It's literally just scientifically true.
Humans are primates. Humans are great apes. This is just physical reality. Doesn't matter what color someone's skin is or what phenotype they have, a human is a great ape.
"The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans (Homo sapiens) remain.
A number of very similar words apply to related classifications:
A hominoid, sometimes called an ape, is a member of the superfamily Hominoidea: extant members are the gibbons (lesser apes, family Hylobatidae) and the hominids.
A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the great apes: orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.
A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae: gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans (excludes orangutans).
A hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini: chimpanzees and humans.[12]
A homininan, following a suggestion by Wood and Richmond (2000), would be a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini: that is, modern humans and their closest relatives, including Australopithecina, but excluding chimpanzees.[13][14]
A human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies."
I mean, I get what you're trying to say, but again, context matters. I appreciate the human animal, and that's exactly what humans are. Animals! Apes! There's nothing derogatory about that. Racism is the problem, science is not.