Is there a monkey race?

You might have misunderstood by reading the heading.
No, I m not talking about any running competition among monkeys.

Just I was thinking about the racism row which very hot in the channel.
Yes. The cricket controversy.
There were allegations that Harbhajan Sing racially abused the Australian cricketrr Andrew Symonds. And the ICC committee who investigated about the issue punished Harbhajan for a 3 test match ban.

There are so many other rows also.
About the umpiring ..
About the sportsman spirit of the game…
Etc.. etc..

Any way I am not going to comment on any of those things..
But what I was really confused is about the racial comments..
Stipulations say that Sing allegedly called Symonds a “Monkey”.
Oops…
I am lost…
“Monkey” … How it is racial abuse?
Its an abuse.. I agree to that.
But how it is related to any race?
I don’t know whether Symonds father or grand father was a monkey.
Absolutely I have no idea which race symonds belong to.
But, still, I m very much confused.
Is there race related to monkey?