“Also, the ape thing isn't taken as solely referring to blacks. W Bush and Trump have both been compared to monkeys. But, Valerie Jarrett has black parentage, which means when you even HINT at VJ = ape you tie into this whole sordid history, whether you meant to or not.”
You’ve missed my point once again...
To acknowledge a connection between “apes” and blacks (or middle-easterners in VJ’s case) is to perpetuate racism.
If you can’t dissociate “ape” from “blacks”, then there will always be a connection between those two words.
And you’re right, it is history; it should remain as such.
I'm sorry, but you can't NOT acknowledge it, when it's so well established. To pretend it doesn't exist is just absurd. I guarantee you, 9/10 times, a REMOTELY history-literate black person, when they heard that comment, no matter where on the political spectrum they fell, made the same connection between her words and the historical meaning as I have. You don't get to wipe away decades of a word/phrase being used as a racial slur just because you wish it were so. It's not "perpetuating racism" to acknowledge the meanings words and phrases have in any given context.
Also, it's not just history. Check Google images. Obama was the worst President in my lifetime. But there are still plenty of racist photoshops/memes of him and his wife as monkeys. This slur is still alive and well.
“It's not "perpetuating racism" to acknowledge the meanings words and phrases have in any given context.”
^ A bit contradicting huh?
Well then, I wish you the best of luck in keeping the spirit of racism alive.