Tokenism

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An example of racial tokenism. Note how there is only one person with dark skin in the photo.

Tokenism is the term used to describe the act of putting a person of a minority group (called a "token character") into something for the sole purpose of trying to be seen as inclusive to that minority group. This is often done only to avoid controversy, with little or no effort being put in to give said person a role other than being there to represent a minority. A "token character" is normally a woman or person of color, while other common examples include people with disabilities, different religions, different body types, or different political stances. Stereotypes are commonly used to portray token characters.