#minorites

[raisongardee]

""La diversité" – slogan qui semble séduisant à première vue – en est arrivé à signifier le contraire de ce qu’elle semble vouloir dire. Dans la pratique, la diversité sert à légitimer un nouveau dogmatisme, dans lequel des minorités rivales s’abritent derrière un ensemble de croyances qui échappe à la discussion rationnelle. La ségrégation physique de la population dans des ghettos racialement homogènes et refermés sur eux-mêmes a pour pendant la balkanisation de l’opinion. Chaque groupe essaye de se claquemurer derrière ses propres dogmes. Nous sommes devenus une nation de minorités : il ne manque que leur reconnaissance officielle en tant que telles pour achever le processus. Cette parodie de "communauté" – terme fort à la mode mais qui n’est pas très bien compris – charrie avec elle le postulat insidieux selon lequel on peut attendre de tous les membres d’un groupe donné qu’ils pensent de la même manière. L’opinion devient ainsi fonction de l’identité raciale ou ethnique, du sexe ou de la préférence sexuelle."

Christopher Lasch, La révolte des élites et la trahison de la démocratie, trad. Christian Fournier, 1995.

[useless-catalanfacts]

A day in the life of someone who posts on the internet in Catalan *cue dozens of Spanish people asking "what's wrong with your mouth", ordering him to speak in Spanish or "in Christian", saying he's rude for speaking in Catalan, calling him "polaco" (derogatory Spanish word to mean a Catalan person), calling the Catalan language a dialect, saying he is possessed because he's speaking Catalan, etc*

This is a video by Sergi Mas showing some of the comments he gets on YouTube. He makes videos about mountain biking that he posts on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And the first comment he got on his first YouTube video was already someone telling him he should do it in Spanish.

Some days ago, another creator who posts his videos in Catalan (Joan Sendra, find him on Instagram and TikTok) answered to a Spanish person who was complaining that it's rude to speak Catalan/Valencian on the internet instead of Spanish because then there's people who don't understand you (as if everyone in the world spoke Spanish lmao). Joan, who is tired of getting this kind of comments so often, answered: there are already endless videos and things to watch on the internet in Spanish. In fact, if you look for [the topic he was talking about in the video that this guy commented] all the videos are in Spanish except for mine. And yet you had to come to me, the one in Valencian, and tell me that I can't make a video in my language and that I can only make it in yours. If you don't like it, it's so easy to find another one!

However, it's not a matter of actually being interested in what's being said in a language they don't speak. It's about the imposition of the language they consider superior (Spanish) and telling speakers of the languages whose land Spain had occupied that they are useless and should be ashamed of existing in public. Well, we aren't. Like Sergi's video, don't let the comments disturb your macarrons.

[no-passaran]

Are you 18-35 years old and an activist or academic from a minoritized or minority language? This might interest you!

(And even if you don't meet the criteria but are interested in participating in another way, the organizers still encourage you to write to them!)

Website link:

[quatregats]

What if The Frogs and the Lobsters but they actually set it in the real Muzillac and Mariette was Breton

[racketti]

homophobic/transphobic billy fans are NOT welcome in this fandom!!! 🚫

It's not whether you like harringrove or not, it's your behavior. you can dislike a ship without being an asshole about it, or you're just acting like the antis.

you can't stand a fictional ship/headcanon for some reason? it's not our fault, don't blame us. turn off the phone or something.

[nekomimiswitchtsukarui]

really not a big fan of ppl on here making "jokes" about killing minorities

[anodyne-sunflower]

Every day I wake up, I become angrier and angrier. I feel geniune hate for Trump supporters and their ilk. Hate for those who didn't vote or you stupid protest voters (how's that working out for you?), who still have the nerve to say "both sides." I'm pissed. Sincerely fuck you all who aided this administration.

I would say I'm glad I live in a blue state, but not like they aren't gunning for us with pleasure.

My job is directly impacted by so many sides. RFK included...federal funding included. Screw this.

[useless-catalanfacts]

I have added English subtitles to this video posted by Helena Sotoca on Instagram. She's from Madrid (Spain) but has been living in Catalonia for 7 years. As she explained in another video, she didn't learn any Catalan the first 3 years she lived here, but then realised how she was imposing Spanish on her group of Catalan friends and how important it was for her friends to keep their language, so she learned it. She is very happy about this decision which has allowed her to integrate more in Catalan society and culture.

