Yesterday in Los Angeles, California, black gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder was threatened by a mob on a campaign stop. According to Elder, “my security detail was physically assaulted, shot with a pellet gun and hit with projectiles.”

What stood out to me in the altercation was that one member of the mob — apparently a white woman who threw an egg at Elder — was wearing a gorilla mask.

Now why would she do that? 

As we’ve discussed before, the vile trope that blacks are somehow closer to apes than other races has deep roots in Darwinian biology and social theory. Charles Darwin himself made the argument in The Descent of Man. You can find more about the history of this dehumanizing and racist idea by watching my documentary Human Zoos.

The blacks-as-apes trope is used by some on the right and left alike. In 2018, we called out actress Roseanne Barr’s loathsome comparison of Obama Administration official Valerie Jarrett to an ape.

Now we call out a progressive white activist in California who is trying to stigmatize a conservative black man as an ape.

Whether coming from the alt right or the loony left, these comparisons are vile and have no place in our society. Alas, they show just how entrenched some remnants of Darwinian racism are in our culture.