Race is socially constructed, yet some seem to have missed the memo. Consider, for instance, that the phrase “chimp out” has grown in popularity among some far-right figures. It’s their way of describing what they see as an “aggressive or violent outburst by a Black person,” a not-so-subtle way of suggesting Black people are something less than human. Of course, social scientists know that every group of people is capable of expressing anger and violence. But the assumption that Black people are more likely to engage in destructive behavior is rooted in racism. While “chimp out” is a newer phrase used to dehumanize Black people in the modern era, it echoes the past. Charles White, an 18th-century physician, claimed, “In whatever respect the African differs from the European, the particularity brings him nearer to the ape.” While scientists have debunked this myth of biological difference, these beliefs persist.

In a 1971 phone call to then-President Richard Nixon, California Governor Ronald Reagan referred to Black people as “monkeys” after seeing African people from Tanzania dance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He claimed they were still uncomfortable wearing shoes, suggesting Black people were less civilized or evolved than others. Last February, President Donald Trump came under fire after sharing a video online that portrayed former President Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates, swinging from trees in a jungle. This imagery served as a pungent reminder that racism harms Black people, even those in positions of power. Although Trump deleted the post, described as “a rare admission of a misstep by the White House,” this portrayal lent credibility to this racist belief.

“Chimp out” has become a rhetorical device that portrays Black people as more violent than other groups and, thus, less human. In this way, the critic positions themselves as the ultimate authority on whose anger is justified. While first used on message boards in the early 2000s, the phrase gained traction on 4Chan, a platform that thrives on user anonymity, and by 2013, it entered the mainstream. “The Chimpire,” an online environment spread across several Reddit forums, began “sharing footage of black people dying or trying to live a ‘negro-free’ life.” Users socialized around their “shared interest in the dominance of the white race.” To support this worldview, they shared videos to promote the myth of Black inferiority. Reddit permanently closed these boards in 2015, largely in response to public backlash, but the terminology popularized on these platforms is still used. For example, a social media post featured a video of Black women fighting with the caption, “Sheboon going to chimp out gets her hair REKT.”

Dehumanization “is a root cause of structural racism and violence. It’s how some attempt to justify the subordinate position of Black people in our society. Accusing Black people of “chimping out” frames their behavior as irrational, stripping away the context of their actions. Last year, a man named Dalton Levi Eatherly, better known by his online persona “Chud-the-Builder,” gained notoriety after a video of him calling a Black woman the n-word during a road-rage incident went viral. Following public backlash, he lost his job as a contractor and started his own business. Many locals condemned his behavior, but others provided him with financial support through a GiveSendGo fundraiser. Eatherly denied being a racist, but reports suggest “he continued to film himself antagonizing Black people in public, claiming that it was his First Amendment right to call people racist names, often flashing his gun when people reacted with anger.” Yet it’s disingenuous to repeatedly hurl racist slurs at Black people and then accuse them of behaving irrationally or “chimping out” when they express anger, frustration, or disappointment. In this political climate, some content creators seem more concerned with their next viral moment than engaging in good faith.

Earlier this month, Chud-the-Builder found himself in hot water after reportedly shooting 31-year-old Black, disabled veteran Joshua Fox outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville, Tennessee. The altercation began in the early afternoon of May 13th, when Eatherly confronted Fox and repeatedly used the n-word. After flashing his firearm, Fox reached for his own on his right side. Eatherly allegedly shot Fox several times and, by accident, himself. While both men survived, paramedics airlifted the veteran to provide emergency medical care . Eatherly is now facing “charges of employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon,” according to Andrea Marks’ report for Rolling Stone. Despite raising a quarter of a million dollars through crowdfunding, the judge has prohibited Eatherly from using it to pay his $1.2 million bond.

In a live stream after the incident, Eatherly claimed Fox warned: “If you start saying all that chimp out s**it to me and ‘imma hit you,” claiming he only acted in self-defense. While he built a fanbase by racially antagonizing Black people, the legal trouble he’s now facing suggests content creators should think twice before following in his footsteps. Just because you have the right to speak freely doesn’t mean you should use your voice to racially harass others. In a nation where Black people are most likely to become victims of racial hate crimes, this type of language can be triggering. And evidence suggests this problem is getting worse, that “between 2015 and 2024, anti-Black hate crimes rose by 81%.” Six days before the shooting, Chud-the-Builder posted, “Series finale is dead chimp on the pavement and you monkeys rioting when I walk free. Stay tuned.”

Dehumanizing language is used to describe Black people’s behavior, whether they are the victims or those who’ve caused harm. For instance, after Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., a 34-year-old Black homeless man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, fatally stabbed Iryna Zarutska, a White Ukrainian refugee, President Trump referred to him as a “deranged monster” and “animal.” Rather than shedding some much-needed light on the Americans who fall through the cracks of society and are deprived of long-term access to mental health care services, his use of language ultimately stripped Brown of his humanity. Never mind that his mother sought treatment for her son, but was repeatedly turned away. In a pre-trial hearing, the court found Brown mentally incompetent to stand trial, but that didn’t stop some from using dehumanizing language to describe him. No retractions were made. “The dehumanizing animalistic storytelling of Black males as brutes and beasts, who are prone to crime and sexually prey upon white women if they are not controlled and physically dominated by white men, often visually depicts Black men as brute apes.”

Given that white people in America have greater social, political, and economic power, some may wonder why such an effort to dehumanize Black people persists. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his memoir, The Message, “It may seem strange that people who have already attained a position of power through violence invest so much time in justifying their plunder with words. But even plunderers are human beings whose violent ambitions must contend with the guilt that gnaws at them when they meet the eyes of their victims.” As we’ve seen with the growing popularity of the phrase “chimp out,” some continue to use language to separate Black people from their humanity and, in this way, justify anything done to them. In their seminal text, sociologists Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields explained that while “most people assume that racism grows from a perception of human difference,” the opposite is actually true. While race is often portrayed as a “neutral term for an empirical fact,” they argued, “the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what we call ‘racecraft.” In this case, the use of language provides the illusion that Black people are biologically inferior, even though they’re not.

“Chimp out” may be one of the most recent examples of language used to dehumanize, but this phenomenon is deeply rooted in our nation’s history. In Types of Mankind (1854), Josiah Clark Nott and George R. Gliddon promoted “scientific racism,” which directly drew behavioral comparisons between Black people and primates in drawings and written explanations. “Intelligence, activity, ambition, progression, high anatomical development, characterize some races; stupidity, indolence, immobility, savagery, low anatomical development distinguish others.” While their theories were formally disproven, some language used today reflects this worldview. German-American anthropologist Franz Boas argued, “the behavior of an individual is…determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.” With this in mind, we shouldn’t be casting aspersions on an entire race of people after seeing a clip of violent behavior. Challenging racist beliefs requires us to consider where these ideas come from and why they’re still used.