In this video, she gives her personal opinion on why languages are not only "a way to understand each other". This sentence is something that we speakers of discriminated languages have to hear all the time (in fact, I was reminded of this video a few days ago because @beautiful-basque-country got that comment). Many times, they'll say: "why are you so annoying about wanting to be able to speak your language? A language is only a tool to understand each other, so if you speak both [the local language and the imperial language], why not just always speak [the imperial language]?".

This mindset is what leads to language extermination. First of all, because it assumes that our languages are less worthy of existence and thus that the language's community is less worthy of existence. If I stop speaking my language, I stop being a part of me. If all my culture stops speaking our language, we stop existing. Language is deeply tied to culture, it's through language that we think and transmit our worldview, and there are many aspects of our culture and our landscape that we can only describe in our language, because only we have the specific words to describe it or because the translation loses nuance, context, and connotations. Remove language, and the rest of the culture will soon follow.

Secondly, it erases the reason why we speak the state's language, which is usually because of imposition through violence, and justifies this imposition because the imperial violence of the past that made the imperial language more widely spoken is now the reason why speakers of the imperial language deserve more rights than those who suffered the imposition.

But besides these more social reasons, I like how Helena explains her personal relation to the language in this video. She also shows us one of the reasons why it's so important to promote discriminated languages to be used in public (and not only hidden at home): when you meet someone speaking a language, you form a bond with them in that language and it can be difficult to change. Speakers of minoritized languages often meet each other in contexts in which they're socially pressured to speak the state's language, and so we find the situation where a group of friends who are all native speakers of the minoritized language will form a bond in the state's language. Thus, slowly, because of the state's language imposition in the public sphere (this is what the "speak the state language if there's even 1 person who might not speak the local language! Languages are only a tool for communication!" mindset pushes us to), the local language gets pushed aside more and more, until we can't have a normal life in it and the state's language imposition becomes absolute, and the local language dies, taking with it its culture, history, and connection to the land and ancestors.

With some work, it can be reversed. I've explained this before but I'll say it again because it's relevant. My parents met in Spanish, because they met in high school and back then speaking Catalan in schools was strictly forbidden and punished. They were speaking in Spanish even when they started dating, but they realised how absurd it was that two native Catalan speakers spoke Spanish to each other and how it was a result of Francoist policy. They decided they don't want Francoism to infiltrate our personal lives, so they made the effort and switched. Maintaining the language of their surroundings, their culture, their land, they became even closer. And, thanks to their decision, when I was born I had the luck of being a native speaker of the language too, because it's what we've always spoken at home. But they did it because they had a political antifascist conscience, many people don't think much about it and just go with what is easier. If they had done that, the language would have lost them and also me. Multiply this for how many people meet each other in settings where social pressure or social rules promote speaking the imperial language instead of the local one that is closer to their hearts.

So no, a language is not only a tool to understand each other. It's also what allows us to speak according to our own understanding of the world (instead of assimilating into another's worldview), it gives meaning to our surroundings (both nature, the names we give to places, etc), every word is an unbroken chain with all of those who came before us, it allows us to understand our ancestors whether that be through their writing or songs they passed down or legends, it's an integral part of the human relations we establish, and so much more. Every language is worth everything. Every language has the right to exist and to thrive.

[scentedpastaclodsoul]

Parlam un pauc de l'occitan (Let's talk about occitan)

L'occitan es una langa que se parla dins lo sud de França, al nòrd d'Itàlia, dins la Val d'Aran, en Catalunya. Es una lenga romanica que fa pas partida de las lengas oficialas en França mas qu'es ensenhada dins d'unas escòlas e universitats. Se retròba dins l'occitan diferent dialèctes, aicí es de lengadocian. L'Estat francés en unificant lo país astors d'una lenga comuna a participat activament a l'esfaçament de nòstra lenga e de nòstra cultura. Son ensenhament èra defendut, los ensenhaires que parlavan occitan son estats remplaçats e se los escolans parlavan occitan a l'escòla èran punís fisicament. Uèi, nòstra lenga es "en dangièr seriós d'extincion" segon l'UNESCO. L'occitan es pas la sola lenga regionala a aver subte aquò. Totas la diversitat lingüistica en França es estada tocada.

Occitan is a language spoken in southern France, northern Italy, the Aran Valley and Catalonia. It is a Romance language that is not an official language in France but is taught in some schools and universities. Within Occitan itself there are different dialects, here it is Languedocien. The French state, by unifying the country around a common language, has actively participated in the erasure of our language and culture. Its teaching was forbidden, teachers who spoke Occitan were replaced and if pupils spoke Occitan at school they were physically punished. Today, our language is "in serious danger of extinction" according to UNESCO. Occitan is not the only regional language to have suffered this. All linguistic diversity in France has been affected.

