Monkey Gymnastics: A Postscript

Steve wrote here about NBC being attacked as “racist” for airing a commercial that showed a male monkey doing gymnastics, just after Gabrielle Douglas won an Olympic gold medal. Steve commented that it “[c]ouldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of useless media liberals.” True enough, but my reaction was a little different. I was pondering whether to write about it when I saw that Glenn Reynolds’ take was the same as mine: “IF, WHEN YOU SEE A COMMERCIAL WITH A MONKEY, YOUR FIRST THOUGHT IS “BLACK PEOPLE,” then you just might be a racist.”

Exactly. Who in the world, upon seeing a monkey, immediately thinks: African-American! Bizarre as it seems, that apparently is how many liberals do think. If that isn’t racist, what is? And then we have the fact that NBC apologized for being “insensitive.” I don’t get that. NBC is saying that it should have been more sensitive to the possibility that lots of its fellow liberals would equate monkeys with black people. On the contrary, I think that if there really are people who see blacks that way, we should be insensitive to them; in fact, contemptuous of them. By apologizing, isn’t NBC implicitly implying that they are right, that it is logical and reasonable for people to equate monkeys and African-Americans?

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses