Unexpected Audism & Au Revoir

Wow, it's been *ages* since I last blogged! Hi again... that is, if any of you are still around. *smile*

Awhile ago, I went to my local drugstore and the clerk said something to me when I wasn't looking. When I realized what was happening, I signed, "I'm Deaf. What did you say?" with a smile on my face. This usually results in their repeating themselves or scrambling for a pen and paper. Not this time. She awkwardly signed, "I'm sorry you're Deaf" with the most infuriating look of pity on her face. I signed back, "Don't be sorry. I'm happy I'm Deaf." She shook her head and signed, "No, no. Sad. Sorry you're Deaf." I was aghast. How can a person who signs have such a negative view of me and my people? And how DARE she deny my feelings and perspective as if I don't matter? I asked some friends how they'd respond and I got some interesting comments... how would YOU respond in that situation? I'm curious.

While I'm blogging, I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to bid DeafRead au revoir. I think Tayler and Jared did the community a great service in many ways. I've "met" so many amazing people from all walks of life through this forum, and I cherish that. I think for a long time DeafRead was the place for a genuine, respectful exchange of ideas and views. Don't get me wrong - I don't blame DeafRead for the actions of some bloggers and commenters - the responsibility lies entirely within those individuals. Before I continue, this is a very hard post for me to write.

Please indulge me by allowing me to describe my journey and thoughts as a blogger since 2006, and one who's been blogging with DeafRead almost since the very beginning. I saw DeafRead as a place where we could all come together, and it was. Some people who don't sign and aren't part of the Deaf community joined DeafRead and that was a surprise. But as a curious, open person, I started reading their posts. Some of them seemed to be interested in exploring this community, learning about others, and letting us know they're out there. I grew to appreciate people like Robyn of New Zealand, Abbie of New Jersey, and David Poirer of Canada. However, this influx also brought people who were very negative about the Deaf community and our beautiful signed languages. This was hurtful and completely counter to the purpose of DeafRead, I felt. I tried talking with one of the founders about this, but he was firm in his position that everyone had a place at the table. I agree, in principle, but not when those people are destructive. Many others were speaking up about this as well.

At the same time this was happening, DeafBlogLand was overtaken by some toxic people who were out to bash others. This was very upsetting, but I figured it was kind of part of the territory. Site owners needed to take responsibility for their entries and the type of comments they would allow. But the frequent flare-ups and attacks grew wearying and took a toll on me. Truthfully, the last straw for me was the Milwaukee Witch Trials of 2008. Seeing reputations trashed, people's jobs threatened, and more did it for me. I essentially stopped reading DeafRead that summer because I couldn't take it anymore. 

I've been back twice since then just to see what was up. Both times the impression I came away with was, "The CI is a miracle!" and a few entries about minor Deaf events. This seems awfully two-dimensional. Where's the variety? Where's the vibrant, colorful community? 

Curious, I asked around, asking these three questions: Have you read DeafRead regularly at any point? If so, do you still follow DeafRead regularly? If you stopped, why did you stop? The responses were invariably something along the lines of Yes, no, and because it doesn't reflect me and/or the attacks are just too much. That's exactly how I feel. 

I checked DeafRead tonight for the third time since summer, and what do I see? A spate of angry posts. The first one I saw was Can't We All Behave?, followed by Barb's take, Amy's take, and MishkaZena's take. Ben's post that was listed on DeafRead next to Barb's was removed, but Google caching uncovers it here (but not for long, I'm sure.) I'm sure I've missed some posts, but I don't care. The posts listed here contained more than enough vitriol for me. The ugliness in some of the comments in these posts was appalling. I flashed back to last summer and I realized I don't want to be here anymore. 

THIS is why I haven't been able to bring myself to blog. I don't feel safe. I have no issue with people who disagree with me. It's a free country and one of my core values as an American is, "Dissent is patriotic," as Jefferson once said. It's when that dissent crosses into attacks and name-calling, no matter what the provocation or no matter what perspective one has, that it becomes wrong. This is one reason this is a hard post for me to write. I feel muzzled. I'm unable to write here without carefully considering every word and trying to figure out how to say something so I won't be attacked. I know no matter how hard I try, some people are going to find a way to attack me. I don't want to be in an unsafe atmosphere any longer.

I don't know if I'll be blogging much once DeafRead places my blog on the inactive list, but I certainly hope so. I just know that every time I think about blogging, I think about the attacks I've seen. My decision will not insulate me completely, I know, but at least I'm taking a stand against the venom out there. I'm taking action to make myself safer. 

Goodbye, DeafRead. It was great while it lasted.

**Note: Comments will be moderated, as always. Of course dissenting opinions are welcome, as long as the writer writes with respect. *smile* But be aware that comments may not be moderated quickly. This is the first time I've logged into my Blogger account in months. I found a few comments up for moderation, and they will be let through. I apologize if any of those were yours. No offense was intended.

Reclaiming The Deaf Term: HEARING, MOTHER FATHER DEAF

I’ve resisted the term CODA from the beginning, which is unlike me. I’m big on allowing members of a group to define their own identity and not to define them when I am not a member of the group. But the term that Americans have gleefully adopted to define those who are hearing with Deaf parents has always been jarring and wrong on some fundamental level for me.

The first thing that I was able to explain that was wrong was the addition of “adult” to “children of deaf.” I mean, what, are we trying to make sure people understand that they’re not children of children? Not children of senior citizens? Not children of rocks? What? I know they were trying to avoid confusion with the more common acronym “COD,” or Cash On Delivery. But it immediately struck me as ridiculous and still does.

Other than that, it still felt wrong. But I couldn’t explain why. I read Paul Preston’s book, Mother Father Deaf, and I realized, yesyesyes, that term feels so right. When I started signing it instead (or sometimes HEARING, MOTHER FATHER DEAF), it felt like the universe was smiling on me. I didn’t have the words to articulate why this felt so right, however, except that it was the “Deaf way.”

It’s been interesting to note the reactions I’ve received when signing it the old Deaf way rather than just fingerspelling CODA. If I had a nickel for every time someone replied, “Ohohoh, you mean CODA...” Others have given me a blank stare. Still others say, “RIGHT, CODA THAT.” *shrug* I’m not going to stop doing what I’m doing, even if it somehow discombobulates those around me.

When I was reading Paddy Ladd’s weighty tome, Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, so I could see what the fuss was about, I was struck by the Britishism HMFD. Ladd explains that British Deaf people sign HEARING MOTHER FATHER DEAF, and they’ve made it into an acronym. The Deaf community there uses HMFD. That was like a homecoming for me. YES! HMFD! Yes!

I’ve been struggling for years to articulate just why I hate the term CODA so much, and I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’m much closer than I was. For one thing, it bothers me that the old term wasn’t good enough for them. They had to reject the ASL phrase and turn to English to define themselves. To me, that is a wholesale repudiation of what makes them unique. I’m offended by that.

I know what I said is going to offend at least some of you. But I just had to get that out of my system. I really find the term CODA to be a denial of their heritage. They weren’t satisfied with the beautiful ASL phrase and they turned to the majority language, cobbled together an awkward, ridiculous, laughable acronym, and shoved it in our faces, getting offended when Deaf people didn’t immediately jump on the bandwagon. (Oh, yes. I remember some of them scolding me way back when.) No wonder so many of us caved. Again, I’m all for allowing people to define themselves, but this sticks in my craw.

And now to find that the Deaf community across the pond embraces the British Sign Language phrase, wow. That was liberating. I hope we can do the same here, even though I’m not optimistic. I plan to continue using the ASL phrase HEARING MOTHER FATHER DEAF, and I think I may start using HMFD in print.

I offer this not to cause controversy or hard feelings, but as food for thought, whether you agree or not.

A Metaphor for Life?

My family was at the pool this morning, when someone nudged me, chuckling, and asked me to look at the guy in the next lane. The guy had two tufts of hair near his temples and they were standing up on end, with a slight curve to each, resembling devil's horns. She said, "Doesn't he look like the devil?" He DID! He had a very dark complexion, dark hair, and a very intense look on his face.

A bit later, she nudged me again, saying, "Now that's a metaphor for Life: You're in the water of Life, going along, with the Devil in the next lane." *chuckle*

If You Hate Being Shaken Awake, This One Is For You! There's Hope!

Raise your hand if you prefer being awakened by a light rather than being jarred awake by some shaky vibraty thingamajig. Me too, me too. 

I seem to be very hard on alarm clocks for some reason, and I suspect it's because I use the snooze button quite liberally. I am *not* a morning person, no matter how hard I try. This leads to replacement of alarm clocks every couple of/few years, unfortunately. I always make sure I have a back-up alarm clock.

This means planning ahead, since we can't exactly wander into our local drugstore or megastore and pick up a teensy, cute alarm for 5.95 plus tax. Deaf agencies have by and large done away with their Deaf Stores, since they were money pits for the agencies. The Internet to the rescue for many of us... (those of us who have *access* to the 'Net ... and many of us don't.)

The last time I needed alarm clocks, I was able to go to my local Deaf Store and pick some up. Imagine my shock when I looked at the displays and saw only *one* clock that I could plug a light into... a SonicBoom clock. And I have the *worst* luck with 'em. I'd gone through three in one year at that point. Every other type of alarm clock I've ever had lasted at least one year. Dismayed, I asked the shopkeeper about plug-in light options. She whispered to me,

"I know. Isn't it awful how the alarm clock manufacturers have stopped making plug-in alarms? I've gotten so many complaints from customers. But I have just the thing for you! This company, DeafWorks, is a small outfit in Provo that modifies alarm clocks so they can be plugged in. A few just came in last week and I save them for customers like you."

In alt, I bought two, thanking her profusely. They've served me well, and they were *cheap* compared to other alarm clocks out there.

I'm now taking stock of my alarm clock inventory, and ... urk. Time to think about making sure I have back-ups that work. 

