 2 year old?
So Steemians.....what do you think?