Tokenism, what is it and how does it affect health? Expert’s perspective.

It takes a toll on our mental health when diversity and inclusion are achieved in this way.

2020 has been an eye-opening year for most of us, majority of people have started realizing that it is important to undergo self-evaluation and set their priorities and goals straight, equality has also been a significant matter in this year especially after the ‘Black Live Matter’ campaign initiated due to a brutal and ignorant death of late George Floyd, people all around the world are rooting for this cause and it is starting to develop a new perspective of ‘equality’.

What is Tokenism?

In general terms, tokenism is just for the names and appearance’s sake, to put it in a perspective, tokenism is like including someone based on simply showing and sounding diverse. A group of white people inviting a black person simply to look diverse is tokenism. Tokenism initiates when a dominant group views the minority as recessive and includes them for the sake of pretending to be diverse, because of their perspective towards equality. Here the black person is not seen as an individual but is assumed to represent the whole black community. Hence tokenism is not a healthy approach for equal representation and is even harmful to social conduct.

This doesn’t end in just small groups, but the media also follows a similar practice of tokenism by inviting an individual of a minority and expecting them to represent their whole community only because the media feels they have to. However that’s not the healthy approach, instead, if the perspective was to approach them equally by pursuing them individually, not based on their skin colour or place of origin, then it would be truly diverse. The same happens in politics as well when a person from the minority is given a seat simply to appear diverse. 

How does this affect mental health? 

When the individual is made to feel that they are responsible for representing their whole community and made to realize that their inclusion is solely based on appearance’s sake, they start doubting themselves and their self-worth and go under a perpetual discomfort due to the very little to no significance they receive just because of their origin or skin colour even though it wasn’t their choice. Whenever next time they are invited to any group or event they are left hanging in confusion and self-doubt about whether they actually care or it’s simply tokenism. 

Over to you:

Tokenism is a mentally disturbing practice of including minorities just for pretending to be diverse irrespective of their true motives. This takes a toll on the mind of the said minority leaving them in a state of self-doubt and confusion. Not only small scale groups but media and politics also practice tokenism not for equality but for pretending to be diverse. This practice should stop and people should be accounted for individually, not based on their colour or origin.