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Apple Pledges To Make Emojis Ethnically Diverse And Not Just Simpsons Yellow

by Sean Levinson

Apple clearly had diversity in mind when it created its emoji characters.

There are over 60 different animals, 58 different smileys and even two homosexual couples.

If only the company had remembered to include at least a decent portion of characters that weren't white.

And no, the alien face doesn't count.

One of the first celebrities to notice this was Miley Cyrus, who in 2012 tweeted:

RT if you think there needs to be an #emojiethnicityupdate — Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) December 19, 2012

Former "Smart Guy" star Tahj Mowry caught on earlier this month:

It makes me mad that there are no black emojis... — Tahj Mowry (@Tahj_Mowry) March 16, 2014

MTV.com's Joey Parker was curious as to the lack of non-white emojis, so he emailed Apple to see if the company had acknowledged the mistake and was looking into releasing a more diverse set of characters.

Parker was stunned to receive a response the next day from Katie Cotton, Apple's Vice President of worldwide corporate communications.

"Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms," she wrote. "There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard."

Cotton didn't specify as to when the new emojis will be available, but we probably shouldn't expect them anytime soon since most of the criticism is being met with disdain.

There's an article on Fast Company called "Are Emoji Racist?" and the general consensus seems to be that people like Miss Miley and the artist formerly known as T.J. Henderson are being oversensitive.

"You know why clouds are white? They are racist. Do you know why this site background is white? White oppression and racism. Do you know why color exists? Because color is racism. Ban all color. We should be a color neutral world," reads one comment. "I am an autistic, dyslexic, bisexual sontaran otherkin. Where is an emoji that represents me?" reads another.

After examining the entire emoji roster, the cause for all this might seriously be that one brown face with a turban. These days, if you include one minority, it's safe to include them all.

h/t: MTV, Top Photo Courtesy: We Heart It