Tokenism

Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce. The effort of including a token employee to a workforce is usually intended to create the impression of social inclusiveness and diversity (racial, religious, sexual, etc.) in order to deflect accusations of social discrimination.

The social concept and the employment practice of tokenism became understood in the popular culture of the United States in the late 1950s. In the book Why We Can't Wait, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. discussed the subject of tokenism, and how it constitutes a minimal acceptance of black people to the mainstream of U.S. society.

In 1963, when asked about the gains of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68), human rights activist Malcolm X answered, “What gains? All you have gotten is tokenism — one or two Negroes in a job, or at a lunch counter, so the rest of you will be quiet.”

In the field of psychology, the broader definition of tokenism is a situation in which a member of a distinctive category is treated differently from other people. The characteristics that make the person of interest a token can be perceived as either a handicap or an advantage, as supported by Václav Linkov. In a positive light, these distinct people can be seen as experts in their racial/cultural category, valued skills, or a different perspective on a project. On the other hand, tokenism is most often seen as a handicap due to the ostracism of a selected sample of a minority group.

Tokenism, in a television setting, can be any act of putting a minority into the mix to create some sort of publicly viewed diversity. Originally stemming from the first television show that hired minorities, the Amos 'n' Andy in 1943, there has been a racial divide in TV since. Regardless of whether a token character may be stereotypical or not, tokenism can initiate a whole biased perceived sense of thought that may conflict with how people see a specific race, culture, gender, or ethnicity. From the Huffington post, America Ferrera states, “Tokenism is about inserting diverse characters because you feel you have to; true diversity means writing characters that aren’t just defined by the color of their skin, and casting the right actor for the role." In contrast, people of color can subjectively receive a beneficial position just off the basis of them being a minority. In The restaurant study, Donald G. Dutton states that when a person of color enters a restaurant, they have a significantly higher chance of being served than whites that entered first, henceforth creating a condition of reverse discrimination.

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