Talk:Tokenism

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Examples

I have moved the examples section here to await attribution and replacement on the page. - Freechild 21:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Examples

• The title character of Rebecca in the Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca is the only significant Jew in the story, but nethertheless, despite being a title character, has very little to do, briefly appearing and just as quickly disappearing from the tale.
• The character Debbie Love on Sealab 2021 is the only prominent female character on that series (and one of only two women, period) and is a parody of tolkenism with her portrayal of a semi-stereotypical female science fiction scientist: intelligent, but also vain, vindictive, condescending and histrionic when under stress. Since both female characters on the show are named Debbie, she is often referred to by other characters as "Black Debbie," in fact, the Sealab bathrooms are labeled "Men" and "Debbie."
• The character Franklin in the Peanuts (who is black, while most of the characters are presumably white) is sometimes considered to be an example of tokenism among newer fans, although Charles Schulz, responding to controversy early in Franklin's appearances, insisted he had no political message and treated the character no different than the rest of the cast.
• The character Diana in the Dungeons & Dragons TV series. The only black member of the cast, and one of the only two females.
• The self-referential character Tolken Black on South Park, the only black friend of the main cast except the adult Chef. He was originally named Tolken Williams, though his first name still makes his role fairly clear.
• The cast of Ghostwriter has been called into question as an example of tolkenism.
• The African-American character "A.J." on Fairly OddParents is the only prominent black character on the show. He is portrayed as being the smartest kid in school and more affluent than most of the main characters, which may be an example of using tolken characters to offset traditional stereotypes.
• The character of Zoey from The Proud Family can be considered to be the tolken white character, often appearing helpless and the "goodie goodie" white girl among more brash black and hispanic characters in the show.
• Juba on the Academy awarded film Gladiator is sometimes regarded as an example of tolken character, because he is the only black character in the entire film, but also as an example of Afrocentrism. The character has a North African (Mauretanian) name and, according to other character, he is from Carthage, but he is black instead of the expectable North-African caucasoid. Something strange given that the only well known black population in the ancient Roman Empire was made of Nubians and other East-African slaves.
• The character Azeem from the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, played by Morgan Freeman. He can be considered also a "magic negro", because the character's aim is only to help Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) using two unique abilities: combat with saracen sword and gunpowder.
• The "tolken black" character is ridiculed in the movie Not Another Teen Movie. In the movie, one character, when asked a question, answered: "Sure, I am the tolken black guy! I'm just supposed to smile, stay out of the conversation, and say things like 'damn!', 'shit!' and 'that is whack!'". Later, he does just that.
• In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Zack Taylor is the only black main character in Season 1 and Trini Kwan is the only Asian main character in Season 1. This changes in many seasons/incarnations of Power Rangers.
• Winston from Ghostbusters is the only member of the Ghostbusters who is black. While he is a member of the Ghostbusters, his character played a very small role in the plot. The actor who played him, Ernie Hudson isn't billed in most advertising for the movie.
• The character Chelsea from That's So Raven is believed to be a tolken white character.
• Ajihad from Eragon is also a token character. The author does not explain where black people came from, and Ajihad and his daughter are the only black people in the entire book. Ajihad is in about 1/6 of Eragon, and dies at the beginning of Eldest.
• David in the marvel series new Xmen may be considered a Tolken character he is the only black character to be spotlighted and is also the only one without any powers
• A 1970 soviet video of children singing "Пусть всегда будет сонце", including a black boy wearing a sombrero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MpvSQKSvI4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lipedia (talk • contribs) 06:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Franklin from Peanuts

From the Franklin page: "At a time when segregation was an ongoing national debate, the introduction of Franklin proved somewhat controversial. Schulz, however, insisted that there was no political motivation in his introduction. No one in the strip ever mentioned the fact that Franklin was black, merely accepting him as part of the gang.

Franklin sits in front of Peppermint Patty in school, and is the center-fielder of her baseball team. Franklin acts as a thoughtful foil to Linus, and is as adept at quoting the Old Testament as Linus is. One connection that Franklin and Charlie Brown have is their mutual interest in their grandfathers. With few anxieties or obsessions, Franklin could be considered one of the less interesting of the characters in the Peanuts universe." I don't know if this would qualify as a token character, being that his color, not his personality, is what sets him apart as a character.

