All Things in Moderation

Tell me again how WaPo is a right wing media organ?

Washington Post’s coverage of the new “controversy” regarding Apple’s update of available emojis updated the venerable set of default emojis to include people of color, so it is no longer the exclusionary sea of beige and yellow it was before.

Of course, it didn’t take long for it to become a problem, as now racists were able to use ethnic emojis in sharing their racist nonsense online. The correct take on this, is, of course: what did you expect? People are idiots. WaPo’s editorial take, however, is more nuanced:

Apple on Thursday introduced its new racially diverse emoji, allowing users to cycle through various shades of white and brown to customize their emoji’s skin colors.  Some rejoiced, with choruses of “We made it” flanked by newly black praise-hand emoji filling Instagram and Twitter. Some even professed to cry tears of joy over this sign of racial inclusion. But already, Apple’s well-intentioned gesture to human diversity has taken a turn for the worse. The emoji are being used to make racist comments on social media and insert questions of race in texts and tweets where it may never have arisen before. Instead of correcting its mistake — excluding people of color from emoji — Apple has, in some ways, made the situation worse.

Catch that? Apple has made things worse. This is Apple’s fault. Not the nutburgers and trolls using the new emojis in racist way, but Apple, for somehow not preventing it.

In trying to advocate for racial inclusivity in its iOS 8.3 update, Apple has allowed for further racial segregation with these new emoji. Because I’m black, should I now feel compelled to use the “appropriate” brown-skinned nail-painting emoji? Why would I use the white one? Now in simple text messages and tweets, I have to identify myself racially.

See what Apple has done! It’s forcing minorities to identify themselves racially in text messages. Apple did this. Not all the people who have been complaining it was racist that there weren’t ethnically-correct emojis. Apple.

The author goes on to suggest that Apple should have made the emojis even more ethnically identifiable, somehow, not just white emojis with a paint job. Yet I can think of no way to add additional ethnic identifiers to emojis and have that go over better. And it would certainly be used be racists to, you know, be racist.

… there’s nothing specifically “black” about an emoji with browner skin. Deepening the skin color of a previously white emoji doesn’t make the emoji not white. It’s just a bastardized emoji blackface. The blond-haired emoji man and the blue-eyed emoji princess are clearly white, but you can slip them into a darker-colored skin. These new figures aren’t emoji of color; they’re just white emoji wearing masks.

And, finally, the author blames Apple for the Political Correctness run amok:

 The company should’ve never made race a question, making the emojis raceless with yellow faces and leaving it at that.

Because Apple made it an issue. Cuz, you know. Capitalism. Or something.

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