I find alarm clock vibrators one of the cruelest inventions known to man. They fall off the bed, they move where they can't rouse me, they give me an awful headache if they're too close to my head, they scare me, and they put me in a foul mood for the rest of the morning. I. Cannot. Stand. Vibrating alarm clocks. I'll tolerate my Sonic Shaker pinned to the bottom of my nighties when I'm traveling, but that's about it.

So why in blankety-blank *would* alarm clock manufacturers decide that we all need vibrating alarm clocks? Manufacturers, if you read this, take heed: We *want* options. There are those of us who prefer being awakened more naturally than being rudely roused with shaking things that don't stay where they're supposed to stay, create lumps under the bed/pillow, and induce people to produce strings of expletives every morning. 

But I digress. There is hope for those of us who want, need, and expect plug-in lights. There are only two alarm clocks on the Harris Communications website that I could find that are not Sonic Boom clocks: the Hal-Hen and the Wake Me Up. Both are rather pricey and they're *huge*, which is not a good thing when your nightstand real estate is limited. DeafWorks to the rescue! They offer three options, the Original, the Futuristic, and the Jumbo, all for less than $47, and two for less than $40! Thrillsville!

There's hope, there's hope!

PS - if there are any other online retailers of Deaf products, please leave a comment for all of us - it would help us know where we can go to shop. Thanks! *smile*

*Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, employed or affiliated with DeafWorks. I'm simply a happy customer. :-)

Beautiful English = Lousy Signing? NOT!

I happened to notice this comment in Teri Sentelle's latest entry. The commenter's point was not contained in the portion I'm about to quote and it was more of a toss-away additional thought, but it felt like a slap in the face:

I was shocked to see him on video signing beautifully. I thought he was not a fluent signer because he writes like Harvard scholars.

The implication of this statement is that good signers are not good writers. If one is a good writer, therefore, one is probably not a good signer. THIS is one reason why AG Bell, the Oberkotter Foundation, and the auditory-industrial complex are able to convince so many parents that signing is bad. And for our own community members to believe this too is scary. Have we not seen ample evidence of people with native-like competence in both languages to put this myth to rest yet? Ben Vess comes to mind. So do David Eberwein and Shelley Potma. There are scads more out there, and I'm naming many names in my mind right now.

I took this as a personal affront. Does this mean that people reading what I write automatically assume I sign like I just finished ASL Level 2, just because I happen to know my way around a sentence? I can assure you that is *far* from the case. (and no, I absolutely *refuse* to offer you, the Teeming Millions, proof, thanks to how toxic DeafBlogLand has become. I'm hanging onto my anonymity for my personal, professional, communal, mental, emotional, and spiritual safety. End of rant. Back to the topic at hand.) I find it indescribably sad that at least one of our own people believes that good writing skills and good signing skills are very unlikely to exist in the same person. 

Good writing ≠ good signing

True? (I say heck no!)

Thoughts?

Comments?

Who Are You? Look No Further Than Your Home.

Last Sunday I was wandering around, exploring open houses in my neighborhood - it's a fun way to spend an afternoon. One house I went in was still cluttered, and it was very clear that the owner had recently passed away. There was a note on the doors admonishing everyone not to let Duncan, the cat, in. Duncan had been adopted by the neighbors but still sneaks in whenever possible. There were a few notes in the living room about what the executor wants, and some boxes that were in the process of being packed up. All the furnishings and the appliances were from mid-century (which I love!). It was easy to imagine this little old lady living out her life there.

The whole thing made me very sad, yet I was very moved. Just by walking through this tiny 1930s-era house, I was able to glean glimpses of what this woman was like. She was a non-smoker (no scent of cigarettes or attempts to cover the smell up, nor any ashtrays or stains in sight), a highly literate person (books everywhere and bookshelves in almost every room), who traveled some (some tchotchkes and travel things were out, but not a lot), and who enjoyed her garden (it was maintained nicely). She enjoyed Sudoku and crossword puzzles (a stack of Dell and Penny Press books were in one bedroom). From looking at what she read, she enjoyed history (both local and national), mysteries, politics, novels, current popular fiction, landscaping, art, and a smattering of other things. There were also playing cards, a television, and a CD/cassette player. I got the feeling I would like this woman very much and that we had a lot in common.

I realize I probably will never know her name, what she died of, what her heirs are like, and what will become of her possessions. But I really feel like I know her in a sense. I'm sad she passed on and I hope it was an easy, peaceful death.

The experience is making me look around my house and wondering what people would learn about me. I have books everywhere and tons of bookshelves too, and my books definitely reflect many, but not all, of my interests. Travel is part of my house decor also. My furniture choices also make a statement in and of themselves. A brightly-colored iMac is prominent in my office. I'm seeing signs of my offbeat personality reflected throughout. Some of my values are obvious from what I've chosen to show and not show so much (only one small TV is visible, for example). I'm taking stock of my house and thinking about whether or not I want to tweak anything that my house is telling people about me.

What does your house say about you? What would you want your house to say about you? You're welcome to leave comments, but if you don't, I invite you to mull these questions over anyway. :)

Sample Attacks and RSS Readers

Irresponsible comments

Hmm. In my most recent post, I've received generally polite comments, even from those who didn't agree, and I thank my commenters for that. However, I received one comment that just could not be allowed through because he called individuals or groups names. In the past, I simply didn't let this type of comment through without saying a word about it. But because of the current situation in DeafBlogLand, I am publishing it in this post and dissecting it to show why I feel this is an example of what none of us should tolerate.

(at 9:14) Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Call For Accountability For All":

Responsibility? The deafhood goons has [sic] hijacked deafread since last May.

Deafhood's favorite modality is bullying others so the mess seen on the deafread sphere is very representative of deafhood.

Richard Roehm

Calling a group "goons" should never be acceptable. I'd say the same if someone called Rachel and Elizabeth of Cochlear Implant Online goons, and I'm saying it about this comment. And blaming the current mess solely on deafhood is unfair. There is plenty of blame to go around.

And please note that how I talked about the comment focused solely on what was said, not on the individual involved. This is an important point.

RSS Readers

On to another topic, RSS feeds. Some people have been asking for subscription lists on blogs, but there's a far better way to be notified when your favorite blogs have new posts. That's to use a RSS reader. I'd like to encourage all of you who want another way to read your favorite blogs to look into using a RSS reader.

There are many options out there, both computer-based and web-based. I love RSS Menu for the Mac, because it puts my RSS feeds right into the menu bar. But I'd hafta install it... and update it on all the computers I use, which gets unwieldy. So I use Bloglines instead, since it's web-based and I can use it on any computer that has Internet access. There are other programs and Web-based readers out there that you can use. Check Version Tracker for computer-based RSS programs to try out. There are other web-based readers that I've heard of, like NewsGator, Google Reader, and others. If you know of any others, please do leave a comment so all of us can learn more.

For me, Bloglines is very, very easy to use. You sign up for an account, and it walks you through the steps easily. The DeafRead team posted a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Bloglines in the early days of DeafRead. There was also a video showing how, but it's no longer there. You do need to scroll down to How to read DeafRead in a RSS Reader, and the instructions are the same for any website. If there is no RSS link on the blog, you can just click on "Add" in the top lefthand corner, type in or copy and paste the blog address itself and Bloglines will look for the RSS feed for you.

A nifty perk is that Bloglines is offered in 9 languages, including French, but c'est moi... *grin*

I'm not here to advertise Bloglines, but to encourage y'all to use RSS feeds to directly access your favorite blogs and vlogs. I personally go to both DeafRead and my Bloglines home page. Which I do first depends on a lot of things at that moment. Experiment. Play. Find out what works best for you. Some of you may want to just stay with DeafRead, which is fine! Some of you may want to move exclusively to a RSS reader, which is fine! Whatever works for you. :)

*I know the person who commented above is a controversial figure in the community, but I will not tolerate any comments that attack him as a person. Any such comments will be rejected.

Call For Accountability For All

This is a comment I left on Joey Baer's blogsite in his follow-up post to leaving DeafRead.

Joey,

I have to concur with the premise that DeafRead is unsafe. I've all but stopped blogging publicly because the atmosphere is just too toxic.

So yes, in a way, I'm one of those bloggers who left DeafRead too, even though I haven't asked for my feed to be removed from their roster.

I've read Tayler's statement about how all of us need to take responsibility. I agree, and I try to do my part by remaining firm in the belief that people can say what they want - they can agree with me, they can disagree with me, whatever, but they need to remain respectful toward everyone if they want their thoughts to appear on my blog. I wish all bloggers took this responsibility seriously and insisted on respectful dialogue, even when there is a lot of dissent.

However, I do not feel that the DeafRead editorial team has lived up to its responsibility to create a safe environment. Their inconsistency and bending of their own guidelines has contributed to this situation, as well as certain bloggers, vloggers, and commenters. I still cannot believe they have let posts attacking individuals through.

I feel bad for Tayler and the team, though. No matter what they do, they get criticized. I can understand that. I admire Tayler and Jared for establishing DeafRead - that is just awesome. However, I seriously believe the team needs to re-evaluate everything, revamp their guidelines, and ensure that all editors are on the same page - no, the same LINE - when it comes to what is OK and isn't for the front page.

One thing that bugs me about Tayler's announcement is that it is almost impossible to respond to his post. You have to be logged in to comment. Log in to what, I still haven't figured out. This has the unfortunate effect of shutting down a lot of the dialogue that Tayler could be having with members of the online community he created. If he wants to disallow anonymous comments (which has pros and cons), he could use OpenID, which allows people to use their blog accounts from any platform, their AIM screen names, and other online identities. I would have commented there if not for that, and it's unfortunate that we can't talk directly to him on this forum. Tayler, if you're reading this, I hope you consider this. I know it must be so hard to deal with what is happening, but we need to be able to talk to you directly.

