Aibu to be confused between tokenism and diversity?

[Twinning1]

I read a review recently of “everywhere bear”. For those not familiar this is a Julia Donaldson book for kids, and it’s very popular in our house. We love JD and own most of her books!

One comment said that they didn’t like the book because of tokenism. The book has an Asian character and “a token person of colour” and the person who left the comment felt that the book was damaging to children. I literally had no idea and didn’t get that vibe when I have read it (many times).

I don’t agree personally and love the book but it got me thinking about the difference between tokenism and diversity and to be honest I’m not clear! Aibu to think the two could easily be confused... especially in literature and tv etc.

I suspect this might reflect somewhat where you live and what your experience is.
If you are from one of the many areas of the country where the overwhelming majority of the population around you are white, you might think that books / films / TV having 'a person of colour' as our American friends would say, a bit odd and 'tokenism'. If, OTOH, you live in a more multicultural area, you might fine it odd how difficult it is to pick up any visual images that reflect society around you. For me, I can't believe how difficult it is to pick up a child's birthday card that doesn't have a white skinned, blonde haired girl on it.
I really think this is about your day to day reflection of what society looks like, more than anything else.

Intent, that’s the difference.

The thing about privilege is, that most of the time you are unaware of being a beneficiary of it, that’s the privilege.

I don’t have the answer, but to add to the question, the children in the nursery in Balamory are way more diverse in ethnicity than you might expect for a remote Scottish village. Is that tokenism or diversity?

I’d guess diversity as the programme is aimed at children who might recognise the diversity as being like their own community, without any knowledge of how ethnic diversity varies in different communities.

Tokenism is making sure you have one woman every week on a panel show with six panellists.
Diversity is having equal numbers of men and women over the course of the whole series.

Tokenism is making sure you have one non-white person in your advertising campaign.
Diversity is including people from many different ethnic backgrounds.

Tokenism is doing the minimum to prove you aren't monochrome. Diversity is including people across all kinds of categories because they are people.

Oh also, tokenism: when you have female characters but they always get raped and/or killed.
Diversity: when the women are just as likely to be the investigator as the victim.

‘Tokenism’ is what people with privilege call diversity.

Tokenism differs from diversity in that it often means a given character has no personality/character traits /story arc that aren't about their minority status.

Eg: including a gay character whose only plot line was about coming out and had no personality besides "being gay". Or a Muslim character who only ever talked about matters connected to their religion. Or a female character whose only function in the plot was as a love interest or to get pregnant /have an abortion /be sexually assaulted, etc.

It's about including a character who is less an actual human and more just a symbol of a societal issue - ie : a "token"