If you can’t grasp what all the commotion is about with the Washington NFL team’s nickname, watch the commercial that the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation paid to air during the NBA Finals this week.

If you can, watch it anyway. You can find the ad, “Proud to be,” online easily.

It is made pretty clear that Native Americans are proud — or at least accepting — of many labels. But not that of the pro football team based in the capital.

“I thought it was a very poignant, powerful message,” said Washington Post columnist Mike Wise, a Campbell High School and Hawaii Pacific product who has long advocated changing the nickname. “It was basically saying, ‘We don’t want to be called the name of the Washington team enough that we won’t even say it in this ad.’ “

Here’s some more evidence of why that nickname has got to go.

Daniel Snyder, a non-Native American and the team’s owner, says the name is a “badge of honor.” Surveys are inconclusive, but more and more of the people identified by what they’ve termed “the R-word” say they disagree with Snyder.

Fans who are not Native Americans are coming around, too.

“It’s pretty simple,” said Willie Fatafehi, a counselor with the DOE and a University of Hawaii law school graduate. “We’ve got to respect all cultures. If some of them think it’s derogatory, it’s derogatory.”

Maybe you’ve heard stories about the R-word being an innocent, benign, maybe even affectionate term. Maybe you should read from a 2013 report by the National Congress of American Indians (which produced “Proud to be”). “The term originates from a time when Native people were actively hunted and killed for bounties, and their skins were used as proof of Indian kill.”

LAST MONTH, 50 U.S. Senators sent a letter to the NFL requesting the name be changed. The team management responded with an attempt to rally fans of the name on social media. It backfired.

In 2013, Kahuku High alum Eni Faleomavaega, a non-voting delegate representing American Samoa in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced a bill to void trademark registrations that disparage Native Americans.

This is not just a Native American issue, not just an indigenous people’s issue. It’s a simple issue of right and wrong.

Wise said players are talking about the issue at the NBA Finals. And activist John Carlos recently told him, “Before I worry about the black race, I worry about the human race.”

Some say it’s a slippery slope. For example, do we draw a line somewhere after the R-word but before Hawaii Warriors and the kapa designs on their uniforms simply because focus groups and the Hawaiian Studies department green-lighted it?

But, please, spare me talk of political correctness. I agree sometimes modern society is too soft and people can be offended too easily. But claiming “politically correct” has become an easy way out for when someone for whatever reason doesn’t agree with something that is on the side of common, human decency or fair play.

Tradition? If tradition is an excuse for perpetuating racism then we might as well go back to slavery.