While conversations about equity, representation, diversity, and inclusion have taken off in the media, participants noted a lack of meaningful inclusion of marginalized voices in the industry and a focus on the appearance of diversity instead.

The latter often happens through tokenizing individuals who come from underrepresented backgrounds, such as BIWOC.

Many participants felt that some opportunities were offered to them because they “fit the diversity quota” or “checked the right boxes,” ultimately reducing their value and personhood to their racial and gender identity. Participants felt that some collaborators’ true motivations to work with BIWOC were about enhancing their image, qualifying for funding, or seeking a seal of approval to tell stories outside their experience. These underhanded dynamics create a host of complicated dynamics that foster mistrust, self-doubt, and resentment. 

“I feel like whenever I see white people in leadership in this industry, who are giving a ‘chance’ to marginalized folk, it's always in an exploitative way in some capacity.”

“They kind of just want to hide behind saying, Oh, look, we have a person of colour here, give us your grant money.”

One participant recalled a colleague asking her to sign a funding application so that it would increase their chances of funding because she is a woman of colour, “I was stunned when she said it because I didn’t know how to explain that that’s racist in the moment. Don't tell me to sign it because I'm brown, ask me as a producer.“

Dedicated funding programs for talent and filmmakers from underrepresented communities can get weaponized against BIWOC in the way that affirmative action has been misunderstood and used against communities of colour. One participant shared a story about a BIWOC filmmaker who was told by a white peer that she only received funding because she is a woman of colour. 

Similarly demoralizing was having peers and colleagues label them as “diversity hires,” rather than worthy and talented in their own right. These kinds of interactions raise doubts in BIWOC about their own abilities and deservingness of those opportunities in the industry, leading to imposter syndrome. “I'm not entirely sure if it's because I'm a good artist or if it's because I’m Black, or a good poster child,” one participant said. Another participant explained how landing her first job out of film school through a program for “minorities” felt like “a handout”: “I was president of my high school, captain of sports teams, I was in every leadership position. You’re saying that I need help, but I don't need help and I don't want your help.” 

Even when opportunities given are products of are superficial, misguided, or cynical diversity initiatives, participants also viewed them as relatively rare opportunities to work, to be seen and heard, and to represent their communities. The double-edged nature of tokenism came up a number of times. 

“‘Ticking the boxes' is something that I often struggle with. You want to have an opportunity to be a representative of your culture or gender, and you want to help facilitate that learning and experience, but it becomes so problematic when the exchange is just you giving to someone else.”

“They want me to be the thing they want. But if I’m not sitting at the table, who is sitting at the table?”

One participant expressed frustration with pressure put on them to speak as the voice of all members of their race: “It’s really frustrating because it’s important work…but I don’t want to be expected to hold all that knowledge and bring that to the table.” Another participant stressed that diversity and inclusion initiatives can normalize the tokenization of people of colour.

Similarly, participants spoke about the tension between maintaining the status quo, in the interest of landing opportunities or keeping a job, and their desires to dismantle racist and colonial power structures — which could jeopardize their employment and future opportunities. The isolating combination of being tokenized and being the only BIWOC on a project or team made showing up authentically a complicated and sometimes impossible task. 

“That’s a thing for all colonized groups. One struggle that we have is banding together against the colonizer. We feel like we have to impress them, or we feel like we have to somehow live up to their expectations instead of kind of making our own way for our own people.”

One filmmaker noted that as the only BIWOC on her team, she didn’t know how to address how power on one of her projects fell along traditional gender lines. 

“I don't know how to approach it and I just felt very alone… Because I've been having all these thoughts and I don’t know who to go to. I don't want it to make it seem like I'm throwing my teammates under the bus.”