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What is Black Tokenism?
That one black person in the office
A token black is a black person in a high level job in white establishments. It’s 1 to 2 black people in these positions like Justice Clarence Thomas. And they have no power to make changes on behalf of black people. They only agree with the establishment. They appear to have power and never speak the truth because it will lead to termination of their job.
These are people chosen by white people to be in “leadership” positions, but really they have no power. They have no power to change things for black people in America.
I also think of the 1 to 2 black people that work in corporations or small to medium size businesses. They may be in leadership positions. But there is always 1 to 2 black people in all white companies. This is tokenism.
According to a Wikipedia definition, Tokenism is,
“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 discrimination.”
