Season 7 Episode # 23 From Tokenism to True Inclusion

 In this episode, Jebeh breaks down the difference between surface-level representation and meaningful inclusion. You’ll hear real-world examples, actionable strategies, and the cultural competency mindset shifts needed to move beyond checking boxes. Whether you’re an educator, leader, or advocate, you’ll walk away with tools to foster environments where everyone truly belongs. 

COME SAY Hey!!

Instagram: @cultrallyjebeh_

Facebook: @JebehCulturalConsulting

Pinterest: @Jebeh Cultural Consulting

LinkedIn: @Jebeh Cultural Consulting

Leave a Review on our Podcast! We value your feedback!

Follow our Blog

Enroll In Our Mini Courses
Buy My eBook: Empowering Your BIPOC Students

Enroll In My Digital Course: How To Be A Culturally Competent Leader

Buy My K-12 Lesson Plans

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Enjoy the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast? Share the love! Refer a friend to Buzzsprout and both you and your friend will enjoy exclusive benefits. Click the link...

Transcript

0:36

Welcome back to the Cultural Curriculum Chat. I'm your host, Jebeh Edmunds educator diversity, equity and inclusion consultant, and your guide to building communities where everyone belongs. Today we're diving into a topic that makes some people squirm. But it's absolutely necessary to talk about from tokenism to true inclusion, transforming your organization. Now, before we get started. You might be new to the podcast, and I wanted to let you know I'm not only just a podcast host, honey. I also wrote my first novella and it comes out October 16th, and the novella is titled The Orange Blossom. It's a Liberian American soapy opera book that you would love to curl in with your hot coffee. Or if you wanna read it on the beach, it's all good. It's like jollof rice with a little spice, and I can't wait for you to purchase the book. It comes out October 16th, and you can get all the details on my website@jebbaedmonds.com. So let's get back into defining what tokenism actually is. Tokenism is when an organization makes a symbolic effort to appear diverse. Hiring maybe one person of color or somebody from a different marginalized group like the one, and only by featuring that one person from a marginalized group in their marketing or inviting one voice to be at the table only, but never really giving them the power or the influence. It's that check in the box mentality. And while it may look good on paper, it leaves people feeling unseen, unheard, and often completely burnt out. Now, when we are talking about tokenism, I want you to think about if you've ever felt tokenized, either at work or at a community function, they usually come to you and go, Hey Jeb, what do you think about this situation? But then they don't ask your friend or your other colleague about the same situation or I've heard, oh, we wanna get the black perspective, or we wanna get the African notion of what this subject is. You know, I see you wear your hair like this, but Fatou doesn't wear her hair like that and you're from the same country. Like, how does that work? That's also is tokenizing by. Pitting people against each other as well. Now, when we talking about tokenism and feeling completely burnt out, a lot of people of color and others that have been marginalized in their workforce. Are burnt out because they constantly have to code switch. They constantly have to, um, navigate the room by saying, well, why am I even here at this meeting? Or Why am I even doing this particular project? It has nothing to do with my job description. Or, why don't I get the credit for something that I did? Because you wanted my quote unquote perspective, and it leaves a big emotional tax on a person. You know, their mental health suffers because they're constantly the spokesperson for that particular group. Um, and usually when we talk about tokens and tokenization, you know, tokens get spent either by their own, uh, mental health or by. Being pushed aside in their own organization as well. So the impact of tokenism hurts both individuals and the organization. You know, for individuals it creates isolation, pressure to represent a whole entire group. So many of us feel like we're not a monolith, but why do you want me to represent that particular identity that I carry? And for an organization, it creates that false sense of progress. See, we hired her. Or we hired him to do this position. Now we wanna do how many more? Oh, you know, I think we can do as much as we can, and we are diverse. If we're counting our diversity, we're not diverse enough. For, you know, an organization to have that false sense of progress, leadership thinks, okay, we're done. We got Jeb in the office, we have her to do all the things. So when it's Black History Month, we'll go to Jeb to get all the resources that we need to get. Or, we did that initiative we hired outside of our usual group because we have Jebba here. So those things, you know, makes you feel like you didn't. You don't feel like you are going for this opportunity based on your own, expertise and the, and the knowledge and the education that you, you carry, it's, oh, we got somebody that looks like Jeb, that works here. We don't need anybody else because, you know, we're not in a diverse thinking, thinking, oh, she's just gonna cover all of the groups that, um, we need her to do. And that too is very harmful, when you are representing your organization and there is only. Um, I call it like a sprinkle of people of different walks of life, but that's the only group, that's the only, individual numbers of people. Um, your clients also see that as well, be it on your social media, that same particular person is still on all the things or your, ad campaigns up. That same group of individuals still there, and they might not even be in the company anymore, but. Your likeness is still there to show that false narrative of, oh yeah, we're diverse. Look at our website, but that person hasn't worked in your organization for like 20 years, but you've got her still, or you got him still on your website to show that false