Kudos to you for standing up for your principles. We need to support each other, the DeafRead team, and people in our community - while demanding positive changes and accountability from the DeafRead team and from every one of us who blogs and/or comments in DeafBlogLand, while respecting diverse viewpoints - even if we disagree. I'm all for freedom of speech and freedom to have diverse opinions, but with that freedom comes responsibility.

*Comments will be moderated, as always, and all opinions that are respectful will be let through. Attacks against anyone or any entity, as always, will not be tolerated.

Drama in DeafBlogLand

The saga du jour is the DeafRead-Cochlear Implant Online mêlée. Everybody and his brother has been blogging about this since the news broke midweek, with criticisms flying left and right.

I’m saddened by the whole thing. There are hurt feelings everywhere and a lot of righteous indignation… some justified, some not. I can’t help but think that Tayler has been one of the staunchest defenders of inclusion on DeafRead, and when he boots someone off, he is instantly accused of either pandering to people who can’t stand Rachel or he hates Rachel/perceives her as a threat. That doesn’t make sense at all.

Remember how last winter there was intense pressure to remove audist blogs from DeafRead? Tayler refused to give in. He and the editorial team were harder to move than Mt. Everest. They repeatedly defended the decision, insisting that everyone had a place at the table. That leads me to think that there has to be more to this than Tayler has said online. It’s not as simple as “she’s out because she’s not on my side and she upsets people.” I wish more people would remember this and not be so quick to play judge, jury, and executioner here.

That said, I think Tayler and the DeafRead team need to put the facts out there for us to evaluate. We need to keep asking for the facts. I have many questions, even though I have faith in this team. I want to be able to put my support fully behind them… and I will, once I know the facts and it seems that their actions appear to be justified and appropriate.

Another thing that this whole fracas makes vividly clear: this insane either/or dichotomy.

Implants OR natural signed languages
Speech OR natural signed languages
AVT OR natural signed languages
Hearing OR Deaf
deaf OR Deaf
DeafVillage OR DeafRead

Bloggers who are in a tizzy about Rachel’s being forcibly shoved from DeafRead are saying they’re going to leave DeafRead and join Deaf Village. I’m scratching my head, because really, there is no need to choose. Why can’t people be on both sites? Those who are on both but only want to read one site are welcome to do that. It seems to me that this DeafVillage OR DeafRead mentality is some kind of bizarre extension of the insistence that one has to make a choice to either speak or sign with Deaf children. That’s not the case. Let’s give them everything. Let’s be part of everything.

Another issue here is that very few people are acknowledging how Rachel is a polarizing figure and even if they do, they usually do not acknowledge why. Patti Durr had this to say:

she has a horrible view of ASL and Deaf culture people and by virtue of writing such she has deliberately and intentionally steered any parents away from Deaf culture and ASL and she had this attitude long before she got any nasty comments in her blog. Just as it is a pity when any vlog/blog chooses to paint CI people in a horrible light, so too is it a pity when any CI person (or supporter) choose to paint ASL and Deaf people in a horrible light

Exactly. She also says in the same comment:

and I am sorry to say this kim but for every nasty comment u can show me that has been directed at CI folks or CI supporters (and I don’t accept or like those) I can show u some pretty ugly stuff coming from these very same folks

Horrible comments are not necessary and should not be accepted, no matter what one’s paradigm or who those comments are directed toward. I’m struggling with how to say this, because I truly do not want to hurt Rachel or anyone. I just want to express how I feel and what I think about what people are saying, how they are presenting themselves, and what respect truly is.

This is why I love Patti Durr – she is so gentle and loving toward everyone. I was very moved by this entry directed at Rachel. It expresses so much of what I think and feel about Rachel's writing.

Tony Nicholas raises an important question: what exactly is respect? How does one show respect?

I do not feel that Rachel, Melissa, and Elizabeth have shown me, and others like me, respect. I do not feel that they have truly listened and tried to understand different perspectives. I feel I have been trying, as exemplified in this post and others I’ve written. And I continue to try to do so. Tony, again, hits a home run when he says:

Personally, I find the attitude displayed [or Canine Territorial Marking as the case may be] on Cochlear Implant Online, every a bit arrogant as those Elizabeth and Rachel [and their mother] accuse the “militant deaf” of displaying. Reducing comments, perspectives, et al, to the status of “that’s an interesting viewpoint”, is frigging patronising. With Elizabeth’s admission that she and her sister are basically two little college girls, she puts her foot right in it. I will abstain from baring my fangs here. Mother is there, lurking in the shadows.

Bingo. Let’s be honest here. Some people who accuse us of being militant have hurled the most vile invectives toward us. The ugliness is not one-sided. This is why Rachel and other partisans are such polarizing figures. To be fair, Rachel herself has never, to my knowledge, been openly insulting. Her barbs are subtler, but they find their mark just the same.

I agree with Patti when she said that she doesn’t want to declare open season on Rachel। I don’t either. She is a person who deserves to be treated with respect. She has mine as a human being. So do every one of you. However, it is necessary to examine the situation more critically and acknowledge what has been said and done.

Please don’t interpret this as anti-CI or anti-non-signers. It is NOT. There are many people, like Robyn, Kim, and many others, who truly want to listen to everyone and share their experiences. Their attitude and their way of presenting themselves is what makes the diference. I cherish these people and consider them very much part of the community.

I still dream that one day we will all be able to come together in mutual respect and harmony as a community, even if we do not agree. For that to happen, we all need to examine our own attitudes, words, and motivations. I’m examining mine. I invite you to examine yours. Here’s to a healthy, respectful online community that includes people from all walks of life.

Support Hamill? Yes and No

Many, many people have weighed in with their opinion on the controversy surrounding Matt Hamill's decision to have Eben Kostbar play him in Kostbar's movie, Hamill. However, there is one element that has yet to be blogged about that I'd like to touch upon.

Hamill is a member of the Deaf community and does not deserve to be vilified for this decision. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that my title contains the word "yes" in response to whether or not we should support him.

Before I go any further into my premise, let's examine Hamill's (entry dated 5/9/08) and Kostbar's arguments. Kostbar, an actor, wanted to create a role for himself. He does this to make a living. He became interested in the Hamill story, befriended Hamill, and has spent two years researching this story, writing it, and preparing for the role. Understandably, he's loath to give up a starring role in a movie that he has spent so much time developing and financing. Hamill has equally valid reasons for wanting Kostbar to play him. Kostbar looks similar enough to pull it off, he has become a friend, he has worked so hard to make this project truly represent Hamill, Hamill wants this movie made, Kostbar may be the best choice in many ways due to all of his preparation, and so forth. No matter where we stand on this issue, we have to recognize that Hamill and Kostbar have valid reasons for wanting this project to continue as planned, with Kostbar taking the title role. Furthermore, the project appears incredibly well thought out and sensitive to a Deaf audience.

While I can empathize completely with them and their goals, I'm still lying here on my sofa, typing these words, "I don't care. It's still WRONG for a hearing person to play a deaf person on so many levels." Those who insist that it is Hamill's choice repeatedly make two false arguments:
1. It is Hamill's choice (and thus denying the ripple effects of said choice).
2. This is just a small group of extremists protesting this decision.

Argument number one: I will be the first to concede the truth of this - it is indeed Hamill's choice. He should have the freedom to decide who will play him. However, I believe that Hamill either does not realize or does not care about the consequences of his choice. He seems to be only thinking of his project, not about the community. This action runs counter to community values. A Deaf community member normally considers the community's needs and interests very carefully before proceeding with a decision that affects the community. This decision could have very negative consequences on Deaf actors and on Deaf children who do not see themselves represented on the silver screen. Has Hamill considered this? I'm no mind-reader, but I wonder about this.

Argument number two: This is patently and absurdly false. From where I stand, from the discussions I've had in the Real World and online, popular opinion is running strongly against Hamill's decision. It actually seems to be a small, yet vocal minority that is calling us extremist, militant, and every foul name under the sun while blaming us for the problem. They are, of course, entitled to their opinion. But they seem to be ignoring the points made by many who have expressed concerns. It seems to me that they're too busy blaming us, saying the movie may not be made, we're making the community look bad, and a lot more in this vein.

Speaking of blame... MishkaZena hit the nail on the head - it is Hamill's decision that is causing this debate, not us. Hamill had the temerity to claim that "[i]t's unfortunate that there is always a small portion of the deaf community that feels the need to protest the most trivial things in life." We wouldn't have had to raise the issue if not for his decision. And this is most assuredly not trivial. I'm not willing to accept *any* blame for this discussion. All we're doing is listening to our Deaf intuition (no, not channeled through any of our "Deafhood priests" or anything equally ridiculous,) and taking a stand.

Hamill, and these people, are going about this from individualistic American culture, which is more concerned about looking out for their own interests. We are approaching this from the collective Deaf community viewpoint. That's the difference between the two perspectives. From reading comments, there are quite a few people who see both points of view and are torn. I can understand this, because I have mixed feelings as well. To me, though, a principle is a principle. I'm stickin' by mine.

An issue this raises: the role of a hearing ally. Kostbar, even though his statement was beautiful and he is seriously *hot* (sorry, hadda throw that in there), needs to consider this carefully. Someone told me a story that perfectly illustrates a true hearing ally a few weeks ago: She wanted to nominate this hearing person to be on the Gallaudet Board of Trustees when they were recently filling seats. The hearing person said, "I'd rather seats go to Deaf people first. Once that happens, then and only then, would I consider maybe being nominated. It's not my place to be making decisions for Deaf people." Exactly. Kostbar, while professing a deep love for Deaf people and for our culture, is still making decisions that benefit himself, not us. (see above about collectivism) He is also sounding remarkably paternalistic when he asks us to consider that he "helped birth a project" that will allegedly bring about heightened awareness. I believe that Kostbar is sincere, but he is either unaware of or choosing to ignore what he's doing. At the moment, he is not acting like a true hearing ally.

