There are many cultures around the world that are suppressed by majoritarianism. They have to face challenges like forced assimilation, language discrimination and refusal to acknowledgement of their unique identity. In fact, many cultures have been identified by UNESCO, that will soon cease to exist - either that they're vulnerable, or completely extinct. How do you, as a minority, feel, knowing that your entire identity will cease to exist in a few decades? Do you have a sense of camaraderie towards other minorities from other parts of the world, say, the Ainu people, or the Brahui pastoralist?
intellectual pursuits combined with recent-ish DNA test revealed to me that i'm from a very recently dead culture (american yaqui & tarahumara) whose very few aware decedents have been fighting tooth-and-nail to re-cultivate it by patterning themselves after their nearest cousins (mexican yaqui & tarahumara) along with a recent recognition from the american government for the pascua reservation in arizona.
they were literally wiped out by the pogroms carried out by colonial settlers in the american southwestern united states during the 19th and early 20th centuries and it was merely the imaginary line on the map called the mexican border that allowed anything from the culture to survive at all.
if it weren't for people who rejected colonialist narrative of indigenous people happily becoming mestizos (or americans with Cherokee princess great grandma's); there would be nothing but a fringe belief and, if it weren't for DNA tests that heavily bolsters it, that fringe belief would continue to wane into nothingness.
you'd think that 2/3rds of your DNA being tied to a group of people and their genocide occurring less than 2 generations ago would ensure that something of that cultural inheritance would survive, but I'm living & breathing proof that the colonial narrative is MUCH more powerful than any heritage as the older generations of my family continue to strenuously reject both the science and the lore of their true roots.
It enrages me. I actively deny the settler culture; but damned if my denial changes anything. When their process is done, what I consider my culture will be a lowercase-n nothing compared to the capital-N Nothing™ that settler culture is. And it feels like not enough of my skinfolk have enough steel in their spines to fight anymore. Black Capitalism and liberal misleaders in the Black Congressional Caucus have ruined us, and our own reactionaries have made a mockery of Black radicalism.
It's a sorry fuckin state of affairs; and honestly what informs my interactions with other minority cultures-- because 9 of 10, the same will happen to them if they don't resist the same way, and I'll be called everything from a fool to a traitor for aligning with them instead of the settlers who have their boot on my neck.
I'm not sure if this even counts but I'm from Cornwall, which at one point was a separate and distinct culture from England, but hasn't been for hundreds of years. But once it had it's own language, and has been recognised as being culturally distinct by the UK government and the EU.
It doesn't really impact me in any big way, especially since I don't even live in the UK anymore. I know a handful of words and phrases in Cornish and there's been a bit of a movement in the last few years to revive it somewhat (it's on some road signs and things like that), but generally the rest of the UK doesn't care, and if you talk about it to anyone outside of Cornwall they'll usually just make fun of you.
I think it's from the same root as Welsh, so that's probably the nearest counterpart as far as I know.
I'm smart and I'm mostly fine with my minority dying out. It's definitely sad that in 50 years people will look at things my people created and will not understand any of it but then again, it's a natural process. I'm sure our art will somehow influence their art and in a way it will live on.