Tolkenism in Early Modern Art

The following was recently added to the article. I believe it needs a lot of cleanup, NPOV and sourcing before getting placed into the article.

Tolkenism in Early Modern Art

Tolkenism is often employed by a majority in order to avoid the charge that a minority group has been excluded. Within art histories and biographies , women artists were often shown as examples who were exceptions to the rule and illustrated that it was possible for women to create art. Despite this, a women's education did not encourage the creation of fine art, but served rather as a tolken measure that allowed them to learn specific skills and subjects termed "accomplishments" that were useful for the running of a household and amusement of her husband. Reading was encouraged, particuarly of conduct books that would properly socialize an unruly woman; writing was not encouraged because self-expression was deemed dangerous and inappropriate. Training in the arts was structured in a similarly token way with arts such as embroidery and flower-painting encouraged for women yet belittled as lower arts, deemed “crafts”. Entry into more important arts such as historical portraiture was barred because drawing from the nude figure was not allowed.While these tokens tend toward an increase in women's education, it is possible that they had the opposite effect, allowing those in power to claim that a woman's education was already sufficient and that change was in no way necessary or desirable.

Don't merge--but needs more tolkenism sections

Tolkenism isn't just about token characters in casts of shows. It also exists in the workplace, where a member of a minority group is employed more for the sake of diversity than for his or her skills. It also exists in social situations, such as a black acquaintance being asked to a party primarily because of their skin color. For these reasons, this topic shouldn't be merged with "token character".

External references: Tolkenism in the workplace, http://www.pineforge.com/newman4study/resources/token.htm

Satirical website on social tolkenism, http://www.rent-a-negro.com/

For the same reasons as above I also oppose merger--LukeSurl 01:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm pritty sure that Tolkenism and Tolken Character are not the same, but what if Tolken Character was changed from being an artical to being a sub-section in the Tolkenism article?

Support merge into Tolkenism, per above anonymous comment. NeonMerlin 17:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Support merge into Tolkenism: the 'tolkenism' page should be sufficient to cover both real-world tolkenism, and token characters in fiction. The word 'tolkenism' can refer to either phenomenon. Terraxos 01:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I did the merge, placing token character in its own section. Breed Zona 16:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Definition is too narrow

Tolkenism refers to making any type of symbolic effort, not just in regards to race. It could just as well be used to describe an ethnic female boss' response towards a white male employee, whose cause she sees as insignificant but requiring some type of action. Article as it stands should be merged with tolken character and a new article should be written using a broader definition.

George W. Bush

Hi I was just wondering if anyone could add information that George W. Bush practices tokenism, since he hired Alberto Gonzales, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, when he is, in fact, a racist. (See Hurricane Katrina)

Bush doesn't control the weather. however, political tokenism, might deserve mention 67.176.160.47 (talk) 04:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

This entire section should be deleted, it is highly offensive and contains absolutely no citations for the ridiculous claims that it makes. If no one objects I will be deleting the George W. Bush segment from this talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.214.65 (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Spelling!

It's spelled T-O-K-E-N or T-O-K-E-N-I-S-M not T-O-L-K-E-N or T-O-L-K-E-N-I-S-M. There's no L in the word! Anywhere! Ever!

Yeah out of interest where did the "tolken" spelling come from ?? Machete97 (talk) 21:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Death

Should it be mentioned that the 'Token Black Guy' is often the only/first member of the protagonist group to die in a number of blockbusters?

I think it should, in many blockbusters the 'Token Black Guy' die, usually he sacrifice himself to save the 'good white couple', and he shoots enemy like a brutal crazy gunner => stereotype of wild black guy with bigs muscles. The sacrifice stereotype is showed in South Park episode "Die Hippie, Die".

