This is a popular "gotcha" in my thread about Chapo and tokenization rn.

It's a disingenuous argument.

Dismissing the actions or opinions of marginalized people by calling them "tokens" is oppressive.

Critiquing white people for engaging in tokenism isn't. https://twitter.com/Lefty_Jew/status/1253037851735805957

When I say that it appears to me that Virgil & Amber were invited to join Chapo to serve as tokenized mouthpieces (and scapegoats) for "edgy" opinions and to hold "edgy" relationships that would appeal to a fash-adjacent troll audience, that's not accusing them of *being* tokens.

That's not my call to make as a white person.

It is, however, entirely fair for me to look at who the white co-hosts chose to invite to join the show and say, it sure looks like they wanted folks who could perform that "edge" with plausible deniability because of their identity.

It's fair to say, they picked a POC guy with a documented history of platforming Nazis and making antisemitic jokes.

It's fair to say, they picked a POC woman with a documented (and ongoing) history of friendship with fascists and people with known connections to the Nazi right.

It's fair to ask why a show that was just fine with and even proud of the anti-wokeness of being a show of three white dudes decided- at the moment alt-right was peaking in the mainstream- to bring on 2 people who just happened to be POC & just happened to have fash connections.

That's not conspiracy theory, and it's not accusing Virgil or Amber of being tokens.

It's an analysis of the behavior of white dudes who, again, were *proud* to be a show of all white dudes and made a very suspicious pivot in new host recruitment at a very suspicious time.

What's suspicious isn't their hiring folks of color.

What's suspicious is their hiring on new folks with existing relationships with and documented history of association with fascists & Nazis close to the troll alt-right just when the troll alt-right became The Next Big Thing.

That's suspicious in that, well, hiring on folks connected to and with a history of catering to the alt-right at the moment when the alt-right is a big trend is...

Well, it's not what you do if you're trying to counter the rising tide of white supremacy, that's for sure.

And when your "proud to be white dudes-only because it's anti-woke" selects alt-right-connected people who just happen to be people of color to do that work, and your anti-woke fans start defending those people's alt-right connections using the "idpol" they claim to despise...

...well, that sure looks like tokenizing behavior.

There are plenty of POC who have been treated in tokenizing ways who refuse to be tokens.

Saying white folks engaged in tokenizing behavior does not mean that they've succeeded in the project of tokenization.

Today's hyper-brigade against me got started when two of the three white co-hosts jumped into my mentions with mocking gifs within a minute of each other in order to draw their troll base to my timeline and this thread about their recruitment of fash-adjacent hosts in particular.

They heard the critique, it scares them, and they want it silenced.

That is why there are thousands of trolls in my mentions today.