Remember The Importance of Linguistic Diversity
Throughout 2020 we have seen continued calls to fight systemic racial discrimination in America that continues to plague Americans of Color. Yet, despite these efforts, we seem to ignore the critical part language plays in enabling systemic discrimination in America. In this article, I want to address how organizations use language to discriminate and how we can fight it. We shouldn’t live in a world where people need to use a pseudonym at work in order to avoid discrimination.
Based on human history we can potentially argue that discrimination based on skin color is a peculiarity of the modern era. Since prior to the age of discovery our ancestors lived in extremely homogenous societies with extremely little diversity based on skin color. Instead, our ancestors discriminated against each using different mechanisms meant to define tribe and class. In the Book of Genesis God cursed humanity to speak different tongues after they sinned by attempting to create the Tower of Babel. This curse reflects the fact humans differentiate themselves from others based on language. This phenomenon continues in the modern era and shapes racial as well as class conflict.
Priests and shamans were set apart from commoners based on their knowledge of a sacred language. A classic example of this is the fact Roman Catholic elites used Latin in place of the common language. This enabled them to enforce a monopoly on spiritual power through linguistic primacy. American elites have continued this trend by educating themselves in classical languages such as Greek and Latin while speaking a prestige dialect of English. A common example of this prestige accent is the Boston Brahmin accent. Similiar accent differences draw invisible borderlines between racial groups and classes in modern America.
Corporations may appear racially diverse, but generally, most if not all native-born US employees exhibit the same neutral accents. Failure to exhibit this neutral accent in verbal and written communications virtually guarantees exclusion from corporate America unless you’re foreign-born. The rise of automated resume processing and artificial intelligence promises to exacerbate this problem by adversely impacting without the “normative accent.”
Efforts at combating systemic discrimination must challenge “normative accents” that disadvantage Americans of Color. Would President Obama have won if he didn’t have a neutral accent? Would praise Dr. Martin Lurther King if he didn’t have a neutral accent?
