Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The policy of making only a perfunctory effort or symbolic gesture toward the accomplishment of a goal, such as racial integration.
- noun The practice of hiring or appointing a token number of people from underrepresented groups in order to deflect criticism or comply with affirmative action rules.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A policy of
formally complying with efforts to achieve agoal by making small,token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Among other things, it limits (obviously) SNL's ability to successfully represent public figures, and this tokenism is a perennial problem at SNL, which has six different faces to match to white male public figures, but must force black characters into the oeuvre of a single actor.
SeeLight: 2008
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Among other things, it limits (obviously) SNL's ability to successfully represent public figures, and this tokenism is a perennial problem at SNL, which has six different faces to match to white male public figures, but must force black characters into the oeuvre of a single actor.
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However, it is a societal problem and will need bottom-top solutions rather than tokenism, which is the case right now.
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"I don't think you have to shy away from the idea of tokenism," she told the Washington Post in 1977, soon after being confirmed by the Senate as commerce secretary.
First Female Commerce Secretary Was Bureaucratic Infighter 2010
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Though I hate the idea of tokenism it does come to that at times.
Science, Education & Society: Are you being included in the scientific audience? The Urban Scientist 2008
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At first blush the selection of West to keynote the conference smacked of the kind of tokenism that some thought was in play when the GOP selected Michael Steele to chair the party.
Mark Joseph: Conservative Confab Produces An Unlikely Contender Mark Joseph 2011
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I felt very off my game as the workshop usually starts with us spending a bunch of time defining terms like "tokenism" and "appropriation" and having already started late and it being Wiscon I felt that wasn't necessary at all.
Where I Been, Doing Stuff. karenhealey 2010
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At first blush the selection of West to keynote the conference smacked of the kind of tokenism that some thought was in play when the GOP selected Michael Steele to chair the party.
Mark Joseph: Conservative Confab Produces An Unlikely Contender Mark Joseph 2011
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The kind of tokenism you lament in #2 was rampant in my experience, as new music organizations scrambled to get women and people of color on grant panels, boards, focus groups, etc. to “represent” their imagined constituencies even though the people inviting them were really not looking for anything in the music itself that was gendered or racially tinged in any way.
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Fact is, Bush's statement - while carefully scripted - shows not only his absolute racism, but also the degree of "tokenism" Rice and Powell accepted with their appointments.
vendingmachine commented on the word tokenism
Tokenism entails making cursory strides toward diversity and inclusion. The recruitment of Black candidates merely to achieve a metric undermines the applicant’s academic value and dismisses the difficulty associated with navigating medicine as a member of an underrepresented minority group. Awareness of tokenism and of the ways in which it can lead to depression, burnout, attrition, and a minority tax — extra responsibility placed on underrepresented minorities with a goal of achieving diversity — is warranted as early as interview day. A clear demonstration of efforts to recruit, retain, support, and promote Black applicants better illustrates dedication to diversity in medicine.
November 14, 2020