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by daniellarusso 1818 days ago
This is almost as thoughtful as Slack enumerating all user skin tones via 5 integer values.
1 comments

I thought making everyone cartoon yellow was more empowering.

Especially on the Internet, with pseudonymity, we're all nothing more than the ideas we present.

An egalitarian dream was twisted into a woke nightmare for bad actors to earn free PR by pitting people against each other.

My theory is that we're all red. Peel back the skin layer of any living human being, and red is what you'll see.
If you say that to a person who insists on taking offense, he would tell you that a white person using red icons might be offensive to Native Americans or people with albinism.
I don't mean "red" as in Native American, and I wouldn't use Native American icons. I mean, when you peel back the skin, we all bleed the same color. Even albinos do.

The point is, once you move past the skin, all our blood looks alike. We all share that.

(I agree, though, that some are likely to insist on taking offense. Also, I note that albinos might have a case to complain about non-albinos who are called "white"...)

"... if you prick us do we not bleed ..."
And, do we not bleed the same blood?
Ha, I set my emojis to the precise colour of my skin, someone (I know IRL) complained that it wasn't my race ... like, that was, at the time, my actual skin colour.
Why is yellow the “neutral” color? Why not black, or red, or white?

Letting people pick whatever color seems more empowering to me.

Because no one is bright yellow irl unless they're a few days from dying of cirrhosis.
Yellow is obviously much closer to lighter skin color than darker skin colors.
I always thought it was because of The Simpsons, but going as far back as the Tracy Ullman show, so that could have been an influence as far back as 1987.
How is it empowering? How long do you think a white employee could post with black colored emojis before someone said something?
empowering for what exactly?