Allow me to anticipate some bloggers' arguments: "You're brainwashed by Deafhood priests." "You're not thinking for yourself." "You're a crab." "It's his CHOICE." "What's the hubbub about? He's just ACTING, for Pete's sake!" and more. None of these are true. I'm not brainwashed. I'm thinking for myself, and I believe it shows in how I've examined Hamill's and Kostbar's statements and empathize with both of them. I've already discussed the choice issue above. When one is talking about oppressed minorities, a member of the majority culture acting as the oppressed minority simply does *not* wash.

Let's go back to my originally stated premise. Hamill and Kostbar are getting a lot of anger heaped upon their dark-haired heads. This is unnecessary. We are civilized people and capable of debating this issue calmly with respect. Angry name-calling is not going to further our argument; in fact, it will only serve to alienate them. Kostbar's synopsis already says that Hamill feels out of place in the Deaf community. Aren't some angry bloggers and commenters proving his point? For-for? Matt Hamill is one of us. Let's reach out to him. Let's talk with him and open a dialogue with him about this topic. For example, we could suggest that he play himself and that Kostbar get a lot of credits in the film (producer, director, writer, yada, yada). We could try to explain why his decision runs completely against our community values and how damaging it could be to us. Even if he does not change his mind, he will have had the opportunity to see that this issue runs much deeper than a small group of pouters and whiners complaining, and that that image of a small group of whiners is completely untrue.

We need to support Hamill as an individual and as a community member, even if we do not support his actions. Hamill can count on my support as a person, even while I lie on my stomach, banging this entry out on my sofa, critiquing his actions and decision. This is the responsible thing to do as a community member, examining actions and discussing them while supporting each other.

**Note: Only productive comments will be allowed through, even if they do not agree with the points in this entry. Inflammatory and insulting comments will never see the light of day.

DeafSide: Home?

The message at the DeafRead conference last winter, according to people who were there, was loud and clear - DeafRead was our home and now we don't have a safe harbor. Since then, DeafRead Custom has arrived. I see pros and cons to this approach, but I confess to having implemented it happily. And now we get DeafSide? Woo-hoo!!

DeafRead Custom is an interesting creature. It's very difficult to hide many blogs because you have to click on one blog at a time and wait for the page to reload after each blog. I suspect it was implemented this way on purpose in order to force us to be choosy about which blogs to hide. Once I discovered that, I had to pause and come up with a set of criteria to help guide my clicking and waiting. They can all be boiled down into two sentences:

If the blogger is irresponsible about airing his/her opinions and routinely accuses others of being divisive, militant, exclusive, etc, I'm not interested. If the blogger repeatedly forces Deaf-centered people to have to defend our existence as a valid, viable one, I'm not interested. *click*

I'm only interested in reading/viewing entries from responsible bloggers, even if I don't agree with them. The blogs that I have hidden run the gamut from ASL users to non-signers, and they are hidden only because they fit the criteria above. But hiding only 15 blogs has made DeafRead a much more pleasant experience for me. Kudos to Tayler and Jared for coming up with this solution!

I don't understand what the hue and cry is about DeafSide myself. The idea is freakin' BRILLIANT! According to Tayler and Jared,

We understand the need for a safe harbor for the cultural and linguistic minority. DeafSide will not be a place for vblogs with a lukewarm reception to ASL. The vbloggers will unabashedly support ASL and other signing languages and have a strong Deaf cultural center. DeafSide will provide a protected area to help all signing languages thrive and encourage positive discussions among the signing Deaf.

And the problem with that is what, exactly? Women have forums where they feel safe and can celebrate womanhood. Different ethnic groups have forums where they feel safe and can celebrate their experiences. CI parents have forums where they feel safe and can celebrate their stories. And it goes on. We can't have ours? If that's the case, something's wrong with the picture here.

And the cries of "Exclusion!" are unfounded. The only "not" anywhere in their announcement says that "DeafSide will not be a place for vblogs with a lukewarm reception to ASL." Otherwise everything is described in language that describes what DeafSide will be. There's no mention about having to have certain backgrounds, certain hearing levels, certain levels of signing skill or *anything* like that. The only requirement is to "unabashedly support ASL and other signing languages and have a strong Deaf cultural center." And that's bad how, exactly? I fail to understand the fear here.

EVERY single time we Deaf-centered people create a safe harbor, it's invaded by people who would wipe us out with their attempts at "normalization." Not only that, some of our own people jump on the bandwagon and point fingers at us, accusing us of every crime under the sun... when all we want is a safe place.

DeafSide can only help DeafRead, as I see it. Many people have lost a lot of interest in DeafRead because it's not a safe place anymore. Deaf-centered people, who came to DeafRead to celebrate signed languages and our uniquely Deaf way of life, have been reduced to defending our very existence. That's one of the reasons I haven't been blogging these days. No matter how busy I was, I used to be able to find time to blog every once in a while. But I personally don't feel safe anymore. I don't mind having discussions with people in a give-and-take fashion, where everyone *listens* to each other. People who know me know that I can often be found sitting down with someone and talking to them, trying to raise them to a higher plane and to make them better community members (not by brainwashing, thankyouverymuch. I want people to think for themselves!). So that's not the issue. The issue is that since last summer, when I blog, I've had to defend my existence against people who believe that I need to be fixed. That's scary and nauseating all at once. And I'm not alone. Based on discussions in the Real World, MANY bloggers and commenters feel the same way.

Now with DeafSide, that safe harbor will be back! I believe that will encourage many people to return to blogging/vlogging/commenting and it'll bring more people into the fold. The brilliance of the plan is that DeafSide will be directly channeled into DeafRead. This will bring back the Deaf-centered voice that's been slowly disappearing from DeafRead. This will ensure that the goal of DeafRead remains - a place to bring all perspectives into one central site.

And ANYONE is welcome to join DeafSide, no matter what their background is, their signing skill is, or anything like that, as long as they show respect for the Deaf way of life.

I'm throwing my full support behind DeafSide (even tho' I think the name should be DeafCenter, DeafHub, or something like that). Thank you so much, Tayler and Jared, for crafting such an amazing solution to this dilemma!

Don't Give Up!

I've had a really, really rough 6 weeks, and there have been times when I've been ready to completely throw in the towel and just do nothing but my job, my family and friends, and my personal interests. No more community involvement. No more caring. I've had to deal with people who do not value the Deaf community, who are willing to tear down leaders to further their own selfish agendas, and with unprincipled leaders. It. Has. Been. Rough. I've gained some equilbrium back over the past two weeks, though. What has helped me get through the crap is having a base, consisting of many different people from all walks of life, who believe the same as I do - in being the best person I can be, in putting the welfare of the community first before myself, and doing whatever I can to support our leaders and our community. I was also touched by the comments left in my "Trials" post by people I have never met. Thank you! A huge shout-out to my base, all of you! *hug*

If we could all operate from a respectful Deaf-centered perspective, supporting the community and the larger world out there, doing everything we can not to damage any living thing, and showing kindness and caring toward everyone else, the world would be an amazing place. But every single one of us, as individuals, can make a difference.

I got the story below via an e-mail from a friend, and it is shown here exactly as it was in the e-mail. Just one person believing in another makes all the difference. Every time I read it, I sniffle. Thank you to whomever originated this e-mail and to all who sent it on. I hope you enjoy it, and do what you can to make a positive difference in the Deaf community and in the world!

Freedom and Jeff

Freedom and I have been together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my baby.

Jeff

When Freedom came in to Sarvey Wildlife Center in Everett, Washington she could not stand.The Center is run by volunteers who like animals.

Both wings on the eagle were broken: her left wing in 4 places. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the veternatians office.From then on, I was always around her. We placed her in a huge dog carrier with the top off that was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in.

I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, but she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldnt stand by herself in a week.

You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didnt want to go to the Center that day, because I couldnt bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her dog cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle.

She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day.We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove,and then to jesses,(these are thin leather strips) and we started doing education programs for schools in Western Washington. We wound up in the newspapers, radio(believe it or not) and Miracle Pets did a TV show about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair -the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. I swear this happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. They did the tests; and I hwas to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone. Yahoo!

The first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the "big girl" out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadnt said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), She touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I dont know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power coarse through his body. I have so many stories like that.

I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom's.

Hope you enjoy this.

Jeff

PS - I found the website, and a different version of the story above on the site, entitled "The Circle of Healing."

Michael Chorost on the rally

I realize Amy Cohen Efron already submitted this link, but it doesn't
work. Here it is again:

http://www.michaelchorost.com/blog/2008/03/26/we-all-sleep-in-silence/
I'm heartened to read about how peaceful the DBC California rally was
and about how people are working to build bridges. This is the answer.
It doesn't mean giving up our principles nor our Deaf center, but
reaching out and showing the world how accepting and respectful we
*really* are is going to make all the difference in the world.

UPDATE 4.4.08 20h22: Abbie left a comment to let me know that she had blogged about this and that she wants unity too. Thank you so much, Abbie!

Trials of being a passionate person

What does it mean to live by your principles? Heartache and grief, I’ll tell ya. Seriously.
Thanks to my principles, I’m in a fetal position more often than I care to be in.
Thanks to my principles, I’m upset more often than I care to be feeling.
Thanks to my principles, I’m aging myself more than I care to be due to stress.
Thanks to my principles, I’m more stressed than I care to be feeling.
Thanks to my principles, I’m sticking my neck out more than I care to be doing.
Thanks to my principles, I’m involved in more imbroglios than I care to be involved in.

I’m usually OK with all of the above, but not at the moment. Most of the time, I shrug and figure that that’s a small price to pay for being true to my principles. But at times like this, I wonder why the hell I’m putting myself through all this crap.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Right now, I’m waaaaay up in the boughs for several reasons, and they all have to do with principles. Principles shminriples.

