Washington, Dec 28 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Asian-American groups in the US are demanding from Google to remove an application (app) from its Google Play store called “Make Me Asian” which allows users to alter their photos to resemble Asian stereotypes.
A similar app called “Make Me Indian” has also received criticism.
“These apps perpetuate hateful and offensive stereotypes that are used to this very day to marginalise and humiliate Asians and Native Americans,” wrote Washington pastor Peter Chin on the website change.org, where he has started a petition for the apps to be taken down.
“They are not funny, and their use highlights a vicious double standard, where people are allowed to characterise” both groups “in a way that they never would do to other races,” Chin wrote about the series of Android phone apps created by designer Kimbery Deiss.
“You can for a few seconds to make himself a Chinese, Japanese, Korean,” Kimbery Deiss wrote on Google Play about the app that allows users with the click of a button to be transformed into an Asian with a Fu Manchu mustache and a rice paddy hat.
Deiss also said that by altering your photo to look like an Indian with brown skin, war paint and a feather headband that will now allow you to “not get bored!”
On the change.org website, Chin is asking that individuals sign a petition stating the apps “are racist and perpetuate false and offensive stereotypes that are hurtful to both Asian and Native American communities.”
–IANS/RIA Novosti
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