The Token Is Not Protection

There is a particular lie that racism tells itself in America, and it sounds like this:

“I can’t be racist. I have a Black friend.”

“I date people of color.”

“You’re not like the others—you’re one of the good ones.”

This lie is called tokenism, and it is not the absence of prejudice; it is one of its most insidious disguises.

Tokenism allows white people to maintain racist ideologies while pointing to a person of color as evidence that those ideologies do not exist. The token becomes a prop. A shield. A citation. Not a human being. I know this because I have been the token.

“One of the Good Ones” Is Not a Compliment

When someone tells a person of color that they are “one of the good ones,” what they are really saying is this “You are acceptable because you do not challenge my worldview.” The implication is clear. There is a “bad” category…loud, angry, ungrateful, stereotypical…and you have been temporarily spared inclusion in it. Temporarily.

Acceptance that depends on silence is not acceptance. It is conditional tolerance.

I’ve been praised for being “articulate.” I’ve been told I speak “good English.” I’ve been assumed to share religious beliefs I do not hold. I’ve been “adopted” into white spaces and told implicitly and explicitly that proximity to whiteness would offer safety.

It doesn’t.

Tokenism does not protect you from systemic oppression, racial profiling, or micro-aggressions. It simply delays the moment when the mask slips.

When the Mask Slipped

Recently a man I had dated reached out to follow me again with another new account on one of my social media accounts. I had so wonder to myself; why? Years ago, I dated a man (white) who appeared intelligent, progressive, and open-minded until I tried to speak about my lived experience as a person of color.

On Thanksgiving, he invited me to meet his daughter and friends; I was excited. Instead of introducing me by my name or as his partner, he announced “Hey guys, I brought a real Indian, so unlike everyone else, we’re going to have a real Thanksgiving.”

The room went silent.

In that moment, something sweet became terrifying. History rushed in. I thought, I might actually be in danger. His daughter and a friend intervened immediately; they understood how wrong it was. He did not understand but he could have; and it was never important to him to understand. Me being me, I had to ask so the next day, I asked him how he “knew” I was Native. His answer was casual, dismissive “Oh, I’ve dated one before.” (I’m mixed by the way but I do not advertise what my mixture is or care; I am as how someone identifies me as and how they treat me because of it). I was not a person. I was a collectible.

When strangers stared at us with open hostility, I held his arm tighter out of concern. His response? “No one is racist anymore. That stuff doesn’t happen.” I’m sorry what? Racism and micro aggressions don’t happen anymore? He said this confidently. Comfortably. As someone who had never had to notice. He told me my reality wasn’t real. Maybe education and enlightenment is a possibility here, sure there’s no future for us but maybe the world could be better if I can educate him.

Gaslighting as Privilege

One of the most psychological violent acts of privilege is telling someone that what they are experiencing does not exist. When I tried to explain colorism that darker skin often receives harsher treatment; he dismissed it. When I explained passing versus non-passing, he argued as if my grandmother didn’t have stories like being allowed to use a bathroom when her own blood would not be permitted into the same space as a child. When I spoke about systemic oppression, he minimized it. Then came the conversation that ended any everything because I couldn’t deal with his uneducated unsafe space anymore; because if he won’t acknowledge it he won’t protect from it.

We were talking about Ghost in the Shell and Scarlett Johansson’s casting. I explained that the character, Motoko Kusanagi, is Japanese and that casting an Asian lead mattered. I was discussing how representation for all people of color not just Mickey Rooney stereotypes or blackface or the ghetto black guy whose ghetto because of system oppression or the Spanish speaking person has an accent; we needed more and that character was Japanese.

He argued the character was white and round eyed; so therefore they could not be Japanese. I’m sorry what!? Did you and I watch the same anime? Do you not know or understand the style of anime!? Be calm, try again…when I pointed out the name which is undeniably Japanese; he said “We tried using your people. Nobody wants to watch that.”

