Monkeys are Offensive

"At what age does the word monkey become insulting?" Paul leaned back precariously in his chair, his hands resting behind his head.
"Who said the word monkey is insulting? What's the context?" Brenda asked as she took a sip from her overpriced latte. The cars ambled by them as the sun beat down on the sidewalk where they currently lounged.
"Well you know, I was just thinking about Howard Cosell." Paul looked into the sky as he said this, the blue was brighter today, the faint breeze fighting it's way over the hills from across the bay.
"Who's Howard Cosell?" Apparently Brenda hadn't watched very much Monday Night Football in her mother's womb, actually she wasn't even a glimmer in her mother's eyes then. How long ago was that Paul thought.
"He was a sportscaster, Muhammed Ali days."
"Ok, what does this have to do with monkeys?"
"He was brodcasting a game and there was a runningback? I think it was a runningback, well there was a guy running with the football and he broke away from the crowd and he was just bolting up the field and Cosell says, something like look at that monkey run, or some shit like that."
"Was the guy black?"
"Yeah he was and so everyone got real upset, I think, I'm not really sure if they cared at the time, but I'm pretty sure people got offended,"
"You can't see why they would be offended?"
"No I mean I get why they would be offended, but for one Cosell wasn't racist and he used it as a term of endearment for his grandchildren, and what I am really wondering is why that word automatically is associated with an African American slur, or an insult to a particular racial group."
"It's just history." Brenda sighed as she took another sip.
"But see kids don't automatically think of black people when you say monkey, I mean nobody thinks of that at first do they? Shouldn't you think of a monkey first?"
"Yeah well if you call a black person a monkey it ties back to a historical discrimination and persecution, I mean the use of the word monkey is not deemed inappropriate, only when relating to a description of a person's race." Brenda folded her hands over themelves and stared to the right of Paul, a family of three walked by, the child swinging back and forth between the two parent's arms. He looked like a monkey, he wasn't black and it wasn't an insulting thought, he looked like a cute little monkey.
"Well Cosell wasn't talking about his race, I mean I call people monkeys all the time and I don't mean they are simian in nature, well evolutionary-wise they could very well be but...nevermind, I'm just saying that stereotypes are a learned thing, that give hurtful meaning to words that shouldn't be hurtful."
"Yeah but how can you tell other people what words shouldn't be hurtful to them."
"What I think is that if people were not taught that certain words are hurtful then they would eventually fade away, am I wrong?"
"What we just ignore racist slurs and they disappear? People will always be racist."
"I'm not saying racism will disappear, but just thinking back, I remember when I was little and my favorite animal was a raccoon, so I was talking about them to my grandma and I said coon. And she reprimanded me and said that I shouldn't say that word. Now if I had never been taught that the word coon was a deragatory term I would have never made the connection to a racial stereotype or a slur. It would still just be a harmless word to me."
"It would be a harmless word to you but what if you had said that around a black person?"
"I don't see when I would use that word unless I was talking about raccoons with them, which I hardly do anymore, I have kind of moved on since then, and within the context of my conversation would they still be offended?"
"Yeah they probably would be."
"Alright they might be but I mean it would be very easy to see that the word was not directed at them or meant to be offensive in anyway, I would be talking about the animal from which the slur derives from, if you can't refer to the animal that the word is in reality speaking of beacuse of these weird societal rules...I don't know it just seems kind of mixed up."
"And that's how she goes, lots of things are mixed up, just say raccoon instead of coon and you'll be fine."
"I'm just trying to understand. I mean if people are not taught these stereotypes in the first place then they wouldn't perpetuate right?"
"Ummm I assume that would work but people will still perpetuate stereotypes, everybody is not going to all of a sudden just stop being racist. Sure in a eutopian paradise, we stop teaching stereotypes, they dissappear and everybody loves each other, but I am sorry, that shit will never fly."
"Ok I can understand that everyone will not stop being racist, but think about it this way. When you raise your kids, what will your tatic be. Do you infrom them of stereotypes so they are aware of them and are able to look through them, or do you simply say that everyone is equal and don't mention the stuff that people are offended by?"
"I think it depends on how the situation presents itself, I mean when he is two you don't sit him down and say ok son, you might hear that Mexicans are lazy, but they're not really, people might say Asians have small dicks, but some of them might not. But if your kid comes in screaming the n-word rapping to Dre then you have to tell them that the word is off limits."
"It's just that it seems like in educating your kids about discrimination you further the cycle and keep the stereotypes alive. Kids will never think to relate monkeys and black people, they don't see asians and think that guy probably has a small dick, they don't look at mexicans and assume they live in a house with twelve people and are gardeners. This is all learned stuff, and maybe it is learned because of people telling them that it's not true. I mean can you even see the relations of these slurs to our present days?"
"No but am I racist? No, I have never put stock in any of that garbage."
"So how did you learn about the stereotypes and stuff?" Paul lit a cigarette, he exhaled the smoke in short puffs of yellowish smoke
"I don't know you just pick them up, from the media, racist people, society, who can say, you're bound to pick up a few things just by default of being alive."
"That's true, but do you think that talking about stereotypes is an effective way of diminishing them? Or does it merely keep the wheels spinning down a bad road?"
Brenda brushed her hair back and tucked it behind her ears, the sun glanced off the gold of her earings, as they dangled and swayed back and forth. "Who knows? This conversation is running in circles, whatever you do the stereotypes still exist, either you counter them with being informed of what they are or you try and not learn them so that there is nothing for you to counter. But I imagine that it would be damn near impossible to live in our society and not learn some stereotypes, you can't hide from it, so my answer is to educate to debunk."
"I guess you're right, I mean no matter if we don't teach our kids stereotypes, they will learn them from someone right?" Paul shifted so that the umbrella shaded him, he retreated to the shade as he made a reach for his iced mocha.
"Very noble of you though, striving for eutopia huh, you're such a hippy."
"Now that's a stereotype, just beacuse I am for peace love and happiness doesn't mean I am a hippy."
"Actually I think that those are the three pillars of hippy society, that, body odor and a love of hemp."
"See now that's what I am talking about perpetuation, you are guilty as charged."
"But see we can say those things and know that it's only in jest right?"
"I guess so, I mean it might be too hard to not think in stereotypes, I guess the thing to do is realize that they hold no weight."
"That's the easy thing to do, but cm'on you going to say that hippies don't stink?" Brenda chortled as she said this, her smile widening, her laughter still fighting through.
Paul joined her nodding his head in agreement. They pictured the hippies they had gone to school with, their weird dances that related to a beat in their own heads, slithering suburbians in head wraps, dancing barefoot to hip hop in the park.
"What made you think of this anyways was there a special on Howard Cosell or something?"
"No actually I was thining about the word monkey, and why that word would become so powerful in a different context than what it was originally intended for."
"Such a deep thinker this one."
"Well you know other slurs you can't really use without them being offensive, but monkey, coon, that kinda stuff that is actually talking about something else, I was just wondering how they got their power and how to take that power away."
"You saying there is no correct way to use the word chink?"
"Yeah like those if you use them you can't say I was talking about the animal, you know? Gook is Gook, Jap is Jap, that is straight racism. I just wondered when kids learned that monkey and coon were bad words in certain situations."
"Yeah I see where you're coming from."
"Right? I mean monkey is a monkey but then at some point society tells you that it's a racist slur, and then you think to yourself why is that, and then people have to explain racism and then kids try and make a comparison between monkeys and african americans and whether they believe it or not, that image is supplanted in there and the innocence of the word monkey is lost."
"And what a heartbreaking loss that innocence is." Breanda feined mourning for the loss of innocence.
"Shut up it is kind of sad, it's a direct sign of the shift in a mental state, the ugly head of societal racism peeking around the corner. People aren't all the same, some people hate other people, it's just the beginning of the realization of the undercurrents that are flowing beneath America."
"Wow, I don't know if I should be taking notes, voting for you, or waving an American flag in shame."
"Yeah me neither..."
"Look it's not that bad, are you harrassed everyday, do people yell Chinaman when they see you?"
"No, but who knows what they think, probably something along the lines of it's Yao no wait, it's that guy from American Pie."
"I think he might be better known as Harold now, but hey is that really that bad to be thought of?"
