By JOYCE LI
As a child, I had low expectations for diverse representation, both in the media I consumed and the career fields I wanted to pursue. My role models, whether real or fictional, were white and usually male, and I thought little of it. So when the faces I saw represented began to change, I was astonished. I saw women, people of colour, and members of the LGBTQ+ community in positions of power and influence across fields, and my future seemed to open up with possibilities that I had never thought to consider.
I quickly grew disillusioned, however, when I realized that the uneven playing field reinforced by years of discrimination has not changed. In many cases, workplaces and institutions have simply manufactured an appearance of diversity rather than actually practicing it by publicizing the small numbers of underrepresented people they do recruit, so as to avoid criticism. It only takes a closer look to see how little change is truly taking place. While more people of colour are beginning to pop up on the brochures of prominent universities like Harvard and Yale, white students still significantly outnumber every other racial demographic at these schools. The world applauded films like Crazy Rich Asians for featuring an all-Asian cast, but few stopped to question why there were so few Asian actors in Hollywood as a whole .
This practice—the act of making merely superficial efforts to increase diversity—is known as tokenism, and it does nothing to combat the systemic factors that limit the upward mobility of those in marginalized communities. But it’s worse than ineffective. While I can’t speak for all members of marginalized groups, I have seen the effects of tokenism on myself and those around me, and I’ve come to notice the lasting psychological damage it inflicts.
I see minorities break down barriers and surmount impossible odds to achieve remarkable roles and opportunities, only to feel grateful for their success instead of proud of themselves. My sister was one of those people—in 2010, she turned down an offer from UCLA and chose to attend the then lower-ranked University of Toronto instead. “Even when they [UCLA] accepted me, I didn’t think I really deserved to be there—even though, in hindsight, I probably did,” she tells me now. “At the time, I thought I was just one of the few Chinese people recruited to add some background colour to the campus. I felt like I was accepted because I got lucky, and I wasn’t actually as smart or qualified as the other applicants.”
When institutions practice tokenism, minority applicants understand that they are primarily evaluated not based on their qualifications, but on their status as a minority. As a result, many internalize the belief that they are less deserving of success than their more privileged peers. This mindset means that women are less likely to ask for pay raises, and people of colour are less likely to apply for promotions to leadership positions. These small acts of compliance can easily accumulate into a mentality of passivity and acceptance, rather than a desire to fight against and defy the oppressive system that limits them and their community.
Tokenism also pits minority communities against one another. Because of the limited representation seen across institutions, members of minority groups tend to internalize the belief that only a few of them can get one of the token roles. That’s why, when a fellow Asian-American is accepted to a selective program that I’ve been meaning to apply for, I often find myself disappointed instead of happy for them, since I know that I now have a lower chance of succeeding the following year. After all, why would anyone want to accept more minority applicants than absolutely necessary? To increase their chances of acceptance, minorities hide aspects of themselves in job or college applications, such as their first language or country of origin. I myself was nearly convinced to change my last name from “Li” to a more ethnically neutral “Lee” in the hopes of not being “put in the Asian pile” during college applications.
Tokenism can have the opposite effect as well, since it also imposes an implied obligation on individuals to embody and even exaggerate the traits that make them a minority. This effect is felt most profoundly by minority artists, who are expected to center their craft around their experiences as a minority, or even to define themselves by their marginalization, lest they be deemed “not marginalized enough”. After all, narratives about marginalization create a good optic for the institutions that publish or promote them by making them look more accepting and progressive. Poet Roberto Montes illustrates this predicament in an interview with the Poetry Foundation: “Why would someone want to publish a queer latino who writes about sincerity in the classroom when they can publish a queer latino who writes about being a queer latino?” he asks. “They mean to publish those who write about being latino, not latino poets.”
Tokenism damages the confidence, unity, and individuality of the marginalized groups it claims to help, but we don’t have to keep playing into this constrictive cycle. Instead of dressing up in costumes of ourselves to cater to the societal expectations imposed on us, we need to understand that our work has value regardless of whether it meets those expectations. Instead of competing against each other for that coveted token role, we must build on each other’s work and extend opportunities and recommendations to each other. Only then can we push past the outdated system of tokenism, and create real diversity.