Ep 9: Digital Skin Color, Either/Or Thinking, and Pizza in Dakar

April and Tracie riff on a seemingly small manifestation of white dominance in our everyday lives: the skin color of emojis. The discussion of digital skin tone leads into a conversation about racial implications of the Simpsons' yellow hue, and on to a focused training about the ways that seemingly benign binaries turn up in malignant ways.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
"Why White People Don't Use White Emoji" by Andrew McGill in The Atlantic May 9, 2016
On the Simpsons Character Apu: a documentary The Problem with Apu (2017)
April's 10 Jewish Principles for Advancing Racial Justice
An article on the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture.
Sao Brazil in Dakar, Senegal

Transcript

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- [Tracie] I don't really know how to unpack that one, so I'm just not gonna touch it.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- I'll grab my Chromebook so that I can be looking at that stuff while we're talking.- I'm gonna go grab and microwave a piece of pizza.- Yeah, good idea.- La, la, la, la, la, la.- The emojis with the different skin colors actually, from our little text exchange this morning, and there was an article in the Atlantic from May 2016, actually, about the fact that a lot fewer white folks are using white skinned emoji than... Andrew McGill actually did the data analysis to see how many white like of the lightest two shades are being used, and compared it to demographics and internet usage and blah, blah, blah, and very few people, relative to who's out there, are using the lightest skin tone or the second lightest. They're using like the yellow, like the Simpsons' yellow, or the darker colors. I'm just thinking about what that means?- Is that by-- As in comparison to what?- To the folks who use the three darkest skin tone colors that the emoji gives you. So you have from like very pale, like me, and then like a step up. There are five total plus the yellow. So from the, you know, brown, dark brown, down to sort of fair kind of, you know, whatever weird peachy beigey color, you know, fair white skin people are. And according to this data in 2016 about 19.6% use that lightest white, 29.3 using the second step up, 27.4 the third step up, 21.3 the fourth, and only 2.4% using the darkest brown. That surprises me, too.- Wait of all people?- This is of Twitter users using the emojis on Twitter, the different you know hand, and skin, and other ones.- This wasn't of white people? this is all across-- All Twitter users. The data set was all Twitter users, apparently. So anyway, I was just scanning that article because, you and I had that conversation this morning, and you know, where I had forgotten how to select the skin color, and the default for me was yellow, the Simpsons' yellow for most of them, but for some of the ones I would use most often like the wave, and the thumbs up, were both brown skin hands. And you know, also one that I never use, the middle finger up was also brown skin. Which I don't really know how to unpack that one, so I'm just not going to touch it. But, I finally remember that you press and hold, and it gives you the options. I actually choose to use the color that's closest to my skin, which is the lightest, in part, because I feel like... I think I must've seen this headline before about the fact that, you know, McGill is that his name? Did I just say the wrong name? Anyway, this author thinks that, you know, maybe it's shame that's making white folks not, sort of, represent their actual skin tone? Or, you know, maybe it's the fact that at its default, actually even that yellow it sort of means to represent white people? And so, maybe it is the anti-racist move to not use the white? I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter. It's just an emoji?- And in my mind, yellow, the Simpsons, I think there's a way in which, I think there are different interpretations and ways of unpacking that like. I wasn't thinking we're going to be diving into something while I'm eating, but I kind of like model being human. So, and I'm hungry right now. Yeah, like there's a way in which like, I use the yellow at times because to me, like, I would argue to be interesting like I'm sure that there's material out there so maybe some folks can lift it up for us, but you know, about the Simpsons creators, about choosing yellow, in part, because while at times people refer to Asian heritage folks as "yellow," or excuse me at least East Asian folks, but they're not literally yellow. Like they might have a yellow hue to their skin. Like I have a yellow hue to my skin, and they're more in the tan brown range broadly speaking doesn't include everyone. So I would suspect especially like, that on some level, or I'd like to think. Let me just keep it simple. I'm not talking about the intents of the creator, but for me, I liked them being yellow because in some ways, I don't know. I'm not really feeling this. Actually, 'cause if I think about most of the episodes, and things that, and the behavior of the folks, I think there are characters who more or less connected to different racial patterns. Like I think Marge, in some ways, given how down she was about some things and thoughtful about others, that it's not fully clear to me what her racial background is based upon her sociological manifestations.