That sentence didn’t come from ignorance.

It came from entitlement.

I walked out of the restaurant.

The Workplace Token

Tokenism doesn’t stop at only relationships or friendships; it also thrives in professional spaces.

I’ve had bosses insist they weren’t prejudiced while positioning me beside them in meetings like proof. I’ve worked jobs where all lower-tier positions were filled by Black and Brown workers, while management remained entirely white. We were promised promotions. We worked hard. We excelled. We were never promoted. Meanwhile, people with no experience often known personally by management were hired and elevated within weeks. When loyalty eroded, leadership claimed confusion.

But we understood. We were never meant to advance. We were meant to decorate.

“Tokenism allows white people to maintain racist ideologies while pointing to a person of color as evidence that those ideologies do not exist. The token becomes a prop. A shield. A citation. Not a human being. I know this because I have been the token.

When Whiteness Is Used as a Threat

There was a woman who insisted she adored me as a coworker/friend. She spoke often about how much she liked me, how comfortable she felt around me, how “different” I was. One day, I overheard her retelling a story about hitting another car. She admitted she was at fault. She had hit another vehicle. The other driver, a Black woman, did exactly what she was supposed to do and she asked for insurance information; she did not want to and argued so. The Black woman tried her best with her; even she stated so and instead of exchanging information, she woman told this woman “I’ll call the cops. Which one of us do you think they’re going to believe about who’s at fault?”

She used her whiteness as a weapon. She got back into her car and drove away. There were no repercussions. No follow-up. No consequences. Years later, her license was intact. Her car was fine. Her record clean. She would never tell me that story. She whispered it to other white coworkers to teach them how to handle certain situations and whether they agreed or not, their silence was complicit. And yet, she would still tell people how much she loved me. This is what tokenism actually looks like in practice.

Not ignorance but strategy.

She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew the risk she was invoking. She knew that the presence of law enforcement would not be neutral and she leveraged that knowledge against a woman she had already wronged.

Her fondness for me did not make her less racist.

It made her more comfortable being racist elsewhere especially because no white person around her ever told her it was wrong. Their silence did not remain neutral; it functioned as approval. When a person of color speaks up, our objection is immediately dismissed as bias as “taking another person of color’s side” or “making it about race.” But when white people say nothing, that silence is interpreted as confirmation that her behavior is acceptable.

“I Can’t Be Racist, My Wife Is Mexican”

I recently watched a video of a white janitor arguing aggressively with a Black history teacher. She cited law and fact. He ranted about immigrants.

Then it came out his wife is Mexican. An immigrant. But she was “one of the good ones,” so she was allowed to stay. This is tokenism distilled to its purest form because your humanity is conditional. Your worth is negotiable. Another person could look at her the way he’s looking at other “immigrants”; for the record he kept referring to them as “illegals” and i refuse to describe immigrants migrating to America as “illegals”.

Why I Stopped Trying to Educate

I believe that education can and could fix this. That if I explained patiently enough, clearly enough, compassionately enough, something would click. I tried to light candles with my own flame. Eventually, I burned out.

Because education requires willingness and many people don’t want understanding. They want absolution. They want to keep their power without confronting its cost.

I let people show me who they are and believe them when they do.

Why He Reached Out? Who knows…

Years after we stopped speaking, that ex followed me on social media. No message. No apology. I had wondered if it was the news. The rise of neo-Nazis. The rollback of DEI. The normalization of racial profiling. The violence. I wondered if he finally realized that the things I tried to explain were not paranoia. Not personality traits. Not exaggerations. Not me making being black as a personality trait or “Indian” as he said…Or maybe he was just checking in on a token he once knew. I will never know and do not care to know…I blocked him.

What I do know is this…Dating us. Befriending us. Working alongside us does not absolve prejudice. If you still believe some people are “the good ones,” then you still believe others are disposable.

And for people of color no amount of proximity to whiteness or assimilation will ever make that safe.