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As a PoC, I’ve also fielded those comments from white co-workers and it honestly feels like a contemporary version of being blind to race.
by eh9 5y ago
As a PoC, I’ve also fielded those comments from white co-workers and it honestly feels like a contemporary version of being blind to race.
- nailer 5y agoTo me it seemed less racist when we all had yellow hands. Then again I think poc is a silly term - non Europeans have completely different experiences and cultures from each other even within the US.
- darkhorse22 5y agoIt's surely a firable offense, but part of me is so tempted to give a dark-skin-tone thumbs up in Slack as a white guy.
- xenocratus 5y agoI've seen it happen - I'm just curious why? Don't think it's fireable or anything, just... weird.
- darkhorse22 5y agoWhen I'm bored at work I imagine ways to sew discord with tasteless emoji. It's not a sincere temptation.
- alchemst 5y agoSuper minor note: it's "sow" (as in spread seeds, "reap what you sow" "sow wild oats) as opposed to "sew" (needle and thread...)
- fighterpilot 5y agoThere was a piece on NPR saying that it's trivializing the experiences of black people. As usual, normal people don't have any problem with it, it's just a small clique of journalists and activists.
- prepend 5y agoI’ve wondered about this but I’ve never seen anyone use an emoji thumbs up in anything but yellow. I can’t imagine ever setting it to match my skin color, but it would be neat to learn about people who want emojis that look more like them. If anything, I’d be more likely to choose a color far away from my skin.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- DHPersonal 5y agoI do it because it’s a way to personalize my message and share a bit of who I am through my text. The emojis are there to emulate my face and hands during speech, so making them look like me too is helpful to conveying a little more of what a face-to-face conversation would offer.
- kbelder 5y agoGiving the (somewhat silly) existence of all the colors of emoji, I think the best solution would be to have the software randomly pick a color every time one is displayed. That's the best 'race doesn't matter' statement.
- fomine3 5y agoTo extend, why not gif animated rolling color emoji?
- tomp 5y agoIndeed. Yellow was race-neutral - nobody's skin color. Then the race-ist emojis started... and discrimination sky-rocketed (e.g. there's still no ginger emojis!).
- crooked-v 5y agoYellow is more neutral than specific light-to-tan skin tones, but it's certainly not neutral in regards to everyone. Or, to put it another way - if the default for all emoji was a dark magenta skin tone, would you consider that "race-neutral"?
- smegger001 5y agoprobably would yeah
- tbihl 5y agoI think you'd mostly consider it bad design for the lack of contrast. But, yes? I'm not sure what you're getting at.
- nailer 5y agoYes dark magenta would be as fine as canary yellow was.
- account42 5y agoYes, dark magenta would be fine. But must importantly, there was no race associated to the Unicode code points before and rendering was entirely up to the font choice. Now there is a defined skin color.
- throwaway1959 5y agoCan you expand on what do you mean as being blind to race? Do you want them to see your race, treat different races differently? Aren't we supposed to be a color-blind society? Maybe I am just not understanding what you mean.
- meowtimemania 5y agoI think on an individual level we should be “blind” to race but when it comes to solving some of the big problems of society we have to recognize the role that racism plays in those problems and
- crooked-v 5y ago"Blind to race" claims often go along with smugly ignoring systemic racism in society and acting like it's a solved problem because a black man was elected President.
- bhupy 5y agoI think it’s possible to hold the following two views at the same time: - “systemic racism” is real and not 100% solved - of all the possible strategies to solve systemic racism, racializing all facets of everyday life, including emojis, may not be the most productive
- crooked-v 5y agoI don't really see how that relates to my explaining the subtext of the 'blind to race' thing, though.
- bhupy 5y agoIt relates to your explaining the subtext because that subtext is a straw man. I can’t speak for the GP commenter to whom you responded, but I can speak for myself when I say that I strive to to treat everyone the same regardless of their race (and not make a big deal out of race), while also being well aware of the prejudices and injustices that might affect someone on the basis of race out in the world. If that doesn’t describe “race blindness”, then we probably need to come up with a phrase to represent that person.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]