Yoruba Girl Dancing

A quick perusal of comments sections across the breadth of the internet throws up the ‘but do you want tokenism?’ defence. I mean, practically every comment section has its version of this question; well-meaning people asking – with baffled internet-expressions – if what we as POCs want is ‘tokenism’ in pop culture. I’ve seen it so often that I feel compelled to ask: why are the options ‘tokenism’ or total, yawning absence? Why do we have to be so ‘cake or death‘ about this?