‘Monkey Up’ a ‘Racist’ Phrase? Only to the Racist Left

When Ron DeSantis won the Florida Republican gubernatorial primary in 2018, he said,

The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases bankrupting the state. That is not going to work. [my emphasis]

DeSantis was referring to the socialistic policies of his Democratic counterpart, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Dennis Prager, quoting from the South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, reported

"Gillum is an unabashed champion of his party's most progressive ideas -- including things like Medicare-for-all single payer health system, abolishing the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and impeaching President Donald Trump." 

Gillum is part of the far Left self-described socialist wing of the Democratic Party, it seems accurate to say. Well, Gillum’s supporters jumped all over DeSantis for his remarks critical of his policies. “Monkey up,” it turns out, is a “racist dog whistle” according to the far Left. 

Really?

I’ve heard the term used from time to time all of my life. Someone’s “race”—that is, skin color—never entered my mind. But I thought, maybe I’m missing something. So I looked it up. 

The Free Dictionary defines “monkey up” as “To hack together hardware for a particular task, especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely crufty and consciously temporary solution. Compare hack up, kluge up.”

The Urban Dictionary’s Top Definition defines “monkey up” as 

Mess something up. Probably influenced by similar phrases like "monkey around with," "monkey business," and "throw a monkey wrench into." Possibly used as a euphemism for "muck up" by people who consider that already-euphemistic phrase too similar to "fuck up."

There are many ways the word monkey is used as an idiom, including “monkey bars.” Mirriam-Webster, my favorite go-to dictionary, doesn’t list the term “monkey up.” It does have “to make a monkey out of,” which means “to cause (someone) to look very foolish : to make a fool out of (someone).” Netflix even has a movie titled Monkey Up, about a talking monkey. Clearly, few people equate black people with monkeys.

As Prager reports, many of the Leftist accusers claim that historically, blacks have often been equated to monkeys:

The NAACP Florida State conference said that "apes" and "monkey" are "by far the best-known racist references to African-Americans in our national folklore. It's only equal in racial semantics to the 'N-word.'" 

Perhaps. But everywhere I looked, definitions and the way people use the term “monkey up” today conforms to the definitions stated above. It’s clear how DeSantis meant it. He was referring to economic policies that he believes are harmful to people’s economic well-being. Everyone knows what “monkey up” means. It means to “mess up.” More crudely, it’s a polite way of saying “fuck up.” Leftists are good at it. They fuck up the language to evade the responsibity of actually evaluating and rebutting their political opponents’ ideas and opinions objectively.

The accusations are definitely political. But is there some deeper psychological motive involved, at least for some? The Urban Dictionary has an interesting follow up that sheds clarifying light on the Left’s accusations:

The phrase does not have any racial implications, though some have called it a "racist dog-whistle" referring to black people. The dog-whistle metaphor is apt because only a racist who secretly equates monkeys with black people would hear this phrase as having a racial dimension.

This definitely fits the modern New Left. It’s entire agenda is collectivist, largely centered around skin color. Who’s the racist? DeSantis, who used the term innocently? Or his collectivist “dog whistle” accusers on the Left, who see everything through group identity, from gender to sexual orientation to age . . . and to melanin levels (skin color)? The answer is obvious.

Related Reading:

Identity Politics: America’s ‘Pre-Existing Condition’, and the Cure

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

How Identity Politics Is Made to Destroy Us By David Horowitz

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Collectivism vs. Individualism in Letters

The ‘Alt-Right’: The New Left’s Chickens Homecoming.

Fellow Republicans, Don't Sell Your Souls for Bannon and the Alt-Right  By Walter Hudson