Fear of Tokenism in SNMA: How to Engage Authentically as a Member

The fear of being a token in SNMA is real—and ignoring it is what makes people feel used, burned out, and invisible.

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that SNMA can be a lifeline. But there’s this nagging voice in your head saying: “What if I’m only here so schools can put me on their brochure?” or “If I show up to events, are they just going to trot me out as proof of diversity?” or even worse: “If I get leadership in SNMA, will people say I only got it because I’m underrepresented?”

Yeah. Those thoughts. The ones that make you hover over the “join” button and then close the tab.

I’m going to be blunt: you’re not the only one thinking this. So many of us walk into SNMA spaces carrying:

• Imposter syndrome
• Exhaustion from being the “only one” everywhere else
• Skepticism about anything labeled “diversity”
• Fear that we are the product being advertised

(See also: How PDs Quietly Weigh AMSA vs SNMA vs AAMC on Your Application for more details.)

Let’s talk about how to actually engage with SNMA—premed or medical student—in a way that feels authentic, protective of your energy, and not like you’re volunteering to be the school’s diversity prop.

Because you deserve more than that.

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The Ugly Truth: Tokenism Anxiety Doesn’t Magically Disappear in SNMA

Here’s the part nobody puts on the flyers: just because SNMA is for students underrepresented in medicine doesn’t mean your fear of tokenism turns off at the door.

You can still feel like:

• You’re only invited to certain events to “visually diversify” the room
• Your presence is valued more than your voice
• Your story is wanted when it’s inspirational, but ignored when it’s angry, tired, or complicated
• Non-URM classmates treat SNMA as “that diversity club” and put you in that box

And then there’s the admissions angle.

As a premed or med student, you might be thinking:

• “If I join SNMA, are adcoms going to assume that’s all I care about?”
• “Are they going to think I’m trying to play the ‘URM card’?”
• “If I don’t join, will they judge me for not being involved with URM communities?”

You feel trapped: join and risk being stereotyped, or don’t join and feel like you’re abandoning people who get it.

Here’s the painful part to admit: both options feel like they can be misinterpreted, and that’s where the anxiety lives.

So the question becomes less “Should I join SNMA?” and more “How do I join and protect myself from feeling used?”

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What Tokenism Actually Looks Like (And What It Doesn’t)

The word “token” gets thrown around so much that it starts to lose meaning. But if we don’t define it, everything can feel like tokenism and you end up isolating yourself from communities that might actually help you survive this journey.

Tokenism feels like:

• You’re invited, but not listened to
• Your presence is celebrated, but your needs are sidelined
• You’re praised as “inspiring” but never actually given power, budget, or decision-making
• You’re the one in every picture, panel, or brochure, but no one checks in when you’re struggling

Within SNMA, tokenism often shows up when:

• The school uses SNMA to prove diversity, but doesn’t support it with money, mentorship, or institutional backing
• Administration suddenly appears at SNMA events around interview season or accreditation visits
• You’re asked to “share your story” repeatedly in ways that feel more performative than supportive

What tokenism is not:

• You joining SNMA because you want community
• You taking leadership because you actually care about advocacy and programming
• You listing SNMA on your application because it shaped you and you did real work there

The fear is that other people will interpret it that way. But your internal reality and your external label don’t always match—and you have more control over that dynamic than you think.

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Joining SNMA Without Losing Yourself: Boundaries Are Not Optional

Here’s the part a lot of anxious applicants skip: you’re allowed to design how you engage with SNMA.

You don’t have to throw yourself into everything. You don’t have to join leadership your first semester. You don’t have to share your trauma story in the first meeting.

You’re allowed to ease in, test the waters, and be protective of your time, your mental health, and your identity.

Some ways to set boundaries while still participating:

• Start as a listener
  You can go to meetings, sit in the back, and just observe. You don’t owe anyone your full story on day one. You can stay camera-off in virtual meetings, you can say “I’m just here to learn.”

• Choose roles that align with your skills, not your stereotype
  If you love logistics, maybe you help with event planning rather than becoming the “diversity speaker.” If you’re into research, maybe you help connect members with mentors or opportunities. The key is: pick something that feels like you, not what people expect from “the Black/Brown student.”

