Positive Change In Society

A word often associated with protesting is activism. Activists are people who are looking for positive change in society (“What Is An Activist”). Activism is a broad term; there are people that seek change in society but don’t call themselves activists, yet they are activists. Activists can change society in a very small to very big way, but the keywords for activism is “positive change”. Activists claim they seek positive change, but who defines positive? Many protests are controversial. Take the Harambe incident for example. Harambe, a 17-year old gorilla, was fatally shot at the Cincinnati Zoo when a 5-year old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure. The gorilla was shot because he was dragging the boy across the moat inside the enclosure. The zookeeper made the decision to kill the gorilla because Harambe was being very aggressive with the boy and could have killed him (Park). The controversy comes in on whether or not Harambe should have been shot. Multiple protests have come from this incident. One side says that it is the mother’s fault for not looking after her kid. Another side says the zookeepers could have done something else besides shoot Harambe. The last …show more content…
White knows that Occupy Wall Street was a failure, but he says that the movement was not a waste of time. White suggests that “revolutionary theory progresses through experimentation and failure” (Urbina). White says that activists will claim that their protesting is working because they have raised awareness and spread conversation on the topic. Yet, this is due to social marketing, simply starting up conversation and get people talking (Urbina). This is not actually creating change, just creating talk. Activist claim their goal is to achieve change, yet most protests simply create conversation and debate, not that revolutions