Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil", which makes it difficult to fathom why they carry the "Make Me Asian" and "Make Me Indian" apps by KimberyDeiss on their Google Play Store. These apps overlay dated and racist stereotypes onto your photos: rice paddy hat, fu manchu mustache, slanty eyes and yellow skin - and voila, digital yellowface! Or you can pretend to be a Native American by slapping your picture with war paint, feather, and broadened nose, because we all know that that is all that it takes to represent "Indians". This is not what it means to be Asian or Native American - these are nothing less than hateful and offensive stereotypes that are used to this very day to marginalize and humiliate people. They are not funny, and their use highlights a vicious double standard in the treatment of certain minority groups. Blackface (dressing up as a caricature of a black person, complete with black makeup) is thankfully and rightfully recognized as thoroughly racist, so why in the world is "yellowface" and "redface" given a pass? Google has tried to defend itself in this matter by stating they are not responsible for the content of apps because Android is open source. But the fact is that Google Play is NOT open source, but a branded store from which Google derives profit and has removed other racist apps, such as a Nazi app in August of 2010. By choosing to allow these apps to proliferate on their branded Google Play store, they are implicitly normalizing these characterizations. THESE APPS NEED TO COME DOWN NOW. And here's what you can do:
Go here and flag both apps as inappropriate directly on the Google Play site, preferably from an Android device. The apps are named "Make Me Asian" and "Make Me Indian", the developer name is KimberyDeiss, and the urls are respectively, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.makemeasian&hl=en and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.makemeindian&hl=en
If you have Twitter, tweet this out: @ericschmidt Take the racist Make Me Asian and Make Me Indian apps off @googleplay NOW! #makemeasian https://www.change.org/petitions/google-remove-the-racist-make-me-asian-app-from-the-google-play-store
There is a partner petition by our friends at 18 Million Rising that we encourage you to sign as well.