Last February I tweeted, “I’m amazed that the emoji creators made a camel with one hump and a camel with two humps, and they still didn’t make a black person.” But now, a year later, it seems like Apple is finally heeding my critique and introducing diverse Emoji people.

The iOS 8.3 update, is expected to release in April will give every human-esque emoji 6 different skin tones, including yellow. Upon the Feb. 25 reveal, the people of the world collectively clenched their fists and looked around nervously, their stomachs moaning with anxiety and indigestion. At least this is how I felt when I first saw the new swatch of humans.

And although Apple’s attempt to embrace different skin colors is a noble one, it is still far from solving its diversity problem.

I recently tweeted out a link to a news story about these new emojis with the comment, “This has been a long time coming, and it’s progress, so why do I feel uneasy?”  Then my friend replied in an attempt to pinpoint my hesitation, “Good idea, but also think it limits people in what they perceive as race. Are there only 11 races in the world?”

Yeah, that was it.

But Apple surely couldn’t believe that creating a bright yellow emoji for human-looking faces wouldn’t cause something. Of course, it wasn’t its intent to make these emojis Asian — in fact, they have said several times now that these are intended to be neutral emojis. But intent isn’t what matters. People have already begun to associate Asian people with them. We have inadvertently supplied ignorant people with another tool to be racist.

The yellow emojis are now being vetted by our favorite TV family. They’re neutral “like the Simpsons.” But here’s the problem: the Simpsons are white. These emojis can’t serve to be neutral because they’re already being qualified as either white, or as remnants of a racist caricature — which hasn’t gone away. In fact, many have compared it to the practice of black face. The Washington Post commented, “That’s because yellow face, much like black face, describes a specific, historical portrayal of Asians — one that many consider racist, offensive and hurtful, to this day.” Putting the color up against five very real looking skin tones is jarring, in fact, they might have just been better off leaving them out.

That being said, even the skin tones in the line-up are limiting. According to the Unicode Consortium, the creators behind the diverse emojis, the five shades are based on a “universal” skin color scale developed by a real dermatologist. It goes from 1 to 6, light to dark. But when I look at the Emoji lineup, I don’t see Arab people; I don’t see Latinos who have medium skin and black hair; I don’t see people with different eye colors; I don’t see people with red hair; Pacific Islanders; or people with albinism.

The point is: you can’t create an entire world full of cultures and skin colors and hair colors and eye colors based on a chart developed by a dermatologist. There aren’t six skin tones in the world — not to mention everyone’s culture doesn’t manifest itself in their skin tone. You will never be able to represent everyone.

Does this mean we shouldn’t try? No. It’s a dumb way to strike down the argument for more racially diverse digital representation. Everyone, especially the young people who are using this technology the most, deserves to see his or herself represented on screen.

And these emojis just show that we’re not done.

Eric King is a sophomore magazine journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @erickingdavid.

Published on March 3, 2015 at 1:16 am