- [Tracie] Hmm, that's interesting.- I feel that with Lisa as well, versus Bart, both in his language and articulation, and I'm sure I have no doubt that there are black kids who very much match Bart's behavior, but to me, like he has more white boy behavior.(Tracie laughs)- I saw an Instagram post recently. I think it was Instagram where like a family, a black family, had dressed up as The Simpsons, like the whole family, right? The mom was wearing the blue wig, and 'cause I guess they had a boy, a girl, and a baby and they dressed up. And, there was some comment from some, you know, white fragility, white fragile person who was like, how can you say that black face is bad when you all are doing this? And the comments like tore her apart. They were like, "lady, the Simpsons are yellow.""They're not white." And so that's, that's kind of what you're saying, I think. Because they are colored yellow, whereas there are other characters who have brown skin. I mean Apu, very problematic, that's a separate conversation, but his skin color is brown.- By that, you mean like super racist characterization and caricature.- Yeah, total caricature.- There are white folks like Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders.- And, even Mr. Burns' lackey, whose name I'm-- Wait, Mr. Burns what?- His assistant, his lackey, the guy who works for him.- Smithers.- Yes, Smithers. Yes, thank you. Yes, Smithers is definitely white. Anyway, it's-- Some people see it as the default and I don't, I'm like (beep) that noise. I mean, I don't mind if like, people like woke white folks, like you, or like it's often can be defaulted as white, so I want to choose to consciously use it, but as a person of color, like from my vantage point, I'm aware that because of the collective consciousness the default is often white within the collective consciousness of the United States, because that's how people have been trained across all racial lines to have white be the default often unless they explicitly grew up in an anti-oppressive liberatory context in which they were taught otherwise, or not so liberatory and nationalist contexts in which they were taught otherwise, liberatory, non-liberatory, complicated material for another day. Yeah, but going back to it, so, you know, I choose the slightly darker tan one, like the pre-solidly brown light brown. I'm like this feels about right. Or at times I go with like slightly darker because of my politics, and how dark I can get in the summertime. And then like my rationalization like if I were healthier, and if I were more active and outdoors, just from just being outside. Like not trying to change my skin tone just from being outside, my hair would be a little redder, and I would... I was blown away when I was in college. At one point when I, my senior year, when I looked at college photos from high school, and having lived in New England for four years, I was like "yo!" I was like four or five shades darker in high school. I hadn't noticed how much lighter I'd gotten. And I was just like "whoa!" I know, you know, it was just like wow, I was so tan. Like I was really brown. I wasn't tan. I was like light brown. I was a thumb up on the scale.(Tracie laughs) I have a cousin. Shout out to my sweet cousin Christina, who like, she has black and Russian heritage and her skin is light tan a little sallow, tan tone but in the summertime, like she can, her skin tone will change like pretty quickly because of her mixed race heritage, which I think it's kinda cool. It kind of seems like a superhero trait. She does cosplay, so hopefully she'll appreciate that.- Well, I still, it's an interesting conversation.- Yeah.- And it's a reminder, too, of the small ways that white supremacy shows up in our lives, in the small details you know. I think that's another piece of it. So, I did this training. I told you about this in a WhatsApp, briefly, that I wanted to tell you about. So for my board, at my day job, we had a board meeting. And given all that's going on, my boss wanted us to talk about ways that our organization can help combat systemic racism. And so, of course, it was my job to lead that part of the, of the meeting. We started by watching a video that was created, sort of, about Charlottesville and where some Jewish folks, who live in Charlottesville, after the Unite the Right rally happened and really came to see the ways in which the oppressions are linked. So we started with that, and we talked other things that our organization has already done. And then I walked them through this exercise to help recognize just one moment of white supremacy. I only had like 10 minutes, and I needed to be, I didn't wanna trigger any white fragility. I wanted to just get a conversation started. I was thinking about our conversations about white supremacy culture. And, I personally am very susceptible to either/or thinking. It is a trap that I fall into a lot. And I agonize. I torture myself with either/or thinking. Should I do this