What skin color emoji should we use? Seriously!

National Public Radio (NPR) has sparked conversation about the color of one’s emoji might be racists—certainly white privilege is the yellow-handed thumbs up emoji.

Yes, that NPR, the taxpayer funded public radio using three reporters to get to the bottom of these small digital racist icons.

Alejandra Marquez Jans, Asma Khalid and Patrick Jarenwattananon authored the startling evidence of emoji racism.

The three amigos used the headline: “Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think.”

NPR Tweeted: “Some white people may choose the yellow thumbs up because it feels neutral—but some academics argue opting out of [the white thumbs up emoji] signals a lack of awareness about white privilege, akin to society associating whiteness with being raceless.

“Which skin color emoji should you use,” the Twitter post asks. It then posts six emojis with thumbs up— the first, a yellow emoji; a white thumbs up; the third is a white thumbs up with a sun tan; the fourth is a light brown; the fifth is brown and the sixth thumbs up emoji is dark brown. “There are five skin tone emojis to choose from, (six according to my count), but doing so can open a complex conversation about race and identity,” NPR’s Tweet concludes.

In an article criticizing the NPR investigative reportage the following comments were made: “Twitter users criticized the article for exploring what they said was a ridiculous topic.

“Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo tweeted, “Incredible that it took *three* NPR employees to write something this stupid.”

Author and professor Dr. Gad Saad wrote, “Thank you for tackling the horrifying racism implicit in emojis.”

Senior judicial fellow Casey Mattox tweeted, “Or, you know, maybe people use the option sitting right in front of them. Right click on a windows laptop. Click ‘emoji.’ Type ‘Thumbs up.’ The option is the yellow thumb. Not a mystery. And this is otherwise, dumb. But others will make that point.”

No matter the color of anyone’s emoji, let’s be clear—racism is not at the heart of this or any other frivolous report from NPR. It’s unfortunate that taxpayer money is being spent to ‘investigate’ such matters. “Annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has been level at $445 million for several years,” according to Federal Funding for Public Broadcasting.

Perhaps they could spend their time reporting on the nation’s spiraling inflation, or the lack of science behind masking up U.S. citizenry.

CONTROL

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

George Orwell, 1984