narrative that you are progressing when you're not. I've talked about defining what tokenism is and what that really looks like, sounds like and feels like, and the impact, the negative impact of tokenism that we need to think about from tokenism. How do we become that truly inclusive workplace? Because so many of us don't wanna fall into that trap of tokenism. So I always say you've got these three big steps, representation. And power representation is only one step. So when you really wanna be that truly inclusive workforce, you need to make sure that those voices that are represented are also making decisions, and they have decision making roles, and they have influence. Your workforce. I'm not sitting here to be at the table, just to be the place setting. Okay. I'm here to help talk and have those decision making conversations, and talk about moving our organization forward, not just to be a figurehead per se. And you also need to have that culture shift. Your policies, your language, and your everyday practices need to reflect diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's not just a one person job, it's everyone's responsibilities. And don't be deterred by what is going on in our landscape right now. That always shifts and ebbs and flows from the beginning of time. We're just continuing to keep moving forward. And thirdly, continuous learning. You need to make sure that your organizations stay truly inclusive. They're always learning and unlearning and adapting to things within your. Sphere. And by doing so, you might be thinking, okay, where do we start, Jeb? We know we have representation, but how do we continue to have those folks in our organization continue to make those decisions continuing to help influence the way we do things? We understand the cultural shifts and the continuous learning, but how do we start?'cause a lot of you, you go, oh. I'm motivated. We start at dawn the next day at work. It doesn't necessarily work that way. You need to have that plan and that plan needs to be in place and you need to continue to look at that plan to say, okay, how do we tweak how we're moving forward? And so what that would suggest would be. If you are listening to this podcast episode, I want you to think about how your organization might be leaning. Are they leaning towards tokenism or without meaning to, but this is your moment to change if you are seeing that litmus tests of them going more towards tokenism versus true inclusion. What. Articles, what case studies can you find that can continue to bring you out of that tokenism sphere and more into inclusion? And start with an honest audit. You know who is in your room, in your workforce, who's there? What are the demographics? What does it look like? And not necessarily just by, um, ethnicity and race, do you have people that are new or diverse? Do you have folks that are, an LGBTQIA plus group? Who is in the room? Who is missing, you know. Who can we recruit and retain? So many of us were so big on recruit, recruit, recruit. You know, at the height of DEI work five years ago. But if you could go back to those same organizations, are those folks still there? Have they been retained? Is it a psychologically, safe enough environment for people of marginalized communities to still thrive and sustain in. If that's a good question. I want you to think about, and when you have people from different backgrounds that are in that room, are their voices shaping your outcomes? Do they have a brave space to share without fear of being retaliated against? So let's go back to thinking about making that move towards true inclusion. Representation and power. Those two combinations need to come. Thinking about the cultural shifts, look at your policies. What can we tweak? You know, what can we redo? Continuous learning is so important. You have to continue to learn from each other and, know that you're not gonna get it right the first time. You are constantly going to be reworking and revamping, and if your organization is ready to rework and revamp. In a way that lasts and is sustainable, I can help you. I want you to go to my website. I have on demand mini course trainings where you see a guidebook of open prompts that you and your organization can use. There's lots of good questions there. I have videos there that walk you through scenarios. You've got lots of resources that I have. Curated for each mini course that you can look and say, okay, this is where we're going. We can use this as part of our learning series. And by doing so, you can work together as a team. And what I love about it, it goes right into your inbox. It's short, it's sweet. It's less than four hours long. You learn the power of authentic connections. You'll learn how to address bias and microaggressions. You'll learn what inclusive communication looks like to have that. Safe and respectful workplace and how to build a diverse team. Now, with that, I've got this awesome signature course of how to be a culturally competent leader, and you can find all of that on my website, Jebeh Edmunds.com. Forward slash digital course, you'll see a lot more examples to get you through. And like I said, you can sign up. There is no excuse, there is no waiting period to say, oh, we have to wait six months in order to get Jebbit live. And the cool thing is once you enroll in the signature course, you get three. That's it. Three one hour Zoom coaching sessions with your girl Jeb for that ongoing support. So it is not a check the box initiative, it is a jebba guiding you through process where there is so much success. And trust me, I have trained over 80 companies who have taken these exact same modules and have seen. Very big results, so I cannot wait for you to see and learn with me at Jebeh Edmunds.com/digital course. I hope you learned what true inclusion really does look like and how to steer clear away from tokenism because honey tokens do get spent and we don't want that moving forward. Thank you so much again for listening. Just a really quick episode to keep you moving, keep you going forward and progressing, and I will see you here same time next week. Bye-bye.