Tokenism

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The touchy subject of

Race

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Key concepts
Racism and racists
Tokenism is the practice of using a member of a minority group in order to prove how "progressive" and "forward-thinking" your organization is. For instance, Alan Keyes was the Republican Party's "token black" and would still be if Alan Keyes weren't too fucking crazy even for Republicans (they now have Michael Steele, Allen West, Herman Cain and Ben Carson). Some companies will hire one representative of a given group — for instance, one black person, one gay person, or one woman[1] — to give the entire company the appearance of being inclusive.

Similarly, traditionally exclusionary organizations such as private schools will go out of their way to put photos of minorities in their literature, creating a parallel Bizarro World of multiculturalism that does not exist in said organization's objective reality. It's why Bob Jones University has photos of black guys and Asians on the front page of its web site.[2]

Tokenism is also used to give organizations the appearance of political balance. For instance, Alan Colmes was one of Fox News' "Token Liberals."[3]

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[edit] Footnotes

  1. Or one black lesbian to include all three groups with one person.
  2. There are many, many more photos of white people, however.
  3. Similarly, Pat Buchanan was one of MSNBC's "Token Racists."
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