The attack on Ukraine: Russia, the United States & the parallels of power abuse
Graduate student-era Suzanne Wertheim while in Russia conducting Linguistic Anthropology research for her dissertation
There is a direct line between my dissertation research in Putin-era Russia and my anti-bias work today.
I went to Russia to answer what I thought was just a structural linguistics question: why, when two languages are in contact and one is headed towards endangerment, does only the minority language's grammar change significantly?
The answer turned out to be super complicated.
My dissertation was focused on Tatar, a Turkic language with millions of speakers in the former Soviet Union.
One of my key findings was that centuries of oppression - political, cultural, religious, and linguistic - had changed how Tatars saw themselves and used their language. Code-switching was key, and speaking only Tatar was related to stigmatized identities.
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I arrived in Kazan a few months after Putin came to power.
Many Russians spoke of him with admiration. Yeltsin had been such a drunk embarrassment that Putin felt like a relief.
But Tatars were concerned. Some thought the country was headed back towards the 1930s. Purges, gulags, secret murders of activists and dissenters. Crackdowns. Brutal colonialism, with no respect for autonomy.
I was just a lowly grad student. So imagine my surprise when I realized I was under FSB (secret police) surveillance. With a bugged apartment and bugged phone.
And agents who would walk up to me on the street and let me know they'd "read my file." To intimidate me.
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Russia can feel like a brutal place. And many Americans seem to feel it is different here.
But I see parallels everywhere.
🇺🇸 I wasn't under surveillance here because I'm white(ish) and wasn't pushing for civil rights.
🇺🇸 But, for example, MLK was under FBI surveillance. There was even a campaign where they tried to get him to kill himself.
🇷🇺 Russians took Tatar land through brutal violence and colonial tactics. Later promising autonomy and then reneging.
🇺🇸 This is the story of the entire United States. Conquest, violence, broken treaties, biological warfare. Reservations. Purposeful impoverishment.
🇷🇺 Russians did violence to Tatar bodies and the Tatar language. Digging for the subway in Kazan, they found both buried bodies and buried books in the forbidden Arabic script.
🇺🇸 I've worked with California Natives who were beaten or had mouths washed out with soap for speaking their languages. And we have only just begun to find the bodies at boarding schools.
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The history and conditions that set up inequality, stigma, violence, and harassment in the US carry through right into today's workplaces.
It's the same skeletal underpinnings here and in Russia. The same tactics. Power hoarding and over-entitlement cause the same problems.
Are you feeling terrible about #Ukraine today and want to do something? In addition to donations and writing and calling representatives, you can also take a look at your own city or town. And your own workplace.
Who matters?
Who is heard and respected as an autonomous person?
Who is treated with care and respect?
Who is protected?
Who is valued?
And who is not?
Industry-leading inclusive language expert Suzanne Wertheim facilitates in-person and virtual inclusive language trainings, as well as offering empowering and educational inclusive language keynotes.
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