In YouTube ad, Native American targets DC football team's name

A provocative new ad doesn't pull any punches in decrying a slur used to describe Native Americans — the same name used by the name of the NFL team in Washington, D.C.

Launched this week on YouTube, the ad features Asians, a black woman, an Arab-American man, a Latina, a Jew, and others identifying themselves by the slurs used to denigrate them. Although the expletives are covered by bleeps, they come through loud and clear.

"They're so unacceptable, they've been banned from television," the words on the screen tell viewers.

"I am a redskin."

"This is equally profane," the commercial continues. "There's no honor in racism. #changethemascot."

The man behind the ad is Chad Germann, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe who runs a Minneapolis ad agency. He made it to show Americans how ugly the word is and hopes that message resonates with viewers who see it before Sunday's game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Washington team.

Germann said the idea for the TV commercial came after a lifetime of explaining the significance of the slur to his white friends.

Those casual conversations over the years usually concluded with Germann comparing the word "redskin" to another shameful slur.

"The N-word for African-Americans — which is such a powerful word. And we all recognize how negative, and hurtful, and mean that word is," he said. "I'm not even comfortable using the word in this context because it's so hurtful, I don't want that word coming out of my mouth. I compare those two things and try to explain to people, the word 'redskin' — it's the same thing."

Yet that word is still allowed to be uttered on the airwaves, as Germann's ad powerfully demonstrates.

• More: Protest against DC football team planned before Vikings game

About 150 years ago, the U.S. government used the word when advertising bounties for killing American Indians. Germann said if more people in the United States thought more about the painful history associated with the term, they wouldn't tolerate it.

"It's on the side of a helmet of a professional football team. This is, like, old-school racism," he said. "This is the kind of stuff that a lot of people think, 'We were done with that stuff in the '50s and '60s. We don't act like this anymore.' Well in this instance, we still do. We are ignoring how bad this word is, and that's wrong."

Germann, 42, remembers being called the slur on occasion as one of the few kids of color growing up in the tiny northern Minnesota town of Sandstone, just north of Hinckley. At St. Cloud State, where he majored in creative writing, he heard it in heated chest-bumping with jerks at parties.

This week's ad was his firm's first spot with an in-your-face social-justice message. Germann doesn't easily identify with an older generation of American Indian activists in Minnesota. But he said the months of controversy leading up to Sunday's football game convinced him it was time to join the conversation — his way.

"We have the resources. We're a creative agency," he said. "We should be able to frame this argument in a really tight, really smart sort of way."

While the rest of Germann's staff is costumed like Elvis or a taco for Halloween, he looks J. Crew-impeccable. His office is an industrial-modern fishbowl of sliding glass doors and walls that double as whiteboards. Most of his clients are casinos.

Red Circle, which German founded when he was 28, is one of the nation's largest ad agencies owned by a Native American. But Germann is one of only two American Indians on a staff of 30. His firm, like much of the advertising industry, is largely white.

Germann claims Ojibwe heritage from his mom's side; his dad is of German descent. Both were educators who found success in other fields later in their careers. Germann grew up close to his moms' parents, who spoke Ojibwe and exposed him to tribal ceremonies. He said they also instilled in him the values of hard work, honing a skill, and honest pay.

"My grandma — before I could turn on the TV and watch cartoons — she would make handwritten math worksheets," he recalled. "And I would have to do these worksheets before I turn the TV on. If I'm going outside, she would give me money to go pick up sticks in the yard — I would get 50 cents for every pile I made."

Germann has honed his skills to the point where he can deliver an argument in a simple and convincing way. More than 160,000 people have viewed the ad on YouTube, but it probably won't air in the Twin Cities during the football game because of the costs.

"But we hope it keeps going. We want it to get bigger and bigger," Germann said. "We hope to find funding to put this in every market where the Redskins play — this year, next year — until it goes away."

Next month, the Washington franchise will play Tampa Bay. Germann said he plans to call the Seminole Nation to see if they'll pay for his ad to air to an even bigger audience.