Crystal Byrd Farmer - The Token - Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization

Praise for The Token

The Token is accessible and practicalideal for everyone working in groups, schools, workplaces, and other projects and organizations where diversity and equity are the goals. Farmer has done an excellent job of laying out the case for, and path towards, building an inclusive organization. An excellent resource for all those who are committed to equity and need ideas and suggestions, exercises, and guidelines for moving your organization to the next level.

Paul Kivel, educator, activist, author, Uprooting Racism:
How White People Can Work for Racial Justice

The Token manages to be both blunt and nuanced in a way that feels helpful and honest. Crystal Byrd Farmer does an excellent job of bringing forth really clear dos and donts while also acknowledging and exploring the complexity and evolving nature of the work thats required to create inclusive and equitable organizations.

Tomis Parker, co-founder, Agile Learning Centers Network,
board member, The Alliance for Self-Directed Education

In an honest and unfiltered voice, Crystal Byrd Farmers book provides essential guidance for white groups interested in racial equity, diversity, and inclusion. The book is a treasure trove of tools, stories, and resources for working on racism and white supremacy culture in majority white groupsespecially those who consider themselves progressive or alternative. For us white folks, Crystal Byrd Farmers experiences and no-nonsense perspective are much-needed gifts. Her book challenges us to listen, reflect, and work harder to overcome the racism in ourselves and in our communities.

Joe Cole, Ph.D., Academic Professional Assistant Professor,
University of North Carolina, Department of Peace
and Conflict Studies, facilitator

This is the book that is going to save you from theory and guilt trips disguised as training or solutions to issues of equity and diversity. Crystal has brilliantly highlighted her personal experiences as means of examining and learning how biases affect some Black women in particular, and many intentional communities across age and gender, among other differences. She then brings in the history and pattern of anti-Black racism in particular, and offers resources and conversation prompts to work through what she brings up in these pages. I found this book refreshing in its departure from scholarly research over real-life experiences, feelings that words often fail, and so much more in terms of nuance and layers. I loved this and Im grateful to Crystal for adding her perspectives to the conversation about relationships and diversity without apology, and with no problem being dynamic and human in her approach. Read this book!

Akilah S. Richards, author,
Raising Free People: Unschooling
and Liberation and Healing Work

If you want to transition your organization or community to become more accessible for marginalized people, you should read this bookideally read it first! Filled with real talk and practical exercises, The Token is an essential guide for how to do The Work. Not sure what The Work is? Dont worry, your new Black friend, Crystal Farmer, is here to help.

Cynthia Tina, Co-Director,
Foundation for Intentional Community

As a co-organizer of a mostly white community focused on personal/interpersonal healing and social change, I was delighted to receive this brief gem of a book by Crystal Byrd Farmer. In her blunt, no-nonsense authorial voice, Farmer gave me exactly the information and the step-by-step plans my team needs to move forward with our communitys anti-racism work. Farmers advice on how to honor and protect a groups tokens is a powerful and innovative teaching that we have already put to good use. I wish this book had been available for navigating challenges in recent years.

Sarah Taub, Center for a New Culture

THE
TOKEN

THE
TOKEN

Common Sense Ideas for
Increasing Diversity in Your Organization

Crystal Byrd Farmer

Copyright 2020 by Crystal Byrd Farmer. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Printed in Canada. First printing September, 2020

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Token should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: The token : common sense ideas for increasing diversity in your organization / Crystal Byrd Farmer.

Names: Farmer, Crystal Byrd, 1985 author.

Description: Includes index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200251597 |
Canadiana (ebook) 20200251651 |
ISBN 9780865719514 (softcover) | ISBN 9781550927443 (PDF) |
ISBN 9781771423403 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Diversity in the workplace. |
LCSH: Personnel management.

Classification: LCC HF5549.5.M5 F37 2020 | DDC 658.30089dc23

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.

To all my teachers,
whether they intended to be one or not

It started with composting toilets. In 2016, Foundation for Intentional Community Executive Director Sky Blue invited me to speak at the Twin Oaks Communities Conference in rural Virginia. I had been involved in the intentional communities movement for a few years, but Twin Oaks was the first commune I had ever visited. While I was lucky to stay in a fully-plumbed cabin during the weekend, the conference site only had composting toilets for attendees. The joy that what I call hippy-dippy people have about suffering for the sake of the environment constantly amazes me. The only thing I could think about was my grandmother, who grew up without indoor plumbing. The overwhelming thought I had was, Black people would not put up with this.

After the conference, I wrote an article for Communities magazine explaining how people of color could feel left out in intentional communities. A year later, I was honored to be on a panel with other Black and brown communitarians who discussed their experiences with white progressives who thought they were doing their best. I have never lived officially in community, but I was already picking up on the big problem: they want us, but they dont want us. Thats when I understood that people who believe theyre doing the work of anti-oppression are just barely scratching the surface. So I wrote this book. Nothing in it is revolutionary. There are plenty of blogs and diversity trainings that can help you understand what it means to be marginalized, but theres only one me. Im going to tell it my way, and I hope you find it helpful.