thing, or that thing? Not recognizing there are, you know, 300 other things I could be doing. And so, I started there and I invited them... I sort of talked about what either/or thinking is and I invited them to think and share any either/or thinking that they'd faced even just in the past week. And I'm not talking race, I'm talking like ketchup or mustard, vanilla or chocolate, like those sorts of things. And so, we developed a little list and I said, "Okay so you see how it shows up." And these are relatively benign: vanilla or chocolate. Like maybe the other, you know, 29 flavors are sad, but it's relatively benign that you're stuck in that binary. But then, think about the binaries like white, black. Good, bad, productive, lazy. Male, female, you know. And think about how those are not so benign. Especially because the stuff in the left-hand column, the good, the male, the productive, the straight, end up, there's a certain parallelism that happens. And so we equate those things." And to show them what I mean, I shared with them: A couple of years ago, this product, a picture of a product came up in my social media feed. And it was like the post with it was, I can't believe this is still happening in the 21st century, something like that. And, I'm looking at it and it's a Dove lotion like a summer lotion from Dove. And, it says for skin type normal to dark. I'm looking at this thing... This is a couple years ago, so I've already started on my self-conscious anti-racist path, but it's relatively early. I'm looking at it, and I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it. I didn't see it, right? So, I shared it with my, I shared this image first with this, with the board. And you know what I'm saying? Like, it said, "I can't believe this is still happening." And, then the next image has it sort of under like, you know, highlighted normal and dark are not opposites of one another, right? And it was, it went so well, April. I wanted to call you, but it was, you know, it was late, it was really late in Senegal, because, I was so pleased with the way they were able to, kind of, follow me without triggering white fragility. And I used myself so that I wasn't sort of "you people," you know, and just really kind of acknowledged that this is just one of many ways that white supremacy culture shows up. And we were able to really have an interesting you know, kind of moment together. And then I sent them off with homework to pay attention. To when either/or thinking shows up in their lives, like over the next week, and I sent them the article that you and I talked about, about the different characteristics of white supremacy culture. Anyway, it just, it was one of those like small moments for me on the path where it felt, it just felt really good. Like I was able to kind of have this conversation and lay out on the table what it is that we're working with without, without the drama of fragility. And without like...without drama. It was just sort of like walking through the steps of how this shows up in our lives. It was great.- I love that you chose that as that you, that you shared that because one, so... So kol hakavod, so much respect, that's phenomenal. It takes a lot of skill to be able to, like of all the things that one could choose from, to choose the right thing that it's at the right level, and within that timeframe that you had, awesome. And it's really funny, because I was just thinking about a similar type of thing where I'm wanting to... Excuse me. That I want to go deeper into some of the resources I've already created. That it's occurring to me, it's not about me creating more. It's about going deeper, right? So, I have these 10 guiding principles, and it occurred to me like I'd love to create an e-course or a program out of this where we practice, like, you know? And then you provided this beautiful example that provided, in greater depth, of what that might look like around these different core principles. Because, I really believe with the 10 that I wrote, not that they're exhaustive or all encompassing, but they are pretty phenomenal. And if people began practicing, incrementally, doing these things more, all of a sudden they'd find, like, oh my gosh, this is so much easier. If I just call a friend and talk this through with them. Or, I don't know what to do right now, but I'm just going to really lean on Emunah. I'm really going to lean into steadfast faith and say, I'm not sure what we're doing right now but I'm going to stay the course. Or I'm confused. This principle talks about getting curious, instead of getting quitting. So I'm going to start asking smart questions. Like how, how did this happen? What am I missing here? This pizza is so good.- And this isn't something you made? Like this is the Senegalese people have embraced pizza.- The place is called Sao Brazil. So I think it was founded by Brazilians who are making pizza in Dakar.- That's amazing. I love it, I love it.- [April] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @ElliotHammer. If this episode resonated with you please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation visit jewstalkracialjustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.