One situation: I fought, along with a small group, for a positive outcome, based on a set of principles about supporting our community, et cetera. We stuck our necks out and fought, because we care. We succeeded. Now it’s a few short years later, and we are supposedly in a far better position than we were in then. However, the Fates (with a heaping dose of help from some people!) have conspired to put us in exactly the same position we were in then. I feel like I’m up against a monolith, and that all we did was to delay the inevitable. What was the point after all?

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

The tangled situations that helped propel me up even higher into the boughs recently are connected with many principles that I hold dear, including some I didn’t realize *needed* to be articulated. Among the questions the situations engender in me are: What does it mean to be a principled leader? Where do we draw the line? When is it OK to figuratively go to bed with someone who has, and continues to, betray the community? When is it OK to bitch-slap a subordinate who has done so much for the community? How much responsibility do I bear for what has transpired? Who can we trust to stay true to their principles? What does it mean to be responsible to the community? When is it ok to ignore a malevolent force and to deny the truth? How far should collectivism go? At what price loyalty? When do I need to cut my ties and let go, no matter how much it hurts? In the recent situations, a small group is pitted against this leviathan, and I feel powerless. All I have are my principles and dignity. But are they enough?

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

I look at people who don’t care and, while I usually deplore that, right now I am filled with envy. One person I know didn’t care about the 2006 protest when so many of us were pouring our hearts and souls into this. He focuses on his small corner of the world, chooses a focus, and lives his life. He certainly seems so much more at peace than I am. I look at people who have chosen to stick their heads in the sand, and I envy them. They’re able to partake in opportunities that I’m denied because of my principles. They’re able to flatter themselves that they’re needed and contributing in a meaningful way. And I’m left with a small group of people and my principles. The green-eyed monster’s perched on the shoulder of my soul right now.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

I just want to curl up under the blankets, bawl my eyes out, and rail at the injustice of it all. I want to hurl invectives at their heads and wash my hands of everything. I’ve HAD IT.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Yet…

That would be denying a very integral part of my whole being. So much of who I am is based on my principles. My choice of career and how I’ve conducted myself as a professional is wholly based on my belief that Deaf children deserve a Deaf-centered, positively affirming, language-rich, and empowering learning environment. My community involvement and the causes I’ve been involved in are all based on a set of principles that includes collectivism, integrity, the betterment of Deaf children and people, and a deep and abiding faith in people, just to name a few. I cannot deny these values that I hold dear.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

I’m left feeling adrift and unsure how to proceed, but I know this: I will not betray my principles. For without my principles, what do I have left?

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

*raising a glass* To integrity.

DeafRead BROKEN. Do-do?

What do we do about DeafRead? A simple blog aggregator has become the topic of so much controversy, people cannot even agree on whether or not DeafRead is broken. Those who agree that it’s broken can say what’s wrong, but they can’t agree on how to fix it. At the crux of the issue is: what exactly is DeafRead supposed to be?

I’m a mere sporadic blogger, but I’ve been part of DeafRead, both as a blogger and as a reader from the very beginning. That, I believe, entitles me to have an opinion. *smile* And my take on the whole thing is that DeafRead is badly broken and will need to be fixed quickly in order to be saved. The two main breakages are in its values and in the Extras voting procedure, in my view.

The core of the situation is whether or not DeafRead should have an abiding set of guiding principles or not, and if so, what they should be. I want to doff my cap to Tayler Mayer and Jared Evans. I met them both only recently, and Jared, quite briefly, but I have so much respect for them. It’s become very clear to me, via my time with Tayler in the Real World, by reading what Jared has to say in DeafBlogLand, and by what I've "heard" about them both, that both men are very community-oriented and have a clear Deaf center. They also see the value of being open to everyone. So do I. We’re all on the same page in this respect. However, where I differ with how DeafRead has been operated over the past few months is in how posts have been selected for the main page. Do-do? That's the question.

There are a few things that need to be clarified before I humbly offer my solution.

1. Deaf people, as a group, do not reject people. Every group has its share of rotten apples who cling tightly to an arbitrary set of pre-conceived notions about "membership" in the group, and the Deaf community is no exception. I could tell a story about how someone whom I made a strong connection with snubbed me after she found out I didn’t come from a Deaf family. But we as a community abhor this and gladly open our arms to anyone who shows a genuine interest, healthy curiosity, and respect. Case in point: one of my closest friends learned how to sign at the New Signer’s Program at Gallaudet, and he still does not sign like a native ASL user, but he is more than welcome in the community. His list of contacts reads partly like a list of Who’s Who in the community and ranges from people who grew up oral, like himself, to people who come from a Deaf family, graduated from a Deaf school, and from Gallaudet University. Another friend of mine grew up oral, graduated from a hearing college, and did not become part of the community until she was a young adult. She now has friends from all points on the continuum. I’m getting to know this guy that’s new to the area who grew up oral and got a cochlear implant as an adult. He’s been accepted and is very much part of the community too. I, and probably many of you reading this, could come up with scads more examples of how the community welcomes people. Many bloggers in DeafBlogLand are saying how welcome they feel, even though they’re late-deafened, oral with cochlear implants, and so forth. We, the Deaf community, do NOT reject people, and those few that do should be bitch-slapped and set straight. *grin* That’s just not how we operate. And that’s not how DeafRead should operate either.

2. Being Deaf-centered does NOT mean that we are not accepting of diverse perspectives or of people from diverse backgrounds. Being Deaf-centered simply means that one considers oneself to be from the Deaf community, uses and cherishes a natural signed language at times, socializes with Deaf people at least part of the time, and respects Deaf cultural norms and values. There are many Deaf-centered people who use their voices, use technology to hear, socialize with hearing people, work with hearing people, and move between both cultures. A Deaf-centered person is usually not operating in isolation and clinging to only the Deaf community.

Having a strong Deaf center is never about being exclusive nor being isolationist. It is simply about having a clear set of values and principles, and everyone who respects those is welcome.

3. In my perspective, DeafRead is our home on the Internet. My spies (*grin*) at the DeafRead conference shared that the sentiment that we’ve lost our home and that DeafRead has to take a stand dominated the soapbox discussions, though those sentiments were eloquently expressed in many different ways. It is home for those of us who are Deaf-centered.

As in our homes in the real world, we are selective about whom we allow in our homes and even more selective about whom gets to see the entire house. Only people that we feel close to and comfortable with usually get to see our back rooms, the upstairs, our bedrooms, and so on. Friends and acquaintances can get as far as our porches, our living rooms, our kitchens, and maybe more, depending on the situation and on our level of openness. We don’t allow people in our homes who do the following: treat us or our people with disrespect, diss our values, dishonor us in any way, insult us, et cetera. We definitely allow people who are different from us and who have different opinions from us, as long as they’re friendly and respectful. The DeafRead main page, to me, is analogous to the back rooms, while the Extra page is for everybody and anybody.

Now, what do I think is broken with DeafRead? I know that no solution will please everyone, and I don’t expect that mine will, either. But here we go.

1. I’ll start with the easiest – the Extra section. DeafRead has published guidelines for what is to be published on the front page. Anything else that doesn’t follow these guidelines goes to Extra. The team added the ability to vote on what goes on the front page, and anything that gets 5 or more votes gets moved to the front page. There have been many, many posts moved to the front page in the past month or two. When that happens, that’s a clear indication that the system’s broken. Well, I think that voting needs to be removed or revised. Some people have complained that their posts, which *clearly* did not follow the guidelines, should be on the front page, and many posts that clearly did not follow the guidelines were voted on and moved to the front page in violation of the guidelines. There is apparently a lack of understanding among some visitors that just because a post is interesting or just because one agrees with it does not mean that you should vote to move it to the main page.

I suggest either removing the voting privilege or not allowing voting without an explanation as to why the particular post fits the DeafRead guidelines, with clear examples.

2. DeafRead needs to go back to having a Deaf center. The very first guideline is entitled: Deaf Related Posts. The first sentence for that guideline reads: "The entry must pertain to the deaf community and culture." Let’s follow that guideline and clarify it to add language about respecting Deaf cultural norms, natural signed languages, and so on. DeafRead needs to take a stand or watch this online community fall.

This is the best solution, in my opinion, because it leaves room at the table for everyone. The “success stories” that Cochlear Implant Online churns out would go to Extra and remain available for viewing rather than being rejected. All non Deaf-centered posts would go to Extra, easily available for everyone and anyone to peruse. This would also include anything a Deaf-centered blogger writes about that is not about the Deaf community and/or culture. For example, if I were to write an opinion piece on the wide-open presidential election and the candidate I support, it’d go straight to Extra. Or if I were to write about how fantastically easy it is to buy a car online, zoom to Extra. That way no bloggers are told, “Sorry. You don’t belong here.” Everyone gets to be on DeafRead. Everyone gets to bring their perspective to the table. But DeafRead gets back to its roots and to what made it great in the first place.

This is also the simplest solution – tweak guidelines, fix the flaws with the voting system, clarify the purpose for the main page via a vlog/blog entry, and what will probably be the hardest part – BEING CONSISTENT with what goes on the front page.

Again, I’m just a humble long-time member of this online community who wants everyone to be able to participate, while maintaining a clear Deaf center harmonious with our collectivist way of life, offering a possible solution after a great deal of thought.

Best of luck, Tayler and Jared. *hug* to you both.

Deaf People are Whole, Organic, and Natural

I’m a WHOLE person!

The message out in DeafBlogLand the past several weeks has changed significantly. It is trying more and more to tell me that I am not a whole person. I am lacking in family relationships, in opportunities, and many other things simply because I sign, prefer to be with other Deaf people most of the time, and have all but stopped using my voice in many situations.

I can anticipate some of your responses:
“I never said that.”
“That’s not what we meant.”
“Just because we want better for our children does not mean that I don’t respect you.”
…and more in this vein.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m acutely aware of my mixed/varied audience. Some of you are like myself in many ways, some of you are very different from me, and some are at various points in between. Please know that in this post here, my intentions are not to criticize any one of you, question any one of your choices, or anything like that. I simply wish to share my journey over the past two or three weeks.

