You’re Paying for This! NPR Claims Using Certain Emoji Colors Could Be Racist

You are considered a racist, according to the NPR. At least according to Alejandra Marquez, Janse Patrick Jarenwattananon, and Asma Khalid at the taxpayer-funded NPR (yes it took three of them to write an article on racist emojis). 

A piece entitled “Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think”Khalid, Jarenwattananon and Marquez interviewed many people about this subject. The first was someone named Heath Racela “who identifies as three-quarters white and one-quarter Filipino.” Racela “chooses a yellow emoji instead of a skin tone option, because he feels it doesn’t represent any specific ethnicity or color.” Racela, who seems to have too many things to think about, argued that the neutral option of choosing the yellow emoji would allow people to focus on the message and not their skin color. 

I present myself as pale and very light-skinned. Racela of Littleton (Mass.) said that if I use the white Emoji I feel like I am betraying the Filipino part of me.” It’s possible to use a darker color emoji that matches my family’s view, but people are more likely to see it differently.

NPR reports that selecting one color emoji is “a texting shortcut for certain people but it can open up a complex conversation on race and identity for others.”

Another person NPR interviewed was Sarai Cole, an opera singer in Germany who said “I have some friends who use the brown ones, too, but they are not brown themselves. This is confusing to me.” Cole stated that she was “not offended” when her non-brown friend used dark emojis, but would like to know why.

This absurd sentence was further down the article: Zar Rahman, an author and researcher in Berlin, asserts that skin-tone emojis cause white people to face their race, as other people of colour often must.” 

Being a white millennial and using emojis for texting all day, I can say that I’ve never considered my race in any way when I used an emoji. My race is something I rarely think about, just like most other people.  

The article ends with a quote from Rahman saying “I think it’s more one of those places where we just have to think about who we are and how we want to represent our identities, and maybe it does change depending on the season; depending on the context.” 

You can also live your life without worrying about what your identity is all the time. This is America, so let people choose the color of emojis they like. 

Steven Miller, our friend from The Spectator. reminded us on TwitterNPR stated that Hunter Biden’s laptop had been covered because it was time-consuming. But, NPR’s absurd article on racist emojis doesn’t seem to be a complete waste. 

….you paid for the inanity of NPR. You can share your opinion on this by contacting NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride here.