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Comparative Methods of Assimilation and Oppression
Abstract
While systemic assimilation is a constant struggle for many minorities living in Iran, the discrimination is especially detrimental for Azerbaijani Turkic children. This paper examines how systemic racism in Iran is controlled and enforced through the pillars of language, education, and media by comparing and drawing resources from the colonial struggles of the BIPOC in the Western world. Discourses of oppression, intersectionality, race, and racism are substantially drawn from the frameworks developed by minority intellects of the West such as Merlyn Frye, Angela Davis, and Kimberly Crenshaw. The paralleled experiences of BIPOC children and the Azerbaijani Turkic children in Iran, depict a story of linguistic and cultural segregation. From a young age, interdisciplinary spheres of language, education, and media begin not only an effective process of disassociation, but also antagonization of minority children from their ethnic identities. By comparative analysis of normalized racial slurs, jokes, and stereotypes in the language, to a Persionized education system, accompanied by degraded and dehumanized depictions of Azerbijani Turks in state controlled media and publications, it can be seen that these children undergo a forced practice of assimilation. In relation to how BIPOC people are discriminated against in North Amerika when considering the glorification of the dominant culture and suppression of minority rights due to sociopolitical dynamics, minority children consequently alienate themselves from their ethnicity and absorb the dominant culture as their own. Furthermore, the strategies of deprivation and negligence are explored to understand how inaction itself can be a form of encroachment.
Discipline
Philosophy
Political Science
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
None