NFL Squashes PETA’s Colin Kaepernick-Inspired Super Bowl Ad

Group’s ‘Don’t Stand for Injustice’ Spot Is Blocked From the Airwaves

For Immediate Release:
January 31, 2020

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

The NFL’s problem with Colin Kaepernick’s protests has apparently extended to PETA’s new Super Bowl LIV commercial, which pays homage to the quarterback by showing a variety of animals—from a bee to a bear to a bald eagle—”taking a knee” while the national anthem plays, ending with the message “Respect is the right of every living being. #EndSpeciesism.”

“PETA is challenging speciesism, which is a supremacist worldview that allows humans to disrespect other living, feeling beings and to treat their interests as unimportant,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Our patriotic Super Bowl spot envisions an America in which no sentient being is oppressed because of how they look, where they were born, who they love, or what species they are. It sends a message of kindness—one that the NFL should embrace, not silence.”

Because of human prejudice, highly social primates are caged alone in laboratories; billions of cows, chickens, pigs, and others are hacked apart in slaughterhouses every year; coyotes are trapped in the wild and their fur is turned into jacket trim; and tigers are whipped to force them to perform in traveling circuses. It’s 2020 and time to embrace a more enlightened worldview.

PETA—whose motto reads, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”—encourages everyone to combat speciesism by buying cosmetics that weren’t tested on animals, choosing vegan food and fashion, staying away from animal circuses, and otherwise rejecting the exploitation of all animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.