25 sure-fire ways to tokenize and alienate!
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Funny observations from Colours of Resistance’s list of “25 ways to tokenize or alienate a non-white person around you.” Click over to read the full list.
1. walk up to that black girl you barely know in the co-op and say “what do you think of the new (insert hip-hop artist here) album.”…
5. go up to the Makah woman at the unlearning racism workshop and say “I saw a program about Crazy Horse on PBS, he did alot for your people.”…
16. pit light-skinned non-white people against each other based on how they identify racially and what you think is most correct…
24. if you see a black man speak about racism, say “he was so angry–but very articulate.”…
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Susan Ayoob wrote:
It seems like a lot of the instances here are drawn from the activist community- there’s a lot of mention of organizing workshops and conferences, but most of them are dead-on. When a multiracial person tells you their heritage, do not do not say what an awesome mix!
Posted 09 Nov 2006 at 11:55 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Susan: dead on.
Snappy comebacks would be something along the line of, “Oh yeah, imagine if I were X and Y, that would just SUCK!”
Posted 10 Nov 2006 at 12:32 am ¶