• Say no to the “poster child” role
  You can literally say:
  “I’m not comfortable being in promotional photos right now,” or
  “I’m happy to help plan this event, but I don’t want to speak on the panel.”
  You are allowed to opt out without being less committed.

• Protect your emotional energy
  If there’s an event about heavy topics—police violence, racism in medicine, microaggressions—you’re allowed to skip it if you’re not in the headspace. Not attending one event doesn’t cancel your commitment to the community.

Authentic engagement doesn’t mean complete self-sacrifice. If anything, the people who last longest in SNMA are the ones who pace themselves.

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Using SNMA for Support Without Feeling Like You’re “Using” It

Here’s a twisted thing many of us feel: we’re afraid to take too much from SNMA.

You might worry that:

• Going to free MCAT/Step prep sessions is “taking advantage”
• Seeking mentorship is “bothering busy people”
• Applying for SNMA scholarships is “selfish” or that you’re “not struggling enough”
• Showing up mostly when you need something is somehow wrong

This is what happens when you’ve been socialized to be grateful for crumbs. You become scared to accept actual support.

SNMA exists for you. It was literally built because people like you were falling through the cracks of a system that didn’t care whether you made it or not.

Using SNMA resources isn’t tokenism. It’s survival.

Authentic engagement can look like:

• Going to only the academic support sessions at first
• Reaching out to an SNMA leader on your campus or nationally and saying, “I’m overwhelmed. How have you navigated this?”
• Asking for advice on personal statements, MCAT strategies, Step planning, or specialty choice
• Joining a group chat or GroupMe just to have people to text when something racist happens on the wards or in class and you don’t know how to process it

You don’t have to be the loudest activist in the room to be a real SNMA member. Sometimes just existing in that space, witnessing others, and letting yourself receive support is more radical than you think.

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SNMA on Your Application: Will They Think I’m Just a “Diversity Candidate”?

This one keeps so many people up at night.

You imagine an admissions committee member seeing “SNMA” in your activities and saying:

“Oh, another URM student with diversity stuff. Of course.”

Or you worry if you don’t have SNMA, someone will ask:

“Why weren’t you involved with URM communities?”

Here’s what helps calm that spiral a bit:

1. SNMA is a known national organization
   Adcoms understand what it is. That’s actually a good thing. You’re not explaining from scratch why it matters. It automatically signals: this person engaged with community, support, advocacy, or mentorship.

2. Depth > optics
   If you can talk about what you actually did—planned events, mentored premeds, organized pipeline programs, ran workshops, started a research initiative—that reads as leadership and initiative, not tokenism.

3. Intent matters in your narrative
   In your application, you get to say why SNMA mattered to you. You can talk about:

• Feeling isolated as the only Black student in your cohort
• Wanting to build pathways for future students from your community
• Learning to advocate for yourself and patients in biased systems

That context turns “just a diversity club” into “this was where I learned to function as a future physician.”

4. You’re allowed to have identity-aligned activities
   Medical schools don’t expect you to detach your identity from your interests. If you’re URM, it makes sense you’d be drawn to spaces like SNMA. That’s not a weakness. That’s coherence.

What looks suspicious is when someone claims to be deeply committed to health equity and diversity, but has zero involvement in any community or advocacy work. That’s where the performative vibes actually show up.

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Red Flags vs. Green Flags: Is This SNMA Chapter Healthy for You?

Not every SNMA chapter feels the same. Some are deeply supportive. Others are under-resourced, cliquey, or unintentionally reproducing the same exclusion they’re trying to fight.

Pay attention to how you feel in your body when you’re interacting with your local chapter.

Red flags that might trigger that tokenism fear:

• You only hear from SNMA when the school wants to show diversity to interviewees or visiting faculty
• Leadership feels like a closed circle and new people are mostly used as volunteers, not mentees or collaborators
• There’s pressure to share personal trauma for panels, events, or marketing without any real support afterward
• Feedback about heavy topics (colorism, anti-Blackness, LGBTQ+ issues, intersectionality) gets shut down or minimized

Green flags that suggest you can engage more deeply:

• Upperclassmen or leaders actually check in on you as a person, not just as “help”
• There are spaces for honest conversations—not just polished, inspirational stories
• People warn you about burnout and encourage you to say no to stuff
• Leadership openly talks about protecting members from being exploited by the institution

You’re allowed to join, look around, and decide “I’m going to keep my involvement light here,” while still finding support nationally (SNMA has national and regional programming too, not just local chapters).

