Florida's republican primary winner was a admin for an alt-right FB group. - Polidicks

I've never heard "Monkey it up" in my life. "Monkey around" i have. Telling a black person they're going to "Monkey it up" is pretty explicit man and I'm not really sensitive to this shit

Everyone has jumped on this post and explained why it's bad but I'm genuinely curious as to why you would even pretend it's a widely used (or used at all) expression. You've never heard anyone say "Don't monkey this up".

Found the racist.

I've lived in Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma for roughly the past two decades. Not once have I ever heard this phrase, and you've put the onus on others twice now to prove that this is racist / isn't a common turn of phrase. Exactly what proof do you have for your claim of "monkey this up" being widely known? Any books? Chat logs? Facebook posts? Literally anything at all?

I live in Florida, and I can say I have heard this in some derivations before. It's not something you hear every day, but it is a thing, and I can give DeSantis benefit of the doubt. It's akin to "monkeying around", "don't monkey things up", "monkey around with things" (all derivations I remember hearing). Basically the verb "monkey" means to carelessly handle/fuck things up. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monkey%20around%20with%20(something) I don't like DeSantis at all, and I will be voting for Gillum, but I have to give him a break on this one. Was it something that should have been caught by PR in a prepared speech? Absolutely. But off the cuff, I can accept it as nothing more than poor phrasing. There are a million and one reasons to hate this guy, but this is definitely not one of them.

'Bless your heart' can be heartfelt and meaningful, not an insult; it can range from 'I sympathize, but you're being naive' to 'you're a fucking idiot, we all know it, and I'm now going to tell you you're an idiot as sweetly as I can because that's how little I mean it and it will fly over your head because you're a fucking idiot who would fall for my false sincerity'. If, however, it's spoken by a bigot to those who they are bigoted toward, it's safe to assume it was not an actual blessing/sympathy but, rather, an insult. If it comes from a bigot to those who they're bigoted toward, when that bigot administrates a page called 'we bless the hearts of the fucking idiots' when they're asked 'So what do you think of your opponent (a member of the group you're bigoted towards)', their response is 'Bless their heart', and they hours later feverishly defend themselves with 'I really meant it as sympathy, I swear' - only defending themselves after its blown up into a scandal -- and there's a distinct lack of any sort of apology for what they said but, rather, the blame is assigned to those 'who heard it' ...

No one says monkey things up. Monkeying around is a completely different phrase that didn't fit into what he was trying to say. "come on Floridians, we cant let him mess around Florida" the fuck does that mean. The man is a blatant racist who till recently was admin of a alt-right group. It's not hard to see why he even thought of calling his black opponent a monkey, even easier when hes trying to copy trump's mannerisms down to a T.

I keep seeing people invoke "monkeying around" and I'm not sure how that's an argument. "if you pretend he says a thing he didn't say then it doesn't seem as bad" ????? The only other reason I can see him saying this other than as a brazen racist dogwhistle (i use "dogwhistle" loosely ; it's like a fucking bullhorn) is that he knew it would stir enough outrage to bring his name to prominence a day after the primary win.

Again, I don't support the guy at all, and I think he's an awful candidate with worse ideologies. But not everything he says has to have some kind of racial slur undertone to it, and I'd like to think I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt on this. I really just wanted to comment on the phrase itself and point out that it does exist outside this context. I mean, you are free to believe that, but I have heard it multiple times and there is documentation of it. If you use the definition I provided in the quote he made, you can easily interpret it as him stating that you can't let Gillum mishandle governing Florida. Again, I'm not doubting the guy is racist, or trying to defend him for his views. But that doesn't immediately rule out that he used the phrase innocuously.

Monkeying around is a completely different sentence than monkeying it up. The definition you used is monkeying around which is common, no one says monkey it up. Like there's not a single documented use of monkey it up in phrases till the dickhead said it.

"monkey around" is a common term that you'd mostly attribute to kids getting in trouble by carelessly playing, maybe climbing all over things. It carries on in age and responsibility to just mean goofing off or having fun with no real purpose. 'monkey this up' isn't a prior phrase with any abstract meaning. The phrase is just "fuck this up" with the added implication that the action is a monkey's doing. He said he doesn't want that monkey to fuck things up.

DeSantis said “we’ve got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction,” adding “the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.” With what I said about monkey being a verb: DeSantis said “we’ve got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction,” adding “the last thing we need to do is to mishandle this by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.” Another note on why I can't immediately jump to this being a racist remark with 100% certainty is that he doesn't make a direct connection to Gillum's character or person. Instead he just mentions socialist agenda and other typical right-wing fear words. If he said: DeSantis said “we’ve got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction,” adding “the last thing we need is Gillum monkeying this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.” then I could jump on the racist remark train. But there is just enough ambiguity in how he said it for me to think it was just simply poor phrasing in the situation.

This is how dog-whistling works though. Just vague and abstract enough to slip under people's radar.

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger." Lee Atwater Just because we have forced such language to be stated through dogwhistles and implied statements with a quick wink to the camera followed by hours of 'no, no, obviously I didn't mean that gosh you're all just hoping I'm racist I never said anything like what you said I said' doesn't mean people don't go on air and spread that language through dogwhistles and implications to 'show their colors'; it doesn't make what they're saying less racist, it just makes it more deniable. If a man says is fine with being painted a white nationalist, administrates a white nationalist group, and then says something racist, and you find it easier to err on the side of 'I think it was poor phrasing' than 'racist's being a racist' perhaps the issue at hand here is that you don't want to believe that white nationalists exist, or that people can so casually call black people 'monkeys' or chinese 'slant-eyed' or jews 'money-obsessed' or muslims 'terrorists' in public and feel no remorse? If he truly wanted to prove he didn't make a racist remark, the first thing he'd do is take himself out of administrating a white nationalist group and apologize for even the implication that he was calling his opponent a monkey while denouncing racists and racism. Note the complete absence of any of that.

It's also how misinterpretation works. You can choose to see it as a dog whistle or you can choose to see it as poor phrasing. I think poor phrasing because of what I said above. Given his background, neither is a stretch of the imagination, but I just don't think there is enough supporting evidence in the quote he made to draw it as a negative remark.

I dunno I think I'm kind of against politicans being given the benefit of the doubt in general, they need to be held to a higher standard than you or me.

One requires you to ignore his background far more than the other.

Again, simply given the context of the quote and his lack of directly mentioning Gillum in the quote where he said the monkey phrase, I simply don't think he meant it as a racial slur. This is just a really stupid thing to say. You are trying to paint me being blind to nationalists and racism going on in the country because I'm not on board with your interpretation of the quote? If so, I think you are a fool. My stance on Gillum and DeSantis is clear, I've stated it above. My overall political stances have been made clear on my thousands of posts in PD and SH. You're right. He should remove himself from that group, and he should issue an apology. But he won't, malicious intent or not, because that would show weakness in the eyes of his supporters. You can't win over his voter base with apologetics that you and I would think are standard procedure. When I vote in November, and I go to bubble Gillum, I'm not going to think "Wow, DeSantis shouldn't have said 'monkey'". I'm going to think about his actual policy and ideals.

No, I'm trying to show you that you're giving credit which hasn't in any way been earned. You are allowing his words to defend his words when you should be looking at his actions to discern his actual intent. He earned some racist followers by calling his opponent a monkey. If he wanted to show he didn't intend to gain those followers, he would lambast or attack those who would've supported him for what he stated. His own inaction speaks volumes more than his own say-so that 'I didn't mean it the way you heard it'. And that should tell you about the exact intent of his remarks right there in that singular sentence. Whatever he stated, racist or not, he did not state it 'on accident'.

They should be held higher, and he should issue an apology for the statement, malicious or not. I mention this above more, but we all know he won't. I suppose if you want to believe every word he says is bred from his racial views. But I would hope that we can agree that no one is made up of entirely one characteristic, and that it is completely possible for someone racist to say the word "monkey" without actually meaning "nigger" or some other racial slur. If he actually wanted to throw slurs at Gillum I would think someone in his camp would be a bit more direct about it and just go straight to racism and not pass go, like we have seen in other elections since 2016. Subtlety is a lost art for Republicans as of late.

'Monkey' means 'monkey'. It doesn't mean 'nigger'. If you said 'No, I meant the country Niger I just have a thick country accent' while wearing KKK robes I don't think it'd be untoward for me to say 'that's racist' and it'd be a pretty weak defense for you to defend against that accusation with 'I would hope we can agree that nobody is made up of entirely one characteristic.'

I mean that's a really bad analogy, and Niger and nigger are not the same thing phonetically or metaphorically. But I'm not going to change your mind, and I apparently can't get you to see it from a different angle, so I'm going to stop smashing my head on the wall. You aren't going to/can't vote for him, and I'm not voting for him, so there's nothing to gain here.

You could gain by not trying to defend him being openly racist.

"If you replace 'monkey this up' with something NOT that, then suddenly you can see he's not being racist!" Even IF the phrase 'monkey this up' was a common phrase and not just something tangentially related to one: why that word choice? Why go with the verb that still obviously has racist connotations when said in context of a black person? Why not just say "mishandle this" or "screw this up" or "mess this up" or anything else? Plus, 'monkey around' is more of a "you aren't taking this seriously" insult, not a "the things you're doing are bad" insult. It doesn't fit the rest of the sentence, which is trying to say taxes and 'the socialist agenda' are bad. The chances of it being a coincidence are extremely small. Especially in context of him belonging to an online group that routinely says racist things anyway.

"Monkey it up" is a niche phrase that originates in automotive shops in the southern US and yeah, it's as racist as it sounds. It's meaning is roughly "doing a job the same as a black person would."

Oh yeah, totally defending the guy and his racist tendencies: I've been extremely explicit that I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on this specific usage of the phrase in this very specific quote. Doubly explicit on my distaste for him as a candidate and what he stands for.

Giving the benefit of the doubt is fucking his actions ffs.

I already explained what my definition of the phrase is, the examples of the phrase I have heard prior to this, the definition of the phrase, and why I chose to go with that definition and not immediately assume it has racist intentions. I can't explain why he chose certain phrases, neither can anyone else except DeSantis. The phrase on its own isn't inherently racist. The phrase being used by DeSantis with his background, could be, but I thought it lacked evidence of being so in the quote. I said he should have issued an apology because that is a big blunder to make in a situation like he is in, intentional or not. I disagree. It means to screw things up. You may be right, but like I said in posts above. The lack of direct mention of Gillum and only mentioning policies, and the lack of subtlety DeSantis has otherwise leads me to think this was just a typical use of the phrase and not some underhanded racial jab. If he wanted to do that, I feel like he would be much more direct about it, especially off-script like this.

Why are we still arguing whether the white nationalist is racist?

No one is arguing that he's not racist. People are making a mountain out of a mole hill on a phrase he used in an indirect quote about opponent policy when there is literally a limitless number of other things to roast this guy on that are far more damning.