Is It "Racial Appropriation" For White People To Use Black Emojis?

That's the question raised in this widely-shared post by Megan Rose Dickey for TechCrunch, Silicon Valley's top news source, echoing the controversial NWN posts on whether it's racial appropriation for white people to play as black avatars, with Bohny Spad, a black woman in real life who also has a black avatar, raising some crucial points. Human gesture-based emojis, when you think about it, are a rudimentary form of avatars, since they're used to represent the user's real emotions or expressions. So unsurprisingly, Dickey's post raises similar themes:

The logical step, in my mind, was to get my co-workers and people on Twitter to chime in. I simply asked them if it’s ok for white people to use emoji with darker skin-tones. According to my Twitter poll, the answer is no. Of the 239 people who voted, 54 percent said it’s not, 33 percent said yes and 13 percent said “only if they’re tan.”  Some people went on to elaborate on their answers for me. Leslie Miley, an outspoken advocate for diversity in tech and racial justice in society at large, voted no.

“No, no it’s not ok,” Miley told me. He then pointed to a Wikipedia page about minstrel shows, which entailed white people dressing up in blackface to negatively portray black people. He then added, “My blackness is not for your entertainment.”

... Then there’s the idea that white people can use the darker skin-tones in solidarity. My mom, a black woman, told me she voted yes because she believes it shows solidarity.

“If a white person wants to use a black thumbs up, more power to them,” she said. “To me that shows there’s some solidarity for us.”

Read the rest here. Fascinatingly, many NWN readers expressed annoyance that the topic is coming up at all, but as the TechCrunch story suggests, it's not going away.

Comments

[pemdasi]

Is it really surprising? People want to bury their head in the sand regarding race issues as long as it doesn't directly concern them.

[Clara Seller]

Message to the first class: The ship is sinking. Please board the limited life boats immediately.

Message to the coach class: There are white people using black emojis on the lower decks. Are you just going to stand there and allow this outrage to happen?

[kenisha johnson]

if it be a white guy who is 40 plus aged you bet he has done something wrong we all know it they need to be punished we was made slaves my families deserve homes money and all other things the slave master made monies off us

do you even know how hard it was going to school how i felt knowing my life was just born to be a slave to white folks my lives been ruined by cracker devils

black lives matter not all lives matter stop stealing our ideas

[Mandy]

Ok, so it seems most people say it's not ok for white people to use black emojis. That's cool, I understand that. But, what about black people using white emojis? What about people who are somewhere in the middle using emojis that aren't their exact color? Is it ok if they go lighter, but not if they go darker? A shade on either side is ok? What if someone uses a random shade generator to determine their skin tone?
People who wore blackface were entertainers. If I wear a dark skin in SL, I'm not an entertainer, I am just a dark skinned person trying to get by. I have a dear friend who usually wears a blue skin. What about her? Are the blue skinned people going to get mad? I don't really know many blue skinned people. I think it's nice that I know at least one.
I really, really hope that soon we can get over this skin color hangup we all seem to have and focus on things that are far more important, like global warming, nuclear proliferation, and religious extremism.

[Clara Seller]

“My blackness is not for your entertainment.”

This makes me ask another question. Should non-black people be allowed to profit off of blackness? Should non-black people be allowed to cast black people in their movies or use black models to sell their products or make their art when they are specifically chosen for their skin color? Should non-black designers be allowed to create and sell black products like SL skins? Should non-black researchers be allowed to head research on on black-specific cases?

If someone is outraged at using blackness for entertainment, they should be doubly outraged at making money off of it. Correct?