“You feel like a tool, like a literal tool, rather than a valued and integral contributor,” Jones says.
Monica Walker, a current advisor to the Racial Equity Institute, has faced tokenism to one degree or another throughout her career.
According to Jones, operating from a value of inclusion is not enough because that value is still underpinned by an often unnamed power dynamic. Instead, it’s essential to operate from a value of interdependence rather than inclusion alone.
Promoting interdependence allows space for more perspectives and for new ideas about how to improve, whether it be a company’s culture or its bottom line.
History and Power
“The one thing that never gets examined is the arrangement of power and how the arrangement of that power is often far more supportive of whites who come into the systems,” Walker says, noting that failing to rectify inherently racist structures in corporate settings creates spaces where people from underrepresented groups can’t thrive and, therefore, may leave, effectively undoing any progress being made in the first place.
“How do we change the constituency of our organizations but not look at the historical understanding of why they were set up in the first place?” Walker asks. “One of the worst things we can do is to just start with trying to address those [issues] and not looking at how they happen.”
“It isn’t like we’re multi-generations removed from Jim Crow. My mom grew up and drank from colored only water fountains,” Aja Taylor, a co-founder of Two Brown Girls, says. “If you think about the fact that Black people were capital, Black people were currency, what does it mean for industries that were built on inherent racism?”
“Tokenism is a product of our society, the way our society views people of color, the way our society views women, the way our society views any marginalized person … it’s like trying to plant a garden without removing the weeds first.”
“We sent Black children into schools where people hated them. We sent Black children into schools where their education reinforced and held supreme the accomplishments and values of white men historically,” Jones says. “Unless we get in and ask questions around how folks are experiencing changes in policy and changes in practices, we won’t fully grasp the impact of whatever statements or beliefs organization have declared for themselves.”
While individual organizations can’t change the makeup of society at large, they can work to improve their own structures. To do so effectively, major internal assessments must be carried out and significant changes must be implemented at every level.
“Where some systems are struggling right now is with recognition that this has to permeate throughout the entirety of our system, every place. Because guess where those disparities and inequities show up? Everywhere,” Walker says.
“Expecting someone who is negatively impacted by this system and by these inequities to lead the work, and to do it on top of existing work, is inherently unfair and inherently unjust,” Taylor says, encouraging companies to set out plans of action with clear goals and metrics, something that should come easily to most firms, especially those in financial services.
