The thing which makes us all uniquely human is our ability to call each other monkeys while denying our own essential monkey-ness.  Both bonobos and chimpanzees share 98.4% of their genetic make-up with Homo sapiens. They are more closely related genetically to us than they are to gorillas.  Humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are often placed in the same taxonomic family, Hominidae (though one can still find taxonomies that separate humans) and, of course, none of the apes, Hominoidea (humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangs and gibbons) are technically monkeys at all.

Nope, you’ve got to have a tail to be a monkey.  If it’s prehensile then it’s a “New World” monkey from Central or South America.  “Old World” Monkeys do not have prehensile tails. 

Then there are the lemurs.  If monkeys took to insulting other monkeys, they’d be calling one another lemurs.  Lemurs can only be found on Madagascar, because we monkeys have of way of taking out primate competitors if given the opportunity.  Lemurs managed to hide out on Madagascar for a while but we’re getting closer and close to getting the job done every day.

There is nothing inherently inferior about a monkey any more than there is anything inherently inferior about being tall or short, black or white; male or female.  The use of monkey as a pejorative says more about human ignorance than it does about primate taxonomy.  Name calling, the ad hominem attack, is born out of the inability to come up with anything intelligent to say.  It’s the reflexive reptilian response punctuated by that uniquely human ability to form words into sentences.

I am a monkey as were my fathers before me.  And I thank God every day that I wasn’t born a lemur…