You have to be racist to think that’s racist

It seems obvious to me that comparing an entire race of people to animals is racist.

What is less obvious is how comparing an individual or a coterie to animals can be called racist without smuggling in the decidedly racist notion that race is a person’s defining characteristic.

Might I suggest that if a 2000-word essay, complete with citations and footnotes, is necessary to explain how uniquely racist it is to compare a black person to a monkey, then maybe it's not as obviously racity-racist as you thought while you were furiously researching.

Why, yes, I am aware that racists have called black people apes and monkeys. Racists tend to say mean things. Yet, somehow, calling people "stupid mother f***ers" has escaped the "racist" designation.

By all means, please remind me how scientific racism relied on pseudoscience classifying blacks as simians to justify Social Darwinism. It's important to not forget how racist the Progressive Movement has historically been. Isn't is creepy that some people still call themselves "Progressives"?

As far as I am able to tell, the argument for why it's okay to compare white people to lower primates but not black people is that there's only a risk of confusion in the latter case, which is a really frickin' racist thing to believe.

Calling people monkeys is ugly the same way a toothbrush mustache is ugly. Both are bad looks but there's nothing innately racist about either. Someday some progressive hipster is going to bring back the Charlie Chaplin and some blue comic will make it OK to call anyone a monkey.

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