The Great Ape Project / Proyecto Gran Simio condemns the public insults made against the soccer player Vinicius Jr., calling him “monkey” in a pejorative way, when we, humans, are primates and, more specifically, great apes. Ignorance and lack of culture cause acts of this kind of racism and hatred to be directed against those who utter them. The color of our skin does not differentiate us as people, we are hominids and we share our kinship with the great apes, and therefore we are included in the same family and have the same common ancestor, regardless of who it is.

Calling people “monkey” and making gestures that simulate a primate does not ridicule the person you are addressing to, but it turns on the person who does it because of his/her ignorance and inability to behave with dignity at a sporting event, where respect and sportsmanship should prevail. Trying to insult in this way to cause harm only serves to embarrass oneself by trampling on one’s own dignity.

This is why we publicly denounce these acts, just as we do with those who, when encountering non-human primates or hominids in captivity, laugh at them for their behavior, because, without realizing it, they are laughing at themselves.

All primate species are in serious danger of extinction due to poaching and the extermination of their habitat. It is precisely the human beings who are closest to all these species, the local communities, who have shared their lives with these other beings similar to them, whom they call “forest people”. This understanding that they have of them shows us our genetic closeness.

Therefore, to call a human primate a “monkey” is, without a doubt, to ignore the origin of life and humanity itself.

“On behalf of the GAP Project, we support Vinicius after the verbal attacks he suffered, which should not be repeated against him or any person of color, whoever they are. Ignorance often makes us fall into our own mistakes and education and culture must always take precedence over barbarism and illiteracy,” said Pedro Pozas Terrados, executive director of PGS España.

For Pozas, this shows the immaturity that can arise when facing big events, in which people become a mass and act without control and without intelligence.

 END OF PRESS RELEASE

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Pedro Pozas Terrados

Executive Director Proyecto Gran Simio (GAP/PGS-España). 

Vice-president World Biological Corridor International Committee

Telephone: 678 708 832

www.proyectogransimio.org

direccionpgransimio@gmail.com