I can stand before everyone in DeafBlogLand and say/sign very loudly/largely, “I AM A WHOLE PERSON EXACTLY THE WAY I AM, AND I LOVE IT!”

The message out there recently is so insidious that I actually had several moments where I doubted that the other night… and people who know me know that I don’t feel that way 99.9% of the time.

My cousin turned 30 the other night, so 8 of us went out to eat at the family’s favorite restaurant (yum – the *best* tempura and sushi ever!). Only 3 sign at all well, and two others sign minimally. The others, n-ope, which is understandable, given that one is a recent addition to the family and one was a friend of his. Because of how big the group was, yes, I missed out on a lot of the conversation. Usually I’m okay with that, striking up one-on-one conversations with different people at the table. But because of the recent tsunami of “success stories,” I started to feel like, “Should I have to exist like this at family events? What if I polished up my speech, which I hardly use anymore, and I got hearing aids again?” Once I caught myself thinking along these lines, I realized where those thoughts were coming from – all of those new blogs on DeafRead. A thousand curse words and phrases went through my head as I realized, “OMG, DeafRead not only has lost its center, but it’s making ME lose MY center!!!”

I took a deep breath and reflected. I’ve been reflecting ever since. I made the choice to stop wearing my hearing aids. I made the choice to stop using my voice obediently every time I was around hearing people. Every time I attempted to use my hearing and speaking, I always felt “not good enough.” But since I’ve started signing to hearing people who talk to me and by being who I am, nothing more, nothing less, I’ve felt so much more whole. I’m living life on my own terms, instead of following proscribed societal norms, and it feels damn good, let me tell ya.

I’ve lived life as a person with almost no hearing and as a person with some hearing. I’ll freely admit that life with sound has some perks. Movies and TV shows are more meaningful when I hear sound effects, intonations, where the speaker places emphasis, and so forth. It’s nice to know when to run and when not to run to catch the metro train. Sure. Absolutely. But you know what? In the larger scheme of things, it’s not important. I’d gladly give it up in a heartbeat. That kind of thing should not be a priority.

I get so frustrated when people talk about how important hearing is and how important it is to fit into the hearing world. Yes, all of us minority groups need to know how to function in the majority. Granted. That’s a given. But why is the insistence on doing it on THEIR terms? It is perfectly possible to function in the hearing world on our terms, while showing respect for the hearing culture, language, and norms. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. I know, because I do it all the time.

Deaf people have so much to give society. We are proof that the world does not need to run in the aural/oral modality alone. We experience life in a very different manner, one that should be respected and valued. Natural sign languages are truly a gift. It saddens me that so many are willing to slap it aside, saying, “My child/children was/were born in a hearing world. There they will stay.” At a recent gathering, one person talked about how her mother continued to sign and to assert the importance of signing even when she refused to sign, preferring to speak. She looked back upon that with so much gratitude, it nearly brought tears to my eyes. It pains me to read about parents who started signing then dropped it because their child chose to speak instead. Both languages should always be cherished and honored.

Am I limited? No, I’m not. My world has expanded so much in ways that would not be possible if I were not Deaf and part of this amazing community. Family gatherings may not be as easy as I’d like, but I have a strong, close relationship with my family and with individual family members regardless. We have better relationships and we like each other better than many hearing families with no Deaf members. I have a nationwide network, I’ve gotten to know so many incredible, strong, passionate people that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I have had so many experiences that I would not have had otherwise. If I were hearing or if I’d been boxed into one method/approach, I would not be the person I am today. I wouldn’t be nearly half the person I am. I could go on and on with examples, but it’s getting late. Believe me, my life has been such a rich, amazing, beautiful journey thanks to my being Deaf and to a wonderful hearing mom who gave me everything she could, knowing that I was going to be part of the Deaf community.

This one is for you, Mom. I love you so much. Thank you for knowing what was right and for allowing me to be Deaf.

(Moderating comments and responding will continue to be problematic due to limited access – please bear with me.)

Inclusivity...At What Cost?

I cannot remain silent any longer. I want to scream, "SHUT UP! STOP!!!," then in the shocked silence that follows, say my piece.

I want to cry. I really do. It's painful for me to go to DeafRead now for so many reasons.

As I write this, I am extremely mindful of the fact that current/future hearing parents of Deaf children may find this post and of the fact that my own people may find this post. I also have to be true to myself and to my center, and that's first and foremost to me. Before I go on, please allow me to articulate a few truisms that are dear to me.

1.    The Deaf community should not be exclusive, and all sides should be open and accepting of each other. I've been loving Jodi Del Dottore's posts – the lady has a sense of humor. This is an example of someone who has decided one way but is very open to learning about the others, and I appreciate her openness. There are several others that I appreciate as well for their openness, respect, and curiosity with healthy questioning. I also believe that most of us are actually already pretty accepting of each other. Almost everyone I know would not reject someone based on their background, hearing aid/implant possession or lack thereof, or signing skill alone.

2.    Hearing parents and non-signing Deaf people are all part of our community and should be welcomed. However, their attitude is crucial. Much like the light-skinned African-American who has erased all traces of his black accent and criticizes darker-skinned African-Americans for using bad English, the non-signing Deaf person who pities signing Deaf people and tells them to work on their speech and/or exhibits any sign of feeling superior is going to get a horrible backlash from the signing community. The light-skinned African-American who sounds more white than black and the non-signing Deaf person who go to their community with bright-eyed curiosity, openness, and acceptance, yet who are comfortable in their own skin are usually going to be welcomed. (note the term "usually." Every group has its small share of jerks who insist on conformity. Don't let those people drag ya down.)

3.    Hearing parents, while they are part of our community and they are usually well-meaning, are not Deaf. They have not experienced what we have. They have not lived with the results of doctors', audiologists', educators' and parents' decisions. The best parents are the ones who realize that and balance that awareness with what they believe to be best for their child. I'm relieved to see that there are some parents from various points on the spectrum who are aware of that, who are actively listening, and asking questions. If only all parents were mindful of that truth…

Now on to my perspective of the furor. I, too, am concerned that DeafRead has lost its center. It really has. Big time.

For one thing, posts used to be clearly labeled with a different color showing whether the blogger is hearing or Deaf. Many people have been asking for this back and there's been no public response from DeafRead, which galls me. It's confusing and frustrating for me to click on one blog, not knowing which is which then having to figure out whether this person is a hearing parent or if it is an oral Deaf person, et cetera. It's not about discrimination. It's about giving me a bit of insight as to the type of center the person has before I read. It helps me orient and prepares me for what the person is trying to say before I read. How is that a bad thing? BRING THE COLORS BACK, DEAFREAD!

For another, I have no quibble with the need to see all perspectives. Of course we do. How else can we grow and learn? However, I've been seeing the CI/oral/AVT perspective for years now, thanks to countless newspaper articles about "success stories," et cetera. I could probably rattle the key points off in my sleep. Melissa has repeatedly pointed out that there is a listserv where people with similar experiences can share. They have a place, which is wonderful. We didn't until a year and a half ago.

Within 18 months, we've lost our place. We no longer have a safe place where we can share and raise our collective consciousness. I was so excited about DeafRead, because it was a place where we could all get together and share in this ongoing dialogue. If not for DeafRead, I would never have "met" Kim/kw, nor Sarah who blogs at the8thnerve.com (link appears to be down?), nor Rebecca's mom, and I'm glad I've gotten to know these three people and many others. Kim and Sarah are Deaf people who do not sign, but they are welcome in the community because they're open, respectful, and curious. They're not looking down on us. I mention this to illustrate that the issue is not about Deaf militancy, rejection of oral deaf, or anything like that. The point here is that we no longer have a central place online that actively values a visu-centric way of life, regardless of language or communication mode. That saddens me.

With the influx of hearing moms' blogs and comments on DeafRead comes a double-edged sword. It personifies "them" into distinct individuals that show so much love and caring for their children that I cannot help but be warmed by that love. I'd believed for a long time that the majority of parents are doing what they honestly believe to be best for their children, regardless of their choices. Many of the blogs/comments are proof of that. Bringing them into the mix gets us all talking and exposes them to our center, our corner of the world. All of this is good. However, there's quite a bit of bad too. Their coming in has generated some pointed comments on all sides and people on all sides becoming defensive as a result. 'Tis human nature, I suppose. Maybe it's a necessary part of the coming-together process that we need to work through.

Another bad aspect of this influx is how our experiences are being dismissed by some of these hearing moms and oral deaf people with/without implants. One thing that is really bothering me is that some, NOT ALL, of these hearing moms are making assumptions and saying things like "my children don't need ASL." Need? Huh? In that one brief sentence, ASL has been relegated to the status of a crutch for oral failures. I take umbrage at that statement and implication. English was my first language and knowing ASL has only enhanced my English. And no, my English was above grade level when I learned ASL, thankyouveddymuch. No one can speak for anyone else when they haven't been through the same thing. We have no right to dismiss anyone's experiences, no matter where they or we are on the continuum. And that's just one of many examples that have cropped up lately on DeafRead.

I, again, want to urge hearing parents to continue to love their children and do what they think is best, but to recognize that we, whether we are a different generation or not, have valid experiences that need to be respected. For example, it's not that easy to be with hearing people who don't sign. It's downright exhausting, in my experience. I got back from a yoga-slash-tai chi class this morning not as relaxed as I could be simply because it is more of an effort for me to use/understand spoken English than it is for me to use signs. _ Much_ more. And every single person I have met who grew up oral has said that they thought they were doing all right until they learned sign language and realized what a difference there is. And these varied and many experiences are being dismissed. We're being told, "Oh, the technology/methodology is better. You're older, so your experiences don't apply." We've heard this for generations now, but the experiences remain remarkably constant. We have lived through this. The hearing moms have not, aside from watching their children. Dialogue is a two-way street here, and I appreciate those of you who are standing up for what you think is right, while listening with respect. Thank you for that.

