Heath Racela identifies as three-quarters white and one-quarter Filipino. When texting, he chooses a yellow emoji instead of a skin tone option, because he feels it doesn't represent any specific ethnicity or color.
He doesn't want people to view his texts in a particular way. He wants to go with what he sees as the neutral option and focus on the message.
"I present as very pale, very light skinned. And if I use the white emoji, I feel like I'm betraying the part of myself that's Filipino," Racela, of Littleton, Mass., said. "But if I use a darker color emoji, which maybe more closely matches what I see when I look at my whole family, it's not what the world sees, and people tend to judge that."
The story goes further off the rails when referencing conclusions based on Twitter data:
After another look at Twitter data, Andrew McGill, then writer for The Atlantic, found that some white people may stick with the yellow emoji because they don't want to assert their privilege by adding a light-skinned emoji to a text, or to take advantage of something that was created to represent diversity.
You know what, I use the yellow emoji because I'm too lazy to change it to one of the other colors. Have you considered that option? For me, it has nothing to do with race or privilege. Am I supposed to care about what someone else will think as they compare the color of my emoji to my skin color?? I certainly don't care about the color of the emojis people send me.
Look, I'm half-white, half-Hispanic. The joke I've told for years is that if you're going to give me money, I'm Hispanic. If you're going to deport me, I'm white. I guess I look like a white guy. So what am I? And which emoji should I use? There isn't one that's half white and half brown that would allow me to express only half of the privilege I am supposed to have.
Our human forms are so superficial. We are electromagnetic waveform energy fields that manifest as physical bodies. Our bodies and appearance are a minuscule part of who we really are.
also i feel like 'so much for--' is like the brandonian version of cancelling. maybe some day we'll have a 'so much for--' newsletter written by you lool
abrahamKim
I honestly would keep my emoji black or blue or green if any of those were the defaults.
but they maybe that's what people would call us privileged for!