Photo by mosley.brian

As the Washington football team’s season remains bleak (though yesterday’s win over Chicago was a much-needed victory), the debate over its controversial name and mascot rages on.

Earlier this year, the Oneida Indian Nation launched a massive radio campaign to urge NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to step up and speak out against the Washington football team’s racist team name and mascot. But now, after nearly a month, some radio stations are refusing to air their ads. According to a press release, local CBS stations WJFK and WPGC told the Oneida Indian Nation on Friday that they pulled the group’s radio ads from airing this weekend as scheduled, citing “the amount of on-air debate” that the Washington football team name issue has created.

“It is unfortunate and un-American that the station permits the team to slander Native Americans on the public airwaves with the use of the r-word, but doesn’t permit Native Americans to use the same airwaves to object to the use of a racial slur,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said in a release. “We will not be silent mascots. This issue is not going away, as evidenced by the growing and diverse support this effort gains by the day.”

DCist reached out to CBS Radio, and they provided the following statement on the issue:

Since we first took these spots in early September, the issue has been heavily debated in our D.C. community and on WJFK’s airwaves. Because of the heavy amount of debate, we believe that it is best for programming to handle this issue so that we can provide a good discussion, balance of opinions and context to the debate. Based on the amount of on-air debate, adding paid commercials from one side is not something that we think is beneficial for this discussion and for our audience.