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The Fine Line Between Tokenism and Diversity: The mere presence of an actor of color is not progress.

What is Tokenism? Tokenism is the practice of making only a symbolic effort to include members of minority groups, in order to present a sense of equality (Merriam Webster). Diversity is the condition of having or being composed of differing elements. Especially the inclusion of different types of people in a group or organization (Merriam Webster).

Example: The Best Friend. Often actors of color are cast as “the best friend” to support the main (white) star of the show. These token friends exist to provide comic relief, support, and uplift to the (white) hero of the story. You can tell its tokenism if he or she has no character arc of their own. TOKENISM: 10  Things I Hate About You, She’s All That Diversity: Bring it On, Get Out

The Stereotype. It gets even worse when actors of color are relegated to one type of role. Limiting: The “hip” Black sidekick, the Asian Nerd, the spicy Latina. Damaging: The Black Thug, the Asian Predator, the Mexican drug dealer, the Middle Eastern Terrorist. TOKENISM: The Mule, 16 Candles DIVERSITY: Westworld, Never Have I Ever

No Acknowledgement of Obvious Elements of Race. Characters of color are often written without friends, families, or communities. Diving into their backstories is often seen as time-consuming and unimportant to the hero’s plot. If these elements do get written into the story, they are often the first things to go during the editing process. TOKENISM: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Walking Dead DIVERSITY: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Big Sick

Background Characters in a White Savior Story. When the story is about the oppression of people of color, but a white person is tasked with saving them, and takes up most of the screen time in doing so. TOKENISM: The Help, The Blind Side DIVERSITY: Watchmen, Friday Night Lights

Tokenism can also include LGBTQ characters & characters with disabilities. The gay best friend (used for comic relief): Tokenism: Mean Girls (Damien) / Diversity: Orange is the New Black The Down-Syndrome sister (used to make the main character seem empathetic): Tokenism: Glee (Becky) / Diversity: The Peanut Butter Falcon

Why are there so many instances of tokenism in the media? After the Academy Awards failed to nominate a single actor of color in 2015 and 2016, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trended worldwide. Since then, the industry has made moves toward more diversity in the media, but “only 1.4 out of 10 film writers are people of color” (UCLA- Hollywood Diversity Report, 2019) and “over 90% of showrunners are white, over two-thirds of shows had no black writers at all and another 17% of shows had just one black writer.” (Hollywood Writer’s Room Report, 2019)

#OscarsSoWhite: Green Book, which took home the award for Best Picture in 2015, was an excellent example of a Black narrative told through the white gaze and was met with heavy criticism. No POC were on the writing/directing team for that movie.

So what can we do? 1) Encourage companies to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace, then hold them accountable when they present their content. 2) Seek out works of true diversity. Here are some recommendations: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Brandy Norwood, A Wrinkle in Time Then ask yourself what does true diversity look like to you? Can it only truly exist in fairytales?