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What If I Do Start to Feel Used?

This is the nightmare scenario in your head: you say yes too much, you become the go-to “face” of diversity, and then one day you realize you’re miserable and resentful.

First: you’re not trapped.

Some concrete steps if things start to feel gross:

• Name it privately
  Tell one trusted person: “I’m starting to feel like I’m only wanted here when they need a Black/URM student in the room.” Saying it out loud helps you sanity-check it.

• Scale back
  You can step down from roles, reduce how many events you attend, or shift from public-facing work to behind-the-scenes work. Changing your involvement is not betrayal.

• Set new rules for yourself
  For example: “I will only agree to speak or be featured if there’s a clear purpose and I’m not the only URM voice.” Or, “I’ll only do one major panel per semester.”

• Talk to leadership
  If they’re healthy, they’ll understand. You can say something like:
  “I’ve been feeling a bit overexposed and tokenized, especially in how the school uses SNMA. Can we think about ways to rotate who’s visible and protect newer members from feeling used?”

If leadership dismisses your feelings or guilt-trips you, that’s data. It means your boundaries are necessary, and you might want to re-evaluate your role.

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You’re Allowed to Be Complicated in SNMA

Here’s the piece I wish more people said out loud: you don’t have to be the perfect SNMA member.

You can be:

• Deeply committed one semester and more withdrawn the next
• Passionate about some topics (mentorship, mental health) and uninterested in others (policy, national leadership)
• Still figuring out how you feel about your identity, your background, your relationship to medicine

You’re not a diversity mascot. You’re a whole person.

Authentic engagement doesn’t mean “I love every second of this work.” It can mean: “This is hard, it hurts sometimes, I’m scared of being used, but I still want some connection, and I’m going to move carefully through this space.”

That’s not weakness. That’s self-preservation.

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FAQ: Fear of Tokenism in SNMA

1. If I’m not super “activist-y,” will I still fit into SNMA?
Yes. SNMA isn’t only for activists. It’s for students underrepresented in medicine who need community, mentorship, resources, and a place to be understood. You can be quiet, introverted, uncertain about your views, or totally new to advocacy and still belong there. Showing up for tutoring, study groups, or social events is just as valid as lobbying in DC.

2. Will medical schools think I only joined SNMA to “play the diversity card”?
Most admissions committees see SNMA involvement as normal and expected for many URM applicants. What they pay attention to is what you did with that involvement. If you can describe specific contributions, growth, or lessons you gained, it reads as genuine engagement, not box-checking. You’re allowed to seek support and community without it being manipulative.

3. How do I say no when people keep asking me to be the face of diversity events?
You can be direct but polite: “I appreciate you thinking of me, but I’m not able to participate in this right now,” or, “I’m trying to be mindful of how often I’m in public-facing roles, so I have to pass.” You don’t owe anyone a detailed explanation. It can also help to suggest a rotation system in SNMA so responsibility and visibility are shared, not loaded onto the same few students.

4. What if my SNMA chapter feels cliquey or unwelcoming?
That doesn’t mean SNMA as a whole isn’t for you. You can: attend different events, connect with one or two individuals instead of the whole group, reach out to regional or national SNMA leadership, or engage mostly with online/national programs. You’re not required to force yourself into a local dynamic that doesn’t feel safe just to “prove” your commitment.

5. Can I leave leadership or step back without burning bridges?
Yes. Students step back all the time for mental health, academic pressure, family issues, or burnout. You can say, “I need to reduce my responsibilities to focus on school/personal things, but I’m grateful for the chance to have served.” Healthy SNMA leaders will understand. If they react poorly, that’s not a sign you did something wrong—it’s a sign you made the right choice for yourself.

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Key things to remember: you’re allowed to use SNMA as support, not sacrifice; you get to set boundaries around how visible and involved you are; and your worth in these spaces is not measured by how much diversity labor you do.