a bunch of people were inspired to do a bunch of things because of star trek, and you're profoundly ignorant if you think the inclusion of minoritized or demonized people in the optimistic future of original series and tng era was irrelevant.

hell, Dr. King personally asked Nichelle Nichols not to quit the show. Trek did it (mostly) right, don't lump it in with a tom clancy movie's black president.

I don't think celebrating diversity genuinely is tokenism personally. If you have a respectable character being cool who is some underrepresented minority, it can be inspiring.

If you are doing things like rainbow military recruitment or you are Fox hosting specifically transphobic trans women or extreme rightwing black people to try to pretend you don't have a problem with racism or transphobia or a company just trying to meet some quotas to avoid being sued, then it would be tokenism imo.

Anyways, I do personally think representation is important. Moreso in real life, but media is a place people look to for similar inspiration. Sometimes little things can mean a lot for some people.

Yes, of course it does???

Putting minorities in media and showing them as respectable equals is not tokenism, and is doubly important to do when real life doesn't reflect that. Rodenberry did not have the power to fucking solve racial oppression, he incorporated all nationalities to showcase the importance and futurism of not being a racist fuck.

Also allowing some of the oppressed become oppressors too is not really meaningful progress.