Ira Kane: Hey, cool! Snag one!
Harry Block: Snag one?
Ira Kane: Yeah, snag it and put it in the bucket!
Harry Block: No way!
Ira Kane: Come on, it's for science.
Harry Block: I've seen this movie, the black dude dies first. YOU snag it!

from the film evolution Machete97 (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

a citation would be nice, also, listing movies that actually do it would be better, than ones that parody it. of course the reason they are killed off, is they are secondary characters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.160.47 (talk) 04:43, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Token Black

Is Token Black (of South Park fame) really all that notable to the subject? Quite frankly, I think that the reference feels a bit added on, and it doesn't really contribute to understanding of the subject. I therefore suggest that it be removed - I would do it myself, but I feel that I do not have enough experience to make an informed decision on the matter. Does anyone else have any input? 76.71.34.9 (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Opinions presented as Facts

This article is quite POV as it often presents the opinions of a particular author or article as if they were established fact. Most notably it does this with Rosabeth Moss Kanter who is cited endlessly in the Tokenism in the Workplace intro and gender sections, but it also occurs elsewhere and with other authors and articles. The Tokenism in the Workplace section also seems to include interpretation of much of what it is citing, and the Gender section appears to contain original synthesis of Kanter and Williams. I have added a neutrality tag to the Tokenism in the Workplace section and a Original Synthesis tag to the Gender section.--146.90.217.116 (talk) 02:06, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I have added the {{POV-section} and {{Content} tags to this section. The contributor above has outlined several good points and leaves little to be said. This section of the article addresses many points related to gender inequality in the workplace, however this does not tranlate into tokenism. In summary, the neutrality of this section could be disputed and it is certainly not relevant. 49.181.198.33 (talk) 01:45, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the tags. This article was essentially repeating Kanter's works as fact, and not properly attributing her opinions to her. I've removed a lot of the content but more work needs to be done. Appropriate weight needs to be given to different writers. FuriouslySerene (talk) 14:30, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Woody Allen quote

It's hard to tell if he was just relating his experience or making fun of the concept. Anyway I don't think it reflects the typical experience of a person hired as a token. Kitfoxxe (talk) 03:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I took off the joke. It seems to me that it could also be a copyright issue. Do we have the right to reprint people's jokes? Kitfoxxe (talk) 04:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

http://corvette.salemstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=ssc&db=ahl&AN=16371715&site=ehost-live&scope=site#.WD8jYEjLtus.gmail

This article gives a variety of surveys, studies, and scenarios that puts tokenism into play. It relies on showing the reverse discrimination side and how tokenism comes into play by serving people of lower class majority’s and some sort of fragile, and broken cultural faction.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/america-ferrera-breaks-down-the-difference-between-tokenism-and-true-diversity_us_573f1a92e4b045cc9a70b132

This article breaks down the differences between tokenism and diversity. Although, tokenism can be looked at a positive thing by high-class organization, it is actually not true diversity. The casualties among tokenism are the impact between what that one minority can represent as a whole for that one ethnicity perception. Whether it may be stereotypical or not.

http://corvette.salemstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=ssc&db=ahl&AN=9602020679&site=ehost-live&scope=site#.WD8l-CG_cwQ.gmail

This article represents tokenism in the workplace. It expresses how token workers, that are extracted strictly from affirmative action may experience work stress and psychological symptoms. Proportional impact on gender and race is important to keep a healthy environment for the non-minority, and minorities

http://corvette.salemstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=ssc&db=ahl&AN=57425477&site=ehost-live&scope=site#.WD8FGDqnonw.gmail

This article shows the experience among the female and African American male tokens in in a specific setting, Examining minorities as a segregated group, shows the relation of the status-based group being excluded from perceived image of the ideal worker.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/nov/12/radio.raceintheuk Released from TheGuardian, this article shows how Minorities accuse TV and radio of tokenism in the media. Not only tokenism, but also racial stereotypes and simplistic portrayals of said minorities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Demiranda23 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Tokenism can be looked at a positive attribute by high-class organization; it is actually not true diversity. The casualties among tokenism are the impacts between what that one minority can represent as a whole for that one ethnicity perception. Whether a token character may be stereotypical or not, tokenism can initiate a whole biased perceived sense of thought that that may conflict with how people objectify a specific race, culture, gender, or ethnicity. Tokenism in the workplace Can express how token workers, that are extracted strictly from affirmative action may experience work stress and psychological symptoms. Proportional impact on gender and race is important to keep a healthy environment for the non-minority, and minorities.1.With work experience and among the female and African American male tokens in a specific setting. Examining the minorities as a segregated group and shows the relation of the status-based group being excluded from perceived image of the ideal worker. 2.

Christian De MIRANDA. MEDIA Literacy, Prof. Vincent Abstract: Tokenism in the workplace and the media.