Monkey chanting is the making of calls aimed at ridiculing or denigrating

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

sportspeople, usually

footballers A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

, who play in majority-White countries. The chants are intended to imitate the noises of

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

s or

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...

s, and may be accompanied by gestures in imitation of the scratching of the armpits commonly seen amongst ape species. The chants are expressive of the

ethnic slurs The following is a list of ethnic slurs, ethnophaulisms, or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnic, national, or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorat ...

macaca The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe (in Gibraltar). Macaques are principally fru ...

" and "monkey" against people of African heritage. Monkey chants may also be accompanied by throwing so-called "monkey food" (peanuts, bananas or banana skins) at black players or onto the sports field."Comparing Black People to Monkeys has a Long, Dark Simian History"
''

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

'', Wulf D. Hund, University of Hamburg, Charles W Mills, Northwestern University A number of incidents of this kind have been noted by media as manifestations of

racism in association football Racism in association football is the abuse of players, officials, and fans because of their skin colour, nationality, or ethnicity. Some may also be targeted because of their association with an opposing team, although there have been instances ...

and racism in cricket.

References

{{reflist Anti-African and anti-black slurs Racism in sport Association football songs and chants Apes in popular culture Monkeys in popular culture Racism in association football Cricket controversies

See also

References