Part of the issue is having different "centers." One example of how having a different center is important is the term "hard-of-hearing." For someone with a hearing center, the term "a little hard-of-hearing" means to have almost all of his/her hearing, and to just hear slightly less well than a hearing person, while "very hard-of-hearing" means that the person is practically deaf. For a person with a Deaf center, it's the other way around. A person with a Deaf center considers being Deaf quite normal, so someone that's a little bit away from the center is a little hard-of-hearing, while someone who is very hard-of-hearing is further away from the center and has more hearing. And now with the background info out of the way…

…we segue into why I brought up different centers in the first place. We all have different centers. There are those of us who are Deaf-centered, who value BOTH English and ASL (for the record, this ASL-only thing is BS. It's a myth). There are those of us who are hearing-centered, who value English ability, speaking, and listening. There are those of us who are okay with implantation and those of us who are not okay with implantation, even though many of us who are not okay with implantation wouldn't reject someone who has an implant. That's not a bad thing. But if we aren't aware of our different centers, it can impede efforts at dialogue.

One example of this is Melissa, mom of Rachel and Jessica, over at cochlearimplantonline.net. She is clearly a loving mom who worked hard to ensure that Rachel and Jessica are successful, functioning members of the hearing sphere. But when she described Rachel and Jessica's story here ( http://www.cochlearimplantonline.com/index2.php?story), I started crying and I could not stop. I was upset at the idea that Rachel had been through three surgeries and that she'd had to endure processor failure twice without a back-up language/method of communication. Rachel couldn't hear for ten months and there were a lot of struggles with getting the new implants mapped correctly as well as physical pain. I couldn't stand it and bawled my eyes out for hours afterward. I was aghast at the idea of someone going through all this just to speak and listen when they could have had a complete, natural language without physical barriers. I suspect that Melissa and Rachel would be stunned at my becoming upset. They might even scoff. But the thing is, I *understand* their center. I understand that they place a very high premium on speaking, listening, and "being able to be part of the main community." I get that. But do they, and others, get my perspective? I don't think many do. I know some do. And that's an important point.  This is at the crux of our debate/dialogue. Our different centers influence how we see the world. Perhaps knowing this will help us as we continue this dialogue.

Where do we go from here? I honestly don't know. I would never ask DeafRead to boot anyone off, and I shouldn't. But I hope this whole furor will serve as a sharp tap on the shoulder and a reminder of just who the DeafRead base is. We need a safe place. Can DeafRead be that again? I certainly hope so. And hey, now that we're all at the table, let's talk further. Let's listen with respect without being dismissive. Welcome, everyone.

(Note: I'm blogging through pager e-mail since my 'Net access is haphazard at best. Comments have already been set to be moderated and I can't moderate via pager. Please forgive the delay in approving comments. Any insulting comments won't go through, but those that have varying perspectives, showing respect, will.)

Interpreters: an asset or a crutch?

Rant alert: Today we were treated (sarcasm intended) to a technology training workshop en masse. As if that weren't irritating enough, knowing that no one's needs were being met that way, the presenters, while well-meaning, were not prepared at all, screwing things up and not having what they needed prepared. That'd fry me all by itself, but something happened that had me absolutely, positively hopping mad before lunch.

We were supposed to split up into several groups for more hands-on training. The guy in charge, who seemed very nice and ill-prepared but inexplicably scared of us, said, "We don't have enough interpreters. One group will be without an interpreter. So maybe we could group all the hearing people together." *doink* Excusez-moi??? Someone stood up and said they'd prefer to be grouped by skill level, not by hearing level and that deaf people are skilled communicators who are perfectly able to communicate without interpreters. The dude looked a bit dumbfounded but nodded and said, "OK. Skill level is fine." He told us where to go for what type of training. I wasn't sure what group I should be in, so I went to one group first. After a few minutes, I realized I needed more advanced training, so I went to another group.

Much to my horror, I saw a colleague of mine interpreting. And the presenter was the guy who had been told interpreters were unnecessary. I wanted to say something so badly for several reasons. One, this guy was such a bad presenter that he'd go off onto a tangent. He didn't answer people's questions. So having an interpreter available wouldn't help communication much. Two, we had plenty of technology available to easily facilitate communication. Three, he had been told there was no need, for the love of Mike. I fumed for the entire thirty minutes then quickly asked a few people what the gol-darn had blinkin' *happened* here.

Apparently what happened was that Mr. Clueless came into the room, blinked, looked around, and asked, "Who's the interpreter?" People were quiet for a while, then Aforementioned Colleague apparently reluctantly volunteered. I didn't say anything because by the time I got there, things were in full swing and I didn't feel it'd be right to get all huffy and demand a change. It looked as if people were OK with what was going on. So who was I to march to the middle of the room, cross my arms, and demand that all interpreting cease? I let it go, though I took the opportunity to draw a picture of a deaf person using a crutch labeled "'TERPS"and entitled something along the lines of "When we accept this, we cripple ourselves."

I've been thinking about it for awhile, trying to figure out just what it is that set me off like that. I'm a fan of interpreters. Don't get me wrong. Interpreters have opened up venues previously inaccessible and unavailable to us. I'm grateful to have the option. However, I'm finding more and more that people appear unable to fathom the idea of not using interpreters for every little thing. Mr. Clueless still expected an interpreter, which was bad enough after he'd been told point-blank it wasn't going to be an issue. The *deaf* people I talked to asked me, "Well, how would we communicate without an interpreter?" This upset me more than anything else. I mean, hel-lo? Type? Write on the board? Gesture? We're not talking rocket science here, just how to use a piece of equipment hooked up to a computer. It's not that hard, people. Professional interpreters have been on the scene for only a few decades and already we're unable to talk to hearing people without interpreters? Give me a break. I'm upset with Mr. Clueless for reasons already delineated above. I'm upset with my colleague for giving in and interpreting, because I believe she was enabling him and other people. It was also a violation of professional ethics in my opinion. I'm upset with the hearing people for letting their colleague go ahead and interpret. I'm upset with the deaf people for just letting it happen and for thinking there was no other solution. I'm also *looking down sheepishly* ...upset with myself.

*sigh* Yes, you heard me. I didn't say anything at the time in order to keep the peace. If I'd said something, I'd have been painted as one of those so-called militants that you hear so much about both in and outside of DeafBlogLand. But it was *wrong.* I'd probably keep mum again if I had a chance to go back to the very moment I walked into that room so I wouldn't make waves. But I'm just upset with everyone involved, including myself.

I pose this question to you, the Teeming Millions: Have we become so dependent on interpreters that we are unable to function around hearing people without them? If not, when do we need them and when is it okay not to have them around? Before you respond, please bear in mind that I agree that there are situations where having an interpreter is important and situations where it is a matter of personal choice. I'm just wondering, generally speaking, what you guys think.

The Topic That Would Not Die (or: ASL or No ASL? That is the question.)

Wow. I am blown away by the response to both of my recent posts discussing thoughts for all hearing parents. Both Amys continue to weigh in and other people continue to add their thoughts.

It's clear that we are far from being on the same page here and we need to continue this dialogue in order to consider and understand varying perspectives. That said, here's *mine*: the most important thing, to me, is that no parent ever makes their child feel like they need to "become hearing" and like they aren't good enough if they can't be hearing, and that they are never denied opportunities to learn ASL and to meet other deaf people. This is true for me, regardless of whatever educational, communication, and technological choices parents make for their children.

Before I go on, I really, really appreciate everyone who took the time to write in. There are some wonderful thoughts . Thank you, Barb, Mark both Amys, cali, Cy, Melissa, Aaron, White Ghost, Dianrez, Dawg, VB, Ella, and the hearing father of 3 deaf children for sharing your thoughts and extending the discussion! (If I missed anyone, I apologize.) Thank you!

Let's keep talking about it. My two posts on the topic can be found here and here.

One situation occurred that made me realize I need to discuss house rules for comments. This really has not been an issue in general, but maybe I should be proactive and establish house rules. I generally publish every comment that is relevant to the post and that is respectful toward others. This is an open forum and one that does not practice censorship. However, one commenter posted Amy's last name and Amy wanted her last name removed from the comment, which is very understandable. The commenter gave a very strong rebuttal about how Amy's last name is already pretty public information. Since Blogger does not allow me to edit comments (Blogger, are you listening??), I had two choices: leave the comment up or to remove it completely. Neither choice seemed acceptable. I opted to copy and paste it into a new comment and remove Amy's last name, then remove the comment in question. It's not ideal, but... *sigh* To everyone involved in the situation, I apologize for the inconvenience and I hope this solution is satisfactory for everyone who was directly involved in the situation.

Speaking of house rules, I'll try to post them in the next few days. They'll be in the sidebar. But here is a rough idea:
1. Peruse Mr. Sandman's house rules for his blog. My rules will basically be pretty similar, with some minor differences and tweaks.
2. I've only had to delete one comment, and that was the one described above. It was deleted only because of a privacy concern and the person involved asked. I've declined maybe 3 or 4 comments without publishing and that was only because they were either:
a. comment spam - something that was posted on multiple blogs to promote one person's agenda, or
b. hostile and rude, calling someone nasty names.
3. This is a place for freedom of expression. I welcome widely diverging opinions, as long as we remain respectful (and you guys have been respectful thus far! Keep it up! *smile*)

Let the discussions continue! I'm looking forward to more gems like Mark Drolsbaugh's, Amy Cohen Efron's, hearing parent of 3 deaf children's, and many others' comments and to hearing the other side, such as Melissa's, Amy's, and VB's.

More Thoughts for Hearing Parents and for Us to Consider

I've been so torn up about Amy insisting that her children are fine the way they are. I've been thinking a lot about this whole thing, because it *is* much bigger than one mom and two deaf children.

