[tptacek]

In the first one, a person made the argument that the sole black person in the department was there only because he was black. That's what "token black person" means.

The second recapitulates a common racial stereotype about native Americans.

Hope that helped!

[afiori]

I need to say that I am a bit unsure how to relate to the two possible interpretation of "token black person". On one side there are people that assume black people at prestigious jobs are black token on the other side there are people that explicitly set out to hire some black tokens; in the middle you would have the society and culture that allows it.

The first side is an easy case of racism in most cases, the second side seem more nuanced. In the GP case apparently the person thought of himself as a black token, that is for sure a bad situation... but I cannot wrap my head around "how" it is a bad situation and its implications.

[tptacek]

You shouldn't be unsure. You weren't there, and the person who is relating their interpretation of the comment was.

[afiori]

I am sure that the fact that someone believes he is a "black token" is a problem, I am also sure that this could (almost) only happen in a place were there is quite some racism.

What I pointed out is that not all racism is the same; all of it is bad and all of it should stop, we agree on that, but as most human endeavour it is complex with complex motivation. If you and I want to stop it we should better think about how every situation can be different and how different type of racism require different solutions.

In my case above assuming incompetence and hiring minorities just to have better statistics are very different form of racism led by often different people, often with different motivation. If OP clarifies more I will trust that, but the wording itself was quite ambiguous to me

(also I have the impression some comments have moved around...)

[tptacek]

I have no idea where you're trying to take this. I'm saying that it's not productive to argue over the subtext of a hypothetical conversation neither of us are a party to. At some point your argument is going to have to boil down to "no, that person relating that story is not being fully truthful". Ok, that's a coherent argument, but not one I'm interested in having with you.

[afiori]

I need to say I am a bit confused, I maybe replied in the wrong place.

I meant to reply to a comment that only provided as an information that somebody believed to be a token black hire. To this my point was that multiple non trivial interpretation were possible.

Now I realize I commented directly on the article so that I was in practice casting doubt on the content. This was a mistake, to be clear I trust the Edray Goins version of his own story.

A bit late to reply, but I feel it is an important distinction.