It's no secret that the NFL's Washington Redskins have a controversial, if not downright racist, name that many agree doesn't belong in pro sports or anywhere else.
Washington owner Daniel Snyder has steadfastly refused to change the name, however, and the NFL seems disinclined to put any pressure on him to do so. But -- thanks to a trio of creative digitally-minded activists -- you can now ban the nickname from your own web browsing experience.
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The extension is called the Redskins Web Skin, and it changes the Washington team's nickname to what its creators call "a more dignified term." Options include the Washington Athletes, the Washington Thanksgiving Originators and the Washington Americans. The extension is ready to download for Chrome; Safari and Firefox versions are coming soon, they say.
We gave it a spin; it's a pretty nifty and cheeky bit of subversion. Here, for example, is how a tweet from the team's official Twitter account looks after installing the web skin.
The Chrome extension was built over the course of a few days by Patricia Yee, Brett Lareau, and Eric Schlakman.
In an email to Mashable, they described their moment of inspiration like this: "We were wondering if the Redskins were playing on Thanksgiving, and then realized how absurdly racist our conversation sounded. It was like we were in 1614, not 2014. That was the moment we decided we could do something about replacing the name -- at least on the web."
You can download the extension here and follow the project on Twitter here.