[technician-x]

Vote this year. Don't care if you "aren't interested in politics" or whatever the hell, if you care about the people of this country, go and vote. The only reason we have so many pseudo-nazis in the house right now is because the Republicans have manipulated the young into not voting. You may miss the election but you know who won't? Former/current KKK members, neonazis, racists, homophobics, and many other hateful groups. You NEED to vote if you want to avoid these scumbags putting their puppets into office to make the lives of minorities absolute hell. The Republicans have only taken rights away in the past decade, I know you don't want to lose any more rights than you've already lost.

[hamptercatapult]

Ohh, so now the South Park fanfiction writer is going to preach to us about Vote Blue No Matter Who???

[rotzaprachim]

doing some readings for class and now extremely interested if academic work has been done on the boarding school in Harry Potter as English/Anglo-American apparatus for assimilation and social control

[useless-catalanfacts]

Sweden saying they'll vote against allowing the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European Union Parliament because "there's lots of minority languages and we can't allow them all" is so funny because CATALAN HAS MORE SPEAKERS THAN SWEDISH

Catalan is the 13th most spoken language in the EU. It has more than 10 million speakers, which means it has more speakers than other languages that are already official EU languages like Maltese (530,000), Estonian (1.2 million), Latvian (1.5 million), Irish (1.6 million), Slovene (2.5 million), Lithuanian (3 million), Slovak (5 million), Finnish (5.8 million), Danish (6 million), Swedish (10 million), and Bulgarian (10 million).

Neither Galician (3 million) nor Basque (750,000) would still be the least spoken languages to be allowed in the EU representative bodies.

But even if any of them did, so what? Why do speakers of smaller languages deserve less rights than those of bigger languages? How are we supposed to feel represented by the EU Parliament when our representatives aren't even allowed to speak our language, but the dominant groups can speak theirs?

It all comes down to the hatred of language/cultural diversity and the belief that it's an inconvenience, that only the languages of independent countries have any kind of value while the rest should be killed off. After all, isn't that what Sweden has been trying to do to the indigenous Sami people for centuries?

[femmeclefable]

...

idk man academia just gets at me sometimes. it's impossible to ever feel like i'm doing enough. networking feels like an uphill battle constantly. i wish i was doing shit on reproductive health because everyone wants a piece of that. but i'm doing theoretical work on transness and it just seems so stupidly hard to find any faculty who can help. i have my advisor and she's really incredible, but she doesn't really hire research assistants. i just feel like i'm so behind. everyone around me is like "ohh yeah i'm working at [big name research institution] this summer and next year" or "i'm helping [faculty] as a research assistant this summer" and doing things that actually advance their career and i just got a fucking restaurant job because there's nothing for me to do in academia and i'm poor. no one really gives a shit about trans studies. sex researchers are like "ermm yeah we don't really account for trans people bc it's too hard ^-^" or account for trans people in the most minor way possible just to get brownie points and i know i'm being a little unfair here but it just feels so true. such an alienating feeling that never ever goes away. i just don't get how people can network and get all these amazing gigs and jobs and opportunities it constantly feels like everyone is in some big club that i know nothing about. it's so easy to overlook me when you just truly don't give a shit about theory or trans people. thinking about how often faculty/other grad students just don't include me or single me out in weird ways or just get prickly around me. i'm a grad student too. i do work too. i have published too. i do work here too. but i never got the club invite so who cares. though, this is the place where "trans" gets mobilized to include everything and everyone and rarely actually has to do with trans people, so why am i surprised. why do i have to network with the biggest names in trans studies for even a small chance at success when my peers can network with just the faculty at our university for a chance of success? there's just not really any meaningful place for me here and it feels worse and worse as time goes on i hate it. im just ranting i'm fine though please im fine

[theodoreangelos]

St. Johns' Church with the Loreto Chapel and Minorite Monastery in Brno (Church of Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist) Minoritský kostel sv. Janů v Brně (Kostel svatého Jana Křtitele a Jana Evangelisty), Brno St. Johannes-Minoritenkirche mit Loretokapelle (Kirche der Hll. Johannes der Täufer und Johannes der Evangelist), Brünn Костёл Святых Янов при Монастыре миноритов (Храм святых Иоанна Крестителя и Иоанна Богослова), Брно