I am very happy and relieved to report that the Make Me Asian app, along with all of the others by that developer, have been taken off of Google Play. So you might be asking, how exactly did a no-name pastor singlehandedly get the world’s largest and most influential technology corporation to do something that it didn’t want to do? The answer is…he doesn’t. He does it with lots and lots and lots of help from the following: Continue Reading…
Archives For Race
I don’t do this very often at all, so please excuse me while I rant. Google Play, their version of Apple’s App Store, has an application listed there called “Make Me Asian“. It is one of those apps that modifies your pictures, you know, like the ones that make you look fat or make you look like a zombie. Except this one tries to make you look Asian by…you guessed it, overlaying a rice paddy hat and fu manchu mustache on to your photographs. And if that were not enough, you can make your eyes more slanty to really complete the effect.
For those of you who might not know, this is not okay. These stereotypes are dated and exploitative, offensive and false. They are characterizations that have been used to marginalize and insult people of East Asian descent for decades. It’s not cool.
Strangely, Google’s company motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, which you would think would automatically include racism, but obviously does not. So please, go to this online petition and let Google know that you think this app is unacceptable and should be removed immediately from its Google Play store!
Writer’s block! Lack of inspiration, and motivation!! But luckily, I have a copy of an article I wrote in this month’s Covenant Companion about the unique role that the church can play in addressing our fears and prejudices – also includes an advertisement for a Covenant retirement community, if anyone is interested:
As many of you know, my house was burglarized a month ago – don’t worry, my family is safe and sound, and only a few things of absolutely no eternal worth were stolen. In fact, I had a weird feeling that morning and hid both my and my wife’s laptop before we left, which ended up being extremely providential given that there were irreplaceable photos, videos and documents on our computers.
But I wanted to relate a story from that situation that has made me think, a lot. Now, I know that it might be a little unwise to publicly blog about a crime that is so recent and unsolved, but the chances that the burglary will be solved or that the robbers will read my blog (or read at all) are both so remote that I don’t think it’s all that big of a deal:
(Just for clarification, all the people that I mention in this post are African-American, except for me.) Continue Reading…
