Why don’t more black students take Russian, or German? Dean Greenberg, Newcomb Dean at the turn of the millenium, told me that they don’t have any reason to study such languages. But I didn’t have any reason to study Slavic; I have no Slavic background, I don’t have any political interest in Slavic — I wasn’t a communist, as some of my stupider older relations may have suggested, the blockheads. I was interested, I didn’t care where it would lead me, and that was that.
In the 1970’s we had more black students in our Russian classes for the reasons I studied Slavic — curiosity and lack of career motivation. It was de rigeur in those days to disavow career goals with a carefree wave of the hand, and if you really believed the pose, so much the better. The compass pointed 180 degrees the other direction by the mid-eighties, but in the glorious, pot-fumigated late 60’s and early 70’s, in the days of Good Morning, Viet Nam, and conscientious objectors fleeing to Canada, or talking of fleeing, and in the salad days of Woody Allen and the Joy of Sex, (otherwise known as the Job of Sex), in those wonderful days we had students for all the right reasons. One black student won the legendary Russian Book Prize, which gave him great pride. There was no special history behind the Russian Book Prize; it was simply the prize awarded for the greatest achievement in learning Russian as an undergraduate. His name was Barry; I remember him for his excellence and for the warmth of his personality. He was a leader without political or personal portfolio. His quiet excellence reminded me of Ed Brook — the latter’s, seen as a distance. Ed Brook was a black senator from Massachusetts in the 60’s and early 70’s when I was a graduate student there. I knew little about him but his impressive intelligence and his apparent aloofness from civil rights politics. Indeed, for all I knew, maybe he had been active in ways I didn’t realize, and maybe Barry had, too. Barry told stories about how he attracted crowds in Moscow in the 70’s. They had never seen a black man before.
A black woman distinguished herself as our Book Prizewinner in the middle eighties; she was flashy, verbally talented, not the very best student in Russian, but cynical and outspoken. She shone on stage as a comic actress. She could make fun of the old stereotyped wide-eyed-wonder-or-fear expression blacks were portrayed with on TV in the 50’s (Amos and Andy) and 60’s. You could see her eyes widen, and see the whites of her eyes, fifty feet away in the audience. That was the most amazing thing she could do. She won a prestigious Newcomb post-graduate travel award, but did not go to the Soviet Union in its last days, but rather to Yugoslavia in its.
In the nineties we had twin sisters from Slidell, T. and T. They were delightful personalities and serious students. In 101 I remember vividly how they would both come to my office after class and pepper me with grammatical questions. They loved Russian early on and conceived a desire to use Russian in their careers right then and there — a big difference already from the 70’s. They worked and worked, but Russian did not come easily to them. They refused to give up. It was a cause they espoused with their hearts and souls. After two years, one with me and one with my colleague, they spent the summer in Petersburg to improve their fluency. Ter, the serious, quiet, more intellectual of the two, told me the story, with impulsive interruptions by Tra, the giggly, humorous twin: When we got to the home we were assigned to live in for the summer, we met our host father. He sat up down and told us very solemnly: “Я не говорю по–английски. Поймите. Мы говорим по–русски.” So the girls were a little awed by the challenge but undaunted. They certainly improved their spoken Russian that summer.
Their senior year they completed their Russian major with a course in advanced grammar and composition. Here their free-topic essays, in excellent and fluent Russian, ranged on all questions of interest to a college student, but with one characteristic theme that emerged again and again: racial prejudice that they had experienced in their lives. I was amazed that this still existed so late in the century, and in Slidell and I told them that. They were gravely surprised at my naivete. Their essays became more and more personal and detailed. I was horrified at what I was seeing. How is it, I asked them, that you have survived all of this with your personalities intact, your family, your parents, your goals and achievements? They quoted something like that misquoted Nietzsche line Pres. Cowen used about the Katrina experience: whatever you endure that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
The girls were inseparable and always lived and worked together, though they often spoke about having separate and discrete, independent lives. They earned a master’s in Russian from Maryland, both of them, together, at the same time, Ter probably encouraging Tra every step of the way and Tra’s bubbling good spirits buoying up Ter at the same time. I don’t know what they have done since, but I’m sure they are somewhere with Russian in the government. It was really an experience and an honor to teach them.
I’ve had several American black students in this century, but even more brown students from Asia — India and Pakistan. One did a whole semester of Russian as an IS with me, and a year later was at Tulane medical school. Anu was her name.
I think Arabic and other areally critical languages will replace Russian for minorities. The days of innocence and glory are over forever, I’m afraid. Except for the occasional Barry, Ter and Tra, let us hope.
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