Tokenization

“Legacy media companies like Condé Nast exacerbate already persistent racialized and gendered inequalities among media workers by blurring their job roles and responsibilities in reaction to convergence and increasing demands on them to create content for digital platforms.” (Israel)

In other words, it is easier to over-work already marginalized employees by broadening their job description beyond what would be typical in print media, such as by tokenizing "Tokenism: something that a person or organization does that seems to support or help a group of people who are treated unfairly in society, such as giving a member of that group an important or public position, but which is not meant to make changes that would help that group of people in a lasting way" (Cambridge University Press) women of color by encouraging them to be on camera without offering higher compensation. Making their staff of color highly visible gives the company the appearance of being more inclusive of marginalized people, without doing any of the internal work necessary to uproot any discriminatory practices within the company.

Tokenization can also be seen in The Help. Despite Hilly’s hatred for the maids, and efforts to get harsher segregation laws enacted, she spends a lot of effort on throwing a benefit ball for African children. This may seem counterintuitive to her racism, however, her beliefs lay firmly in her own backyard. Helping Black people is good and moral, only as long as they are helpless children, and only as long as they are far away from her. Hilly gains a lot of social status from doing this good deed, but behind the scenes she is hurting the Black women that she relies on for her lavish lifestyle.

Another example of someone being asked to do tasks beyond their job description can be seen in Ryan Walker-Hartshorn’s story. She alleged that she was contacted on her off hours by her boss Rapoport, as well as asked to do a number of personal tasks for him. Cleaning golf clubs and fetching your boss’s son’s passport are not typical tasks for an editorial assistant, but she may have feared that her job may have been on the line if she didn’t comply.

This relates back to the history of racialized labor in the United States, shown in The Help. In the film, Black women are shown primarily in the role of the maid, which is connected to the history of slavery in the country. Unlike most maids today, who only handle cleaning, these maids handle most responsibilities of running a household, including cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Most of these women do not have many other options for employment, and for many of them it seems inevitable. Aibileen said “My mama was a maid. My grandmama was a house slave.” This history allows some people to feel inherently entitled to this broad spectrum of labor from others due to their internal biases and unexamined privileges.

A crucial plot point in the film is that these maids would not have been able to publish their stories without Skeeter, a White woman, being the primary voice in the matter, something the film itself has even been criticized for. This pattern of White people taking credit for the work of People of Color has existed throughout history, and it can be seen echoed in today's hiring practices. Using Bon Appétit as an example, Sohla El-Waylly was hired as an assistant editor to a mostly White editing staff. However, she had much more experience than her colleagues with more prestigious titles. This reflects how in the help the women providing the bulk of the book were not the ones given the most credit.