I don't know how it is in Slack, but in other apps if someone already thumb'd something up you have the option of just clicking their thumb to +1 it or you can go into the emoji picker and pick your favorite shade of thumb. Sometimes you do just want to +1 so you just click whatever is already there and that's when this awkward dance begins.

Once I noticed all my non-white colleagues had selected the closest skin tone, I selected the white one.

If I click a black or brown thumbs up in Slack to add my own, a white one is added.

We're a very small team and three of the skin tone choices are unique, so I often know who has reacted from the colour.

Oh yeah, that's totally not awkward. Imagine being the only one of a particular shade of human and constantly seeing your lonely thumbs up next to the the thumbs ups of the rest of the team.

The awkwardness is only in your head.

Better than this aggression in yours.

What aggression?