Andrew Gillum, the 39-year-old politician has been fast-tracking the scene since he first entered the political arena. At 23, he became the youngest person to be elected to the Tallahassee City Commission. He then became the mayor of Tallahassee and is now Florida’s democratic party’s nominee for the Governor of Florida, making him the first contender of African-American descent to run for governor.
All of these accolades and he is still reduced to basically being called a monkey.
Republican contender for the Governor seat, Ron DeSantis commented on Wednesday during an interview on Fox News that Gillum would, “monkey this up” if he wins in November, as reported by Vox.
Blacks being referred to as monkeys and apes has a long and dark history in America. In 1570, Antonio de Torquemada iterated in a story he authored how a Portuguese woman was banished to Africa and was later raped by an ape and conceived children with the ape.
In 1854, two scientists named Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon documented black people as ‘chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans’ as highlighted by Medium.
In 1931, a group of nine black teenagers dubbed The Scottsboro Boys were accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama. In 1935, a Japanese artist named Lin Shi Khan produced artwork for a picture story which included an image of a simian figure hauling a white woman.
Let’s take a look at other instances where black people were referred to as primates:
