Week 9
Through out history, its been in the best interest of majority groups to place minorities into groups that look outlandish and weird, so that those within the majority can treat them poorly as to not upset the status quo. This has almost always failed as people see the humanity in others that was forced out of them by their own government, through eugenics.(U.S. Scientists’ Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist’s Perspective, n.d.)
This resulted in tokenism, or the act of helping a person within one of these groups as to appear avoid critique from ones own group. For example, if I had a band and we were critiqued for not having any minority members then out of nowhere, I just found some random person to "represent" that particular community? That would be tokenism and its harmful as it only encourages one aspect of a group, typically a stereotypical aspect, to be portrayed in a group. This is done to appeal to what they think will appeal to the minority group but since the appeal is based on a stereotype, it doesn't stick quite as well. It also doesn't help when these people hired are tossed aside when their tokenism is no longer useful, as Minh-ha points out. So what is the solution? Simply don't hire black people and avoid the hassle? No, hire more than one minority of any specific group and listen to what they have to say, as not every person is the same and you may get different answers on an issue depending on who you talk to. This allows the programming to be a truly diverse and enriching experience. Keeping them on will further both your understanding and the audiences. It's critical, especially in the modern era, to have a diverse staff of people to create a program. There are few examples where in the representation is considered offensive to those not involved with the minority group the character is targeted towards. See for example, Speedy Gonazales from Looney Toons wherein many Mexican people had no issues with the character, yet several white Americans speaking on behalf of a culture they weren't a part of, did. (Speedy Gonzales’ Relationship With The Hispanic Community | HuffPost, 2013)
Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Difference: "A Special Third World Women Issue," 1986-7
I agree with your solution to avoiding using tokenism is by hiring more than one minority and actually listening to what they are saying. Tokenism is very real and is still being used today. Do you think that is because eugenics has not gone away, and some people still hold the beliefs they are better than a person based on their ethnicity? Even though they can see their humanity doesn’t mean they think they are qualified or sophisticated enough to represent themselves or now is just based off of pure racism?
ReplyDeleteEugenics doesn't use the same terms as before, but it is still very active in our current society. Dog whistling is a dangerous tactic that has been used by many political parties to further their agenda and creates people who are more open with their ethno scientific beliefs. They see their humanity they just don't want to as they need a person to blame for their problems.
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