Before I go on, I do appreciate Amy's willingness to continue to talk with us. She clearly wants us to understand her choices. While we may strongly disagree and continue to worry about her children, she does have the right to make the choices she's made and we need to remain courteous in our dialogue with all hearing parents, regardless of their choices. They are part of our community, period, because their children are deaf. This is true whether they want to be or not.

One thing that's concerning me is how some people are confusing two issues. The issue at hand with Amy is her denial of the benefits of sign language as well as spoken language. Some people are making this about cochlear implants, and it's not. Yes, we have different opinions about whether children should be implanted or not, but that's a separate discussion. What's troubling many of us is the idea that parents are being misinformed and getting the erroneous idea that sign language hinders spoken language development in deaf children. That's a crock. Hooey. Pure hooey. There's research proving it *enhances* spoken language development.

The majority of us would not deny that there are benefits to speaking and listening. We just don't want part of a child suppressed and denied. We want language to be fully accessible to everyone.

Very few of us would say "Don't encourage spoken language development." I should know. I learned language purely visually, and for some reason, I "lost" all of my hearing from childhood until college. (I suspect a psychological block, and it's a long story, which I don't want to go into right now.) I've experienced life as a completely deaf person, relying exclusively on sign language and as a deaf person with some hearing and who can function around hearing people in some situations, so I have an appreciation and understanding of both ways of being.

I won't deny that I've benefited in many ways from hearing and lipreading. There are so many little things that flash into my consciousness when I think about this topic. I remember when I was in grad school, a deaf classmate and I were in the train station and someone ran up the escalator. My classmate started to run up, looking at me as if to say "hurry up," and I said, "I don't hear the train. No need to hurry." He gave me a very weird look, probably because I don't emphasize my hearing or act like I have it in general so my remark confused him, and rushed up the escalator. I caught up with him after a leisurely ride up and he stared at me, shook his head, and shrugged. Other benefits include being able to take water aerobics without an interpreter and *not* being one step behind everyone else because I lipread the instructors with little difficulty. I'm able to enjoy accents, and between you and me, I can even imitate a couple. There are situations where I can function without signing nor pen and paper. The truth is, I appreciate the advantages I have.

What I just said is something I rarely talk about with most deaf people. The reason for that is because, while I acknowledge the advantages, I've lived life as a stone-deaf person and I was quite content. It's a perfectly valid way of being. It's possible to function just fine without speaking, hearing, or lipreading. Is life different? Heck, yes. But what's wrong with that??? If I had not gotten my hearing back, I would've been happy and satisfied with whom and what I am. It's perfectly OK, and yes, even *healthy* to not speak, hear, or lipread and be happy with that.

That said, I see nothing wrong with speech and listening training as long as the whole child is emphasized and language/learning about the world takes top priority. If a child benefits from audition and speech training, so be it. Don't deny the child that. BUT no matter what technology the child has, spoken language is STILL not 100% accessible 24 hours/7 days a week in all situations. The child is still deaf, period.

There is so much research out there on the advantages of being bilingual for both hearing and deaf people. There are even a few studies showing that hearing and deaf people who are bilingual in a variety of modes (speaking/listening, reading/writing, *and* signing/watching) show even more cerebral and intellectual advantages in a variety of areas. Most articles and books that I know about aren't online, but here is what I have off the top of my head. Jim Cummins, a noted bilingual researcher, has written extensively on advantages of bilingualism for hearing people. He has an unpublished paper that he presented last November that puts together a dozen or more research studies conclusively proving that signed language and majority-language bilingualism offers so many cognitive advantages and strengthens the deaf person's grasp of the majority language to the point where the deaf person is proficient in the majority language. Jim Cummins, if you're reading this, please publish your paper. We need to be able to use it as a resource and to be able to disseminate it. There's one study showing that hard-of-hearing children with deaf parents have far better ASL skills, written English skills, and far better spoken English skills than those with hearing parents. The presumption is that fully accessible language (ASL) helped enhance English-language learning. (If any of you know the author or the title of the study, please let me know. I haven't been able to find it again.) François Grosjean, a hearing Swiss researcher with few ties to deaf people, has written several compelling articles, drawing on research on deaf bilingualism. Colin Baker, one of the most respected bilingual researchers in the *world*, comes down strongly on the side of sign language/majority language bilingualism for deaf children. Chapter 16 of the fourth edition of his acclaimed book, Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, draws on many studies to illustrate this fact. Baker has zero connection to deaf people that I'm aware of. Therefore, for him to draw this conclusion, the existing research must be very strong. There are so many more articles out there. But the evidence is clear: Bilingualism for the deaf child is a big advantage and makes spoken/written language even better than it would be without a signed language.

One thing that really bothers me about Amy's position is her assertion that her children are not a part of deaf culture and her implication that parents are forced to make a choice between ASL/deaf culture and English/the majority culture. That's not true. Both are compatible. My mom, who is *very* hearing in every sense of the word, allowed me to be deaf yet made a huge point of enveloping me in the majority culture. She made sure I always had deaf peers and hearing peers. She worked hard on my English development by playing word games with me, making puns, on and on. She was my best speech teacher and I give her full credit for my lipreading skills. She took an interest in ASL and deaf culture by asking questions and learning. We've had so many discussions about language and culture in general. It was never "either/or" for us. I have both and I believe I'm a better person for it. My English language skills are better for it. The best advice I can give for all hearing parents, regardless of their choices is: let your child be deaf. Expect your child to be part of your family and culture and make your family, values, traditions, and culture accessible. Give your child all the tools to be a whole person in every sense of the word.

Dianrez said here that there's no point in trying to change Amy's mind and we need to focus our efforts elsewhere. She's right. Amy is as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar, and she has that right to remain steadfast. If she ever changes her mind or opens up some, we are here for her and we will always be here for her sons. That's why I'm writing this entry. It's for us as a community to talk about, for other hearing parents, for teachers and audiologists/speech pathologists, and for industry insiders to read, consider, and hopefully listen. We are the experts on what deaf children need, no matter what technology and teaching techniques are developed. We deserve to be heard *and* heeded.
*******
Previous posts on the topic for your convenience:
John Egbert's original entry
Barb DiGi's entry
My first entry on the topic
Deaf Tea Time's entry
This morning's entry
Barb DiGi on why it's OK to be part of the AGB protest

For All Hearing Parents of Deaf Children

This is a message directly addressed to Amy and other parents of deaf children who do not support sign language. Amy, I've read your comments on Barb DiGi's entry that responds to your comments on John Egbert's site. I know you love your sons dearly and would do anything for them. I believe that you weighed everything very carefully before making your decision and that you truly believe you did and are doing the right thing by your sons. Your passion and the strength of your convictions come through very clearly when I read your comments. Thank you for loving your sons so much.

I have some thoughts and questions for you and for all parents of deaf children who do not want their children to sign. I'm not questioning your choice to implant them, nor your choice to provide auditory and oral training here, just the choice not to sign with your children.

One, do you realize that your children are not hearing? How will they respond to an alarm clock? I imagine that for now, you are waking them up. But eventually, they will need to take responsibility for waking up on their own. It's rather unlikely that they would wear their implants to bed just to hear an alarm chirp, buzz, or blast out the latest Hilary/Britney/Christina song. Have you considered this? Also, they are not going to have their implants on all the time. Shower? Swimming? It'd probably be a good idea not to wear their implants when they're playing sports. How will you or anyone else communicate with them then? Lipreading has its limitations. Studies have shown repeatedly that the most skilled of lipreaders has only a 30% success rate.

Two, do you understand that you are placing all of your hopes and dreams on pieces of technology, which fail? Your sons will outlive the devices in their skulls. They have no back-up means of communication, except for lipreading, which is difficult. What if an implant short-circuits, dies, or gets broken from a blow to the head? How will your children interact with the world in the intervening days and weeks between device failure and surgery? What's Plan B here?

Three, hearing babies who learn to sign have far better language development, their IQ scores are higher, and their spoken language development is not hindered at all. Why can't we do the same thing with deaf babies? Why can't we give them both languages and modes of communication? What's wrong with that?

Four, you believe that your children hear a lot. That may be. That may very well be. However, we deaf people can adapt amazingly well and we do fool hearing people many times. A new water aerobics instructor didn't know I was deaf for close to 3 months. (And I was in the water, so amplification wasn't happening in this situation.) The only reason she found out in June was because I had my head turned away once. She was stunned and after a bit, she said it was sooooo cool that she had no idea that I was deaf. I told her not to do anything differently, except to make sure she faces me when she talks to me. I could go on and on with examples and I'm sure many people in DeafBlogLand have their own stories that prove how well we adapt. I invite them to share their stories. I'd like to talk with your children in 15 to 20 years and have them share their stories about how well they adapt even though they don't hear everything.

Five, why are you so willing to ignore us deaf adults? Your children will become us. Many of us from all walks of life and from all educational backgrounds have weighed in on this topic, asserting that ASL or a natural signed language needs to be part of the package, regardless of whatever else the parents decide (implants or not, spoken/auditory training or not, et cetera). We are the experts on deaf children, not the doctors, audiologists, and cochlear implant companies that are in this to make money. Why are our voices going unheard here?

Six, I feel your desire to want your children to be just like you. I agree with you - you should be able to transmit your culture, your traditions, and your values to your children. I just don't understand why you aren't willing to share your children with us. We don't want to take them away from you. We just want to let them know we're here for them when they're ready for us. We don't mind sharing at all. Why do you mind? (just wondering, not accusing)

Please don't deny a part of your child. Please allow your child to be deaf, while giving your child everything you can. Please continue to expect your child to be part of your family and your culture, but acknowledge that your child is different. Please give your child the most precious gift you can - bilingualism. It's only to their - and your - advantage, after all.

Oralism vs ASL: I'm getting irritated

I just got in and am about to go out again, but I just had to take a bit of time to bang out some thoughts on the ongoing two-part saga at DