Please excuse my ignorance but I gotta ask why I heard this term several times on my last reach. Hopefully everyone here knows that I don't hate any race but that thingy in my head will not let me sleep at night without understanding stuff.

So, the term is monkey or monkey man. I've heard both in reggae songs and also as negative references to black people but more than once this reach it was used more like a casual reference to dumb people maybe without regards to race.

Generally I'm quick to snap at anyone regardless of color for saying the "N" word for many reasons. This time I snapped at a few people for the monkey term and they corrected me saying it was just a term for a dumb person without regards to race. For me, it seems like the evil references to black people being like monkeys but to some Jamaicans its just a casual term...

Thoughts?

Toots and Maytals song

Just my take on racial terms being born and bred in Jamaica but spend most of my life in the US. While Jamaica has color issues racial words and people getting upset is really an American thing, back in my days.

Growing up in Jamaica, forms of the *N* was use all the time to describe a behavior more than a person. A popular one after every meal was N-rities - meaning feeling full after a meal. Now I refer to it as ethic fatigue since the *N* word is politically incorrect. I was never taught or knew about reference of monkey having anything to go with race until I moved to the States, a connection I still don't get.

Based on what was taught, will depend on how it's used, and how you react. Growing up in Jamaica without American influence or TV, I was in my teens before learning the *N* word was a racial term.

We are not Americans and don't use words or expressions the same way, no monkey business here:-)