Fan in gorilla suit, 'All Lives Matter' shirt runs on field in Chicago

A fan wearing a gorilla suit and an “All Lives Matter” shirt ran onto the field in the fourth quarter of the Bears-Lions game and ran for a surprisingly long time, roughly 45 yards all told, before being tackled by security:

Television broadcasts rarely show fans jumping on the field, for the obvious reason that such clowns don’t need the extra publicity, but gorilla-suited guy made it on anyway:

Now, as fun as watching a guy in a gorilla suit run around might be, there’s the matter of the shirt he was wearing. On one side, it apparently read “RIP Harambe,” a “tribute” to the gorilla killed by the Cincinnati Zoo earlier this year and a tired, stale joke that’s still funny to the kind of folks who quote “Austin Powers” movies. (Update: The shirt read “Put the guns down,” which you could read either as a wish for peace or a demand for gun control, depending on your political affiliation. That’s a bit different from a Harambe joke, which doesn’t change the fact that Harambe jokes are played out.)

The other side of the T-shirt read “All Lives Matter,” the slogan that’s a rebuttal to the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Granted, one person’s slogan of inclusiveness and awareness is another’s statement of race-based defiance, but wearing an “All Lives Matter” shirt over a gorilla costume—well, that’s either breathtaking ignorance or just straight-out, no-question racism. Not a great look either way, gorilla dude. (Update: the gorilla was unmasked to reveal the fan was African-American. Without plunging into the morass that is racial politics, we still feel confident in saying anyone wearing a gorilla suit with a race-oriented t-shirt is outright clueless, trying to be provocative, or both.)

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.