>The point is that no one should care about race, but everyone all of the sudden is.
This doesn't read like the opinion of someone who isn't angry about something.
What races are they discriminating against? What racial stereotypes are they expressing?
I think the idea that you feel somehow wrong using images to express yourself that are the color of a different race is just a little racist.
As long as there's racism (in any direction), color matters. You can't treat or think of people differently on the basis of race without knowing who is in what race.
The last thing "woke" people want is for discrimination on the basis of race to disappear, or for the color of people's skin to no longer factor in to how they are judged or treated.
Edit: agreed with a below commenter, and thanks for the correction. There isn't any such thing as "racism in reverse", just racism.
>Beware of Identity politics. I'll rephrase that: have nothing to do with identity politics. I remember very well the first time I heard the saying "The Personal Is Political". It began as a sort of reaction to defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they 'felt', not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its sub-groups and "specificities". This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee transgender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance. Anyway, what you swiftly realise if you peek over the wall of your own immediate neighbourhood or environment, and travel beyond it, is, first, that we have a huge surplus of people who wouldn't change anything about the way they were born, or the group they were born into, but second that "humanity" (and the idea of change) is best represented by those who have the wit not to think, or should I say feel, in this way.
He was a formidable and worthy opponent on the debate stage, and by all accounts one of the most kind, thoughtful, personable, and affable people off the stage.
Because making everything about race is how we fight racism... somehow...
You are saying that we should not care, but you clearly care if the face is black ... So, somebody decided that he would like to have a black emoji because he like it that and you decided to make an issue out of it ... and accuse the other person of what you yourself are doing ... If you don't see it is because you don't want to see it.
"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"
You have to pick some skin tone for the default; just floating features would be off putting.
Believing that the pan-white default of “simpsons yellow” is raceless because you feel represented in it excludes that others might not feel represented in it. And it’s a small thing to have fixed that costs you basically nothing.
My response was yeah sure.
If it is not a real skin tone it is neutral and i would feel just as attached to it and feel it is raceless equally as bright yellow. I don't feel anymore or less represented either.
*edited for spelling
The situation was, people chose yellow as the default, and that excluded some people. So, if we cared about being polite and fixing it for those people, and if our options were to either change to some hideous magenta that couldn’t be misinterpreted as representing a real skin tone vs just offering more skin tones, I think we made the right choice.
It makes sense that that's why they made the other emoticons yellow.
Well-meaning white people have been duped by a vocal minority of non-whites, who themselves were duped by cynical, washed out 60s radicals with bad ideas who failed to achieve anything in their time. You have been encouraged to treat non-whites like child emperors in your midst, whose every whim and dictate can only lead the way to racial harmony and absolution of your inherited sins. This is madness, and it's embarrassing for me and other right-thinking people to witness.
>Believing that the pan-white default of “simpsons yellow” is raceless because you feel represented in it excludes that others might not feel represented in it.
What race is Milhouse, with his blue hair?
We are still talking about adding some code points to Unicode here, right? Or did I miss something?
I agree it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it also isn’t a large change to offer skin tones as an option for people who want them. You can simply not use them if you don’t want to.
> What race is Milhouse, with his blue hair?
Not Indian or Black. Almost certainly he reads as white to most people. The blue hair and yellow skin was not meant to signify the characters place outside of race, it was a stylistic consequence of them not having hairlines
https://www.her.ie/entertainment/simpsons-writers-reveals-fa...
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Category:African-American_C...
This is a matter of representation and inclusion, which are worthwhile goals that should matter to people in positions to make decisions.
Also, this is trivial and doesn't matter.
>Not Indian or Black. Almost certainly he reads as white to most people. The blue hair and yellow skin was not meant to signify the characters place outside of race, it was a stylistic consequence of them not having hairlines
No, you miss the point. It's a creatively liberal work, and viewing it through a racial lens is
1. a choice of the viewer
2. provides a flawed and inconsistent mapping back to human race
3. pathological
The fact that you engage the question and believe there is a sincere answer is the evidence of pathology, IMO. It shows a commitment to read race into everything, instead of acknowledging that blue-haired people don't exist, and so it's quite likely that the project of mapping a phylogeny back to homo sapiens is dubious.
What you're doing is exactly analogous to a hypothetical person claiming that the Simpsons was a pioneer in pro-ablism art and culture, because all characters have four fingers. It's pareidolia.
