How capitalism reduced diversity to a brand

A common example of racial capitalism is a school or a company intentionally putting photos of people of color on its website to inflate its appearance of diversity. This happens all the time. Sometimes schools have even been known to photoshop people of color into their brochures. Racial capitalism could also be something as simple as claiming that you can’t be racist because you have a black friend, or including a token minority character in a movie. Or it could be something like quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on Twitter when you’ve recently been accused of white supremacist views, like Rep. Steve King (R-IA) just did this past MLK Day. Racial capitalism is very common, and it’s often done by well-intentioned people who are completely unaware they’re doing it (…) One of the big problems with racial capitalism is the way it constrains nonwhite people. If you know your company hired you partly because you are Asian, you might feel pressure to allow your photo to be used all over the website or to attend every diversity event even when you’re swamped just doing the work for your actual job. White people, who aren’t usually pressured to do this kind of racial work, can just concentrate on their jobs. This has happened to me, when I am expected to mentor students of color, serve as the faculty adviser for racial affinity groups, or attend diversity events. I love doing those things, but it’s real work that is not always acknowledged by the institutions to which I’ve belonged. Racial capitalism leads to a lot of extra racial work for people of color.

Nancy Leong in How capitalism reduced diversity to a brand (Vox.com)