monkey

“I am Punch and he is me.”

This is what my daughter recently texted in our family group chat. Her older sister had just asked us if we were “on the baby Punch-kun side of TikTok” because she had become like a “Facebook Mom, watching videos of him all day.”

If we weren’t before, we are now.

Punch is, as millions of his fans know, a 7-month-old macaque monkey living at Ichikawa City Zoo, outside Tokyo. Rejected at birth by his mother, he was initially cared for by zookeepers before being reintroduced to the monkey enclosure. His early attempts to fit in did not go well; the other monkeys gave him either the cold shoulder or a very hard time.

Until recently, his only comfort was a large orangutan plush toy that some brilliant member of staff gifted him as a tool for muscle building and maternal replacement.

Videos of the shy and utterly adorable Punch tentatively circling the larger monkeys, only to flee to the solace of his stuffy after being rebuffed, have drawn increasingly large crowds to the zoo and mesmerized millions on social media.

Messages of encouragement, often accompanied by memes of women (and men) sobbing into their phones over the sight of a yet-again-rejected Punch wrapping himself in the arms of his orangutan “mother,” or cheering as he slowly begins to be accepted by other monkeys, are almost as plentiful as the Punch videos themselves.

“I am Punch and he is me” is clearly a sentiment shared by many. Including those who, like my youngest daughter, were not (as I swiftly pointed out in the group chat) rejected in any way by their own mother.

Everyone knows what it’s like to feel small and bewildered as you circle a social group, seeking a way in, just as everyone knows what it’s like to be rejected by those whose approval we seek.

Of course some of us wept and raged when he once again had to flee some bigger monkey that he had clearly annoyed, but while Punch was certainly cowed, he was never broken. It was impossible not to admire his essential grip when he tried again, and to be reminded that none of us are alone in our attempts to fit in.

When Punch drags his stuffy around the enclosure, you can see some of the older monkeys giving him the side-eye — he is definitely the odd kid in the class, the one who always wore a space helmet or insisted she was a kitten. But the joy that little monkey feels for his orangutan, which he uses as shield, surrogate and playmate, is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

As he nestles into its body, we see the primal need most animals, including humans, have for touch, for embrace. Of course he drags it around everywhere; short of the zoo staff, whose legs he also clutches, it‘s his only conduit of security.

Which is also something that many, if not all, of us understand. Anyone who says they have never had some personal item or talisman that, just by its presence, made them feel better is either lying, forgetting or a psychopath.

Why do you think teddy bears and Jellycats exist or “The Velveteen Rabbit” was written? In the era of “peak cozy,” with its devotion to lap blankets, hoodies and fleece-lined everything, no one could fail to understand Punch’s attachment to his comfort object.

When I was very small, I had, as many children do, a security blanket known as “Blankie.” It was pink and soft, with a satin edge and an oval stain caused by a regrettable interaction with Silly Putty. I talked to it, slept with it and carried it everywhere; when my mother insisted it be washed, I would sit in front of the dryer waiting for it to emerge.

When it somehow got lost in the hospital while I was recovering from a tonsillectomy, I was so traumatized that my mother drove back to the hospital for days in hopes that it would turn up. It never did but 55 years later, I can see, and feel, my Blankie still.

So I too am Punch and he is me.

Now that the Baby Monkey Who Could is finding comfort, grooming and companionship from others of his kind, there may come a time when he no longer needs his big stuffed orangutan.

Fortunately, it’s available at IKEA for anyone out there who might.

The president of the United States posted a racist video Thursday night depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. On Friday, the White House dismissed criticism — but the president deleted the post. Was this episode disappointing? Yes. Surprising? Not anymore.

Last spring, after Pope Francis had died, Donald Trump posted an AI image of himself as the pope just days before cardinals convened to elect a successor.

So, no — it is not surprising that the president would choose to post virulent anti-Black imagery during Black History Month.

But it is disappointing here in 2026 that an occupant of the Oval Office is still thinking like that.

Back in 1971, the president of the United States laughed when the governor of California referred to the African delegates at the United Nations as monkeys. Less than 10 years later, that governor became the president of the United States. And here we are, half a century later, and yet another president has amplified that racist trope.

Meaning white supremacy is still on the ballot.

That Nixon-Reagan-Trump throughline isn’t tightly wound around policy or principle, but simply that shared worldview. After all, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and Reagan offered amnesty to immigrants — highly un-Trump-like moves. No, their commonality is best revealed in the delight each man took in an old racist attack against Black people.

For Americans who are 50 and older — roughly a third of the nation — this worldview has been the architect responsible for White House policy for most of our lives. And yet, when Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election, the forensic investigation focused on grocery prices and her absence from Joe Rogan’s podcast. Some — in trying to explain why Harris lost — mischaracterized her role at the border or inflated her influence on the war in Gaza.

For some reason, race did not seem to receive the same level of scrutiny.

This factor was slighted despite decades of data, such as the wave of white nationalists endorsing Harris’ opponent and the birther movement questioning President Obama’s citizenship. The trio of presidents who are on the record as enjoying depictions of Black people as monkeys — Nixon, Reagan and Trump — all used racist dog whistles in their combined 10 presidential campaigns. Their administrations have tended to be more anti-civil-rights movement than post-civil-rights movement.

Our nation’s attempts at understanding ourselves are continuously undercut by the denial that for some single-issue voters, race is their single issue. Not the price of bacon or their religious convictions. Not Gaza. Just the promise of having a safe space for prejudice. And when the president of the United States entertains racist jokes as Nixon did in the 1970s or shares racist videos as Trump continues to do, undoubtedly there is a sense among the electorate that such prejudice has a home in the White House.

Before Trump used social media to push yesteryear’s ugliness, earlier in the week Harris relaunched her 2024 social media campaign account, calling it a place where Gen Z can “meet and revisit with some of our great courageous leaders, be they elected leaders, community leaders, civic leaders, faith leaders, young leaders.” She exhorted: “Stay engaged. I’ll see you out there.”

Whether she plans to run again in 2028 is unclear. What we do know is she would not have posted an AI picture of herself as the new pope while Catholics were mourning Francis (or any other time). We know she would not have advocated for immigration officers to racially profile Black and brown Americans or disregard the 14th Amendment to detain children. We do not know how many of her policy proposals she would have been able to get across the finish line in Congress, but we do know her record of public service to the American people, in contrast with the current president who is suing the American people for $10 billion.

There is nothing wrong with revisiting Harris’ missteps on the campaign trail or debating her electability as she reemerges in the public spotlight. But now that Trump has resorted to posting monkey jokes about Black people, perhaps updated forensics will consider our well established history of racism among the factors in the 2024 election.

It is not a shock that a president of the United States thinks poorly of Black people. Not when you know that more than 25% of those who have held the office were themselves enslavers. But it is disappointing that 250 years into our nation’s story, some of us still deny the role that racism plays in shaping our politics and thus all of our lives.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow