Summary

In Monkeys Like You, Morgan Jerkins describes trying out for her elementary school cheerleading team, and coming to understand what blackness means in a social hierarchy dominated by whiteness. When she was ten, the only thing she wanted to be was a white cheerleader, characterizing the white, skinny blonde as “equally powerful and pure (1-2). During the tryouts, she was one of the only four black girls in a room of thirty white girls. The other black girls trying out for the cheerleading team were Tanya and Ruby. Jerkins was not popular with her black classmates and is not sure whether she was rejected because of colorism, since her skin color is lighter and she is mistaken for biracial. She expresses a desire equal social standing in both white and black spaces (3).

Jerkins had hoped that being adjacent to the white cheerleaders...