Raven Ziegler from Minneapolis protests the name nickname of the Washington team. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
The San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat are squaring off in Game 3 of the NBA finals tonight, but if you tune in to watch, you’ll see a controversial commercial during halftime. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation—a California-based Native American tribe—has paid for a 60-second anti-Washington football team name ad to run during halftime.
The ad, which is a shorter version of the National Congress of American Indians’ two-minute “Proud To Be” ad, “celebrates Native American culture and opposes the rascist name of Washington, D.C.’s NFL team.” According to a release, the ad is scheduled to run in seven major markets, including Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco, and, of course, D.C.
“The R-word is as derogatory a slur as the N-word. When this name first came to be, it was a vehicle for people to bring the victims of violence into an office so they could collect a bounty,” Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Chairman Marshall McKay said. “I think the Change the Mascot campaign will shed some well-deserved light on the trauma and the disadvantaged people on reservations and throughout the country that are Native American that really haven’t had this opportunity to talk about the pain and the anguish that this kind of racism puts us through.”
This isn’t the first anti-Washington football team ad to run during a major sports event. Last October, the Oneida Indian Nation launched their radio campaign against the team’s name, but even then, local CBS stations WJFK and WPGC pulled the ad, saying that the issue has caused too much “on-air debate.”
Check out the full video ad below: