Tokens
TW: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Hinduphobia
Screenshot Token Black, later called “Tolkien” Black, a character in the animated TV series South Park.
Image description: A color picture of an animated child character in an adult TV series. The child has dark skin, dark hair, is wearing a puce top with a giant “T” on it. He is shown standing with a white and grey checked background.
I first published the text below in a Twitter thread on June 10 2023. I’m republishing it here, edited for typos and clarity and with additions.
What is a token? A token is a person who comes from a marginalized identity and is uplifted by people with power to the detriment of marginalized people.
Justice Clarence Thomas - token
"Mahatma" Gandhi - token
Jawaharlal Nehru - token
Kamala Harris - token
Tokens are not only in positions of governmental power.
They are in NGOs.
They are in community orgs.
They are in political parties.
They are in workplaces.
They are the one person from their community in that space. The one Black person. The one queer or trans person. The one cis woman. The one Asian. And on and on.
Many tokens think that by accessing power through their privileged benefactors, they can somehow help their own people. If they are genuine, they find out quickly that their assumption was incorrect when they are kicked out for trying to help their own people.
Tokens who are not genuine about helping their own people quickly become corrupt (if they were not corrupt from the beginning). They are not to be trusted because the difference between “almost corrupt” and “definitely corrupt” is very little.
Some tokens begin their journey as genuine people and become corrupt. They are some of the most dangerous tokens because they believe that their compromises and bad decisions were somehow necessary to help their people. They ignore how their actions have hurt their people.
A token is always dangerous, however, because a token gives the people with power an ability to say "See? We're not racist / sexist / homophobic / transphobic / Hinduphobic / etc." Having a token in their ranks means that they can pretend they are not the problem.
Uplifting a token also means that the people with power can use the token's influence to divide and conquer that community. Some in the token's community will think the token is helping the community. Others will recognize the harm being caused. Both sides argue with each other.
The division over the status of the token is then used as a distraction to ensure that the targeted community never confront those in power, they simply fight over their token's conditional access to power and influence.
More examples of tokens:
Barack Obama
Ro Khanna
AOC
Andrew Yang
Tokens may criticize their own people, not to help their people, but to distract them from fighting those in power. This causes even more internal divisions and confusion. The people in power therefore win.
In order to maintain access to power and influence, a token must go along with the expected standards of their benefactors. This means:
They must attack their own people (spread hate).
They must employ respectability politics (be polite to their benefactors).
They must follow their benefactors' "morality" (endless war).
They must give their benefactors access to their culture (eg. yoga).
There are many ways tokens protect those with privilege to ensure that the token doesn't lose access to influence and power. All of this ensures that the balance of power is never changed. The token's benefactor goes unchallenged while using the token to seem "progressive".
This is how the systems of oppression work:
Tokens are used so white people look like they're not racist.
Tokens are used so men seem like they're not sexist.
Tokens are used so Abrahamics seem like they're not Hinduphobic.
And on and on.
Tokens ensure that the systems of oppression continue. People look at tokens and think: "They made it. They count as real people. I can make it too. I just have to work hard." They don't see that if a token tries to genuinely help their own people, they will be kicked out.
Tokens are never seen as real people by the people in power. They are tools who are used to control the population. They are weapons against their own people. And here's the truth: All tokens know they are tokens, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Never trust a token. Below is a video of me talking about how I am not the social justice community's Hindu token. I will not cover up their Hinduphobia or protect them from the truth of their bigotry against my people:
Guess what happened after I said I was not their token? Many of my so called "friends" in the social justice community stopped being my friends.
That’s how it works.
The systems of oppression don’t change, they just rebrand. One of the ways they rebrand is with tokens. The moment the brand changes, they drop the token.
Think carefully about whether or not you are guilty of tokenizing others. Even marginalized people can tokenize other marginalized people. Years ago, when I was part of a group of women activists, we were told by a well wisher that we needed to add a dark-skinned woman to our group because we all happened to be lighter skinned brown and Black women. I flatly refused to do that because I was offended by the idea that we should tokenize a dark-skinned woman by going out and looking specifically for one to add to our group.
Also think carefully about whether or not you might be someone’s token — deep down, you know the truth. If you are a token, get out of that situation and don’t worry about whether or not you’ll lose friends. They were never your friends and those who are your friends will support you in escaping tokenization and be there for you in the fall out. So be free.
Some Tokens:
Barack Obama
Barack Obama militarized US police. He campaigned against the Iraq war and then started 5 wars as President. He also attacked the nation’s youth who, during his presidency, risked their lives confronting policy brutality. He said that the youth—who worked to bring about prison reform, labored to set up community gardens and mutual aid organizations, and helped each other through many crises that Barack Obama was part of creating—as people who didn’t understand activism. Obama had the audacity to talk about the very youth he failed in such a derogatory way. He got away with it because he is a Black token who protected the imperialist system for all the years he was president of the USA.
Screenshot Barack Obama, first Black President of the United States of America.
Image description: Black background with heading in white font that reads: “Barack Obama takes on 'woke' call-out culture: 'That's not activism' – video”. Below is a color picture of Obama sitting on a cushioned grey seat, wearing a black suit and white shirt with dark stripes. He has brown skin, short greying hair, and two horizontal lines on his forehead. He is holding up a microphone in one hand and gesturing outwards with his other hand. Below is a caption in white font that reads: “The former US president Barack Obama has spoken against call-out culture. 'I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people ... that the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that's enough.' Obama said that achieving change was a much more difficult issue than simply using social media. 'That is not activism, that is not bringing about change. If all you're doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far,' the 44th US president said at the third Obama Foundation summit on Tuesday.” Below that is the date of the article: “Wed 30 Oct 2019”.
Dr. Rachel Levine
Dr. Rachel Levine was heralded as the first openly transgender four-star admiral in US history. She was appointed by President Biden.
These are some current US wars and conflicts that Dr. Rachel Levine is part of managing as a high-ranking officer in the US armed forces:
Afghanistan
Iraq
Iran
Syria
Somalia
Ethiopia
Uganda
Burundi
Kenya
Yemen
Ukraine
What do you think life is like for transgender people in a war zone? It’s hell. Actual hell. But don’t worry, Dr. Rachel Levine can put some rainbow flags on the US bombs she drops on these countries.
Screenshot Rachel Levine, Biden’s transgender token uplifting imperialism and endless war.
Image description: A white trans person (Dr. Rachel Levine) wearing an official armed forces black uniform with gold on the cuffs and multiple medals and gold badges on the breast of the jacket. She wears a white shirt beneath and has her grey hair parted at the middle and tied back. She is wearing black rimmed glassed and a paper mask. She is holding her right hand up while her left hand in placed on a book during a swearing in ceremony. Behind her is a blue background and multiple flags of the armed forces in blue, gold, and black. Below picture is text in black font on a white background that reads:
“The US assistant secretary for health has been sworn in as the first transgender four-star officer in the country's history.// Dr Rachel Levine, 63, is now an admiral of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.// Dr Levine, appointed by President Joe Biden, is already the highest-ranking openly transgender official in the US.// She described the occasion as "momentous" and "historic" during a swearing-in speech on Tuesday.”
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
Progressive hero AOC made waves for her desire to “bring the ruckus” to the Democrat Party when she was first elected in 2018. She went to the border to see the crisis for herself (kids in cages) and cried in front of cameras because she was so upset by the conditions there. She also introduced climate legislation called the Green New Deal (it was a resolution and not a bill). She just endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2024, even though, according to activist Nick Cruse, Biden has already funded ICE $6 billion more than Trump ever did. Biden also rubber stamps approval for fracking and opened up Arctic drilling with the Willow project.
Screenshot AOC’s infamous “tax the rich” dress at the Met Gala, an event for the elite with tickets that cost $35,000. It later came out that the designer of the dress owed thousands in unpaid taxes and had refused to pay her interns.
Image description: A light brown skinned woman (AOC) standing at the top of a staircase facing the stairs with her back to the camera. She has dark hair and is wearing a white figure hugging designer dress with “tax the rich” written on the back in shiny red font. Below is a crowd of richly dressed people in expensive suits and dresses.
AOC was vocal in protesting the war with Iran that Trump’s MIC advisors tried to begin. She just endorsed for the second time warmonger Biden who has continued to increase the military budget and brought the USA to the brink of WWIII with Russia over Ukraine.
The list of AOC’s betrayals is a mile long. Go ahead and do a search of them. Look up “Force the vote”, “rail workers strike”, “universal healthcare”, “Mama bear”, “Capital police funding”, “military recruitment of brown youth”, “expanding NATO”, “CARES act”, and much more.
Because AOC, Dr. Rachel Levine, Barack Obama and all the other tokens are supporting warmonger Joe Biden, these are just some of the upcoming wars you can look forward to:
Russia
Taiwan
China
North Korea
WWIII
As if wars are entertainment, the Council of Foreign Relations (a warmongering think tank of imperialists) published a piece in January 2023 entitled “Conflicts to Watch in 2023”. The map below was in that piece. Barack Obama, Dr. Rachel Levine, and AOC are part of uplifting all these wars and conflicts.
Enjoy your entertainment:
Screenshot Council of Foreign Relation’s exciting map predicting war and conflict in many places around the world.
Image description: A world map with a heading at the top in black font that reads: “Top Conflicts to Watch in 2023. The background is white. Countries are shown in shades of grey. The darker shades of grey countries are also shown with round red, orange, or yellow dot markers. The countries with no dot markers are light grey. In the bottom left is a key that shows red dots are “High Priority”, orange dots are “Medium Priority”, and yellow dots are “Low Priority”. “High Priority” conflicts are in Russia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Mexico and Central America. “Medium Priority” conflicts are in eastern Europe (Greece and Turkey), the South China Sea, Venezuela, and the Middle East (Israel/Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan). “Low Priority” conflicts are all over Africa (Libya, Sahel, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Mozambique), Haiti, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Baltic states (Armenia, and Azerbaijan), and eastern Europe (Turkey, Kosovo and Serbia).
Screenshot Mint Press News’s graphic illustrating the absurdity of celebrating women and trans people leading US imperialism under the Biden administration.
Image description: On the left is a cartoon showing two brown skinned people standing in front of brown moutains under a sky that is filled with clouds and drones dropping bombs. The first person (left) has short black hair and is wearing a red shirt. The second person (right) is dressed in a green hijab speech. The first person’s speech caption says: “They say they next ones will be sent by a woman!”. The second person’s speech caption says: “Really makes you feel like you’re part of history.” On the left is two drones, one on top of the others. The drone on top is labled “Republicans” and is shown dropping bombs. The drone below is labeled Democrats, has a Black Lives Matter sign at the front, a Yes We Can sign behind the wings, and a rainbow flag on the tail of the drone, and is shown dropping bombs.