"Well maybe they are thinking other things like, that fucker doesn't speak english or his dick is small, or how does he see out of those eyes, who knows what they think."
"Maybe they just think...nothing."
"That would be nice, but just yesterday some guy started harrassing me and a friend at work."
"Really? what happened?"
"Ok so I didn't get harrassed it was actually really weird. So me and my co-worker are in front of our building having a smoke and this guy comes up and asks us for some cash, he says he just needs a couple quarters or something for the bus, so my co-worker says that he doesn't have any cash, which I think was true, so he asks me and I lie and say I don't have any cash, and then the guy just kind of freezes and stands there, and me and the other guy are just kind of trying to ignore him and are kind of creeped out, he isn't looking at us, just standing next to us but not moving and kind of looking down at the sidewalk. So after a little he snaps out of it and he asks again like I just need a couple cents or something, so I say you need some change, and I fish out some coins and give them to him...
"Why didn't you just give him the change in the first place?"
"Well he asked for cash, and I wasn't gonna give him a dollar, I mean people panhandle 24-7 in that neighboorhood, I kind of turned off my charity light since I started working there...
"So what's the problem?"
"I'm getting there, so he says thank you and something about me being an american, and then he looks at my friend and says, not like Vietnam, I know about Vietnam I was over there, this is America."
"Whaaaat? Did he not notice that you are Asian?"
"Haha I don't know, he started saying some stuff like we speak english here, and my friend was like, I speak english too, and I am not even from Vietnam, that he was an American too."
"What did the guy say?"
"I don't remember something about Vietnam and back to the this is America, we speak english thing. It was just really weird, I guess he thought that I didn't look Vietnamese but my friend did. My friend was speaking perfectly clear english when he told him that he had no cash, and I don't even think he was lying about it either."
"Well the guy said that you were an American, if anything that shows that you were not viewed in a stereotypical way."
"I guess so, but I mean my friend was, and it was clearly a scene that shows that these type of attitudes are still very prominent."
"So what was your friend anyways?"
"I think he is Phillipino, I could see how you would think he is Vietnamese though, I guess the guy has a pretty keen eye, I mean not really because he still got the ethnicity wrong, but he was able to tell I wasn't Vietnamese."
"Yeah he was a boderline informed racist. What race was he?"
"He was black."
"Probably got drafted into a war he didn't want to fight, probably lost some friends."
"Yeah who knows what happened to him, you know I used to think about that too."
"What losing friends in Vietnam?"
"No I was thinking about John Mccain."
"Why?"
"Because he was a P.O.W. during Vietnam, and I was wondering if he hated Asian people. Like if someone hold you captive and tortues you you have to hold a grudge right? And I would think that it could expand to a grudge against the country and that would maybe make you dislike anyone that even resembled the people that had tortured you."
"I'm sure he can differentiate between the people that actually tortured him and say a Vietnamese kid in San Jose."
"You would hope so but I don't know, if someone reminds him of that time, I mean it's almost natural to dislike them."
"Maybe but probably not I mean he has to understand that it was a war and there were plenty of Vietnamese people that suffered as well, I mean maybe even worse, from American soldiers, to what happened when the soldiers pulled out, right?"
"In a perfect world he is not jaded and holds no resentment towards asians as a whole, but this shit is far from perfect, I dunno just something I was thinking about. Because you know what I might hate the entire race of people that held me captive and tortured me, but I can't know for sure."
"Well you have a chance to hate middle easterners if you want to enlist."
"No thanks I'm fine here."
Paul stirred his drink, bringing the syrup up from the bottom of his cup. His cup was covered in perspiration as he looked at Brenda. She fidgeted with her bracelet, it made a small clinking nosie as it shifted with her arms. The two friends leaned back a little letting the sun rain down on them. Their skin absorbing the warmth. The sounds of the traffic muting itself as the volume of their thoughts notched itself up. All thoughts of the disjointed and saddening reality, floated up with the breeze. Society's problems brushed under the rug, the golden sun scaring the melancholy that loomed on every corner away. The sadness that could be found everywhere if one only cared to look, became transparent as the two friends sat peacefully. The day was beautiful, the company was comfortable, at that moment in that corner of the universe, the world was perfect, at least that's what they told themselves.