Can we at least agree on that or is that too a sign of some “pathology” on my part?
Then, if that’s true, and we think it’s a problem, adding more skin tones seems to me like a trivial fix; but this particular fix being of little cost does not cheapen the wider problems of diversity and inclusion.
I agree it's a trivial change. To me the underlying issue is that, were it some non-racial domain this issue occured in, most people would have no problem seeing the claim that something so petty and insignificant has actually caused deep injury to my identity for what it is: absurd and possibly deranged. It's only when it comes to race that well meaning people are content to accept such absurd positions, thereby infantilizing the complainant.
And my real issue is that when you do that, it has been my observation that it changes your assumptions about all of "us". So I resent the default assumption that I am weak or need coddling, which is an assumption that I see many of your persuasion holding. (Acknowledging that some assumptions were made on my part just now as well)
It isn't such a small thing - beyond making a bunch more work for a bunch of people, beyond picking which N other colors get recommended, beyond complicating UIs for all messaging apps, you've now raised the stakes and potentially introduced race into every message. Why didn't Sarah use the slightly darker thumbs up for me, when I'm slight darker than average? She must be a racist!
This really does happen -- I recently had someone complain about a person who only spoke somewhat broken English (as a second language), for not using inclusive language, and they specifically held it against them when selecting them for service (which has nothing to do with DEI issues).
IMHO This: :-) is an emoji. These new-fangled things on our phones are tiny pictures. As pictures they communicate differently than ascii characters because they are a different medium.
But that horse has left the barn...
;-)
No, that's an emoticon. Now get off my lawn.
The first time a black coworker gave a black thumbs-up reaction on slack, I noticed I didn't want to +1 it. I didn't identify with it, it didn't feel like it was coming from me. This was a strong reaction and totally unexpected, and it was a "holy shit" moment as well, because I suddenly imagined how excluded I would have felt if that had been the only option for years.
Here's SoftBank's 2006 emoji set (well before any western companies got involved):
But it'd be nice to not have to think about it the first place.
Why wouldn’t you identify with a +1 from a black (or other race/ethnicity) colleague?
The question is a bit aggressive, but if possible don’t consider it like that — I live in an (unfortunately rather conservative) part of the EU and TBH I’m often surprised with the race/diversity activism. I usually support them, if nothing else then because I’m clearly ignorant and not affected by the challenges some of my coworkers have to put on with.
So GP didn’t want to click the black thumbs up to react using the same emoji, because GP didn’t think that a black thumbs up represented him, and would rather react with a yellow or white thumbs up.
GP is then just saying that non-white coworkers probably feel the same about the yellow thumbs up emoji.
Ultimately using emoji is about expressing oneself, and skin colour is a big part of peoples identity (for better or worse). So it makes sense that they want their expressions using emoji to represent their identity.
But more importantly, why shouldn't a black person be able to use a black emoji? We have the technology.
That said, I agree with the GP, who the hell says "I don't approve of unnecessarily gendered emoji"? I mean, fine, then don't use them.
Or other commenters that felt uncomfortable plus-oneing emojis that didn't match their skin tone. Really?? I upvote these things all the time without a second thought because it just means I agree with you, not that we're the same shade. I think it's kind of sad when literally every mundane action, even something as trivial as upvoting someone's comment, can only be seen through the prism of race first and foremost.
If anything, I’d be more likely to choose a color far away from my skin.
That's the best 'race doesn't matter' statement.
Or, to put it another way - if the default for all emoji was a dark magenta skin tone, would you consider that "race-neutral"?
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
- “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
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.
Every representation of humans is racialized, they exist in a social context where race exists.
Pretending that it is not and then complaining when someone says, "hey, we maybe should make it so not everything looks like white folks" is just silly stuff. Emoji diversity is good and 100% harmless!!
This is only true as long as we go out of our way to make it true. The concept of “googly eyes” for example, is totally race agnostic. Likewise, emojis represent emotions that don’t inherently need to be coupled to race. Emojis aren’t even a new concept, we had emoticons in the ‘00s in AIM, where 99% of the emotions had nothing to do with race.
I say this as a brown man; it really doesn’t matter to me if the “thumbs up” I use in a coworker’s merge request is brown or the default yellow. On the flip side, emoji diversity is yet another reminder that I’m different from others, especially in a context where I would rather focus on what makes us the same.
Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored. Seeing things like race and gender mean that you are keeping context in mind when interacting with people.
Systemic racism isn't necessarily about your personal intent, but it is about the results of your actions. Being blind to race effectively results in supporting the racist status quo. Being blind to sexism effectively results in supporting the sexist status quo.
The current default for American society is white. PoC have a different lived experience, and white people don't often know what it is like to have that lived experience. Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/18/rich-people-actually-do-hav...
There are a number of axes where discrimination exists, and being blind to those axes means that you support the discriminatory position in practice.
No, it does not. It means that the colour of their skin is ignored. If a white family has the same socio-economic status as a family of colour, should we treat them differently simply based on colour?
I think you mean we should assume the family of colour is actively discriminated against so they can't be in the same socio-economic group, but at the same time you claim that "systemic racism isn't necessarily about personal intent"...?
> Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.
This is probs what you actually want to control for, but it's easier to go for the low-hanging fruit that's also culturally fashionable right now, I get it.
My view is certainly coloured by being a white Eastern European living in Western Europe. Not all white people have the same background, certainly not in Europe. I'm sure there are shades of white in America as well. Point being: colour is only an easy proxy for the real issues that need solving.
Here's my "race-blind" take: give help to the people who need it, in the way that they need it. The implementation can then have a race-driven approach, but the policy is race-free. Or is that not good enough?
"Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel."
Why didn't you do that?
White men as a group have high social and economic status, so a broad-spectrum put-down isn't likely to impact them very much. Women have spent a long time trying to overcome exclusionary social mores, and have correspondingly less social and economic capital, so it's in their interest to cooperate against overt sexists.
Do these homeless white men have high social and economic status? I'm curious to know when it is appropriate to generalize based on group membership, and when it is not.
EDIT: More curiosity from me: Has anyone demonstrated that any women were actually impacted by his statement (again, a few lines taken out of context from, well, a book-length book) in any real way?
The assumption seems to be that now he's irrevocably tainted as sexist, like some sort of charged particle inducing sexist discrimination on any nearby woman according to some inverse square law. I have yet to understand how a flippant (and joking) sentence or two in a book somehow causes anyone any real harm.
[0]https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017...
Now, if I've misunderstood something substantive about your argument I am open to correction. With regard to how I phrased your argument, the whole point was to make it clear why I don't find your argument convincing.
People are people. I would try to view it through the lens of power dynamics and in-group signaling rather than weakness/strength.
I think maybe because it takes challenge and pain to grow and things have been quite comfortable for a long time for many.
It could just be my perception. But I've never seen so much anxiety, such reluctance to do hard things, and such inability to focus. Social media may be largely to blame.
Every generation fails to understand the upcoming one. Common thought throughout the ages.
You didn't address any of my arguments, other than to say it's just my perception, which I admit, is a possibility.
I like the idea that a narrow mission (corporate or otherwise) allows for coalition building, and that you can sometimes put your differences aside and build something great the world can benefit from (this was an idea pushed by the early defenders of open source and the OSI).
When you build these coalitions, it also somewhat forces you to humanize the people not from your political faction.
Lots of people are going to work just to get out of the house and doing make-work. They aren't invested in their work. It isn't what they want to do. The work isn't real with real outcomes and real responsibility. It's not hard.
A distracted mind, perhaps. I think it's interesting how far from the economy politics has shifted. I have the impression that before the 21st century people used to fight a lot more for worker's rights, unionization, better working and living conditions... You know, things that actually impacted the bottom line of capitalists. Curiously, all this mainstream "wokeness" seems to have begun after Occupy Wall Street.
Politics seems to have been de-economized and the economy seems to have been de-politicized.
Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps.
Unless you’re a machine, there is politics at work. does everything have to be a woke political discussion? prolly not
> Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps.
Yeah, see, that's the problem. The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political. (In fact, that could be a functional definition of woke-ness.)
You don't want that at work. Eventually, the woke people will find a way to turn on some of your most valuable and most talented employees. That's not going to end well, no matter who wins the fight.
my opinion is that you literally cannot ban politics at work. people will still talk about things. you need a culture of tolerance and openness.
But often they are political and people are simply pointing it out, which makes other people uncomfortable. 'That's just how X is' or 'things have always been that way, what's the big deal' are very often the product of past political decisions whose results have become the default.
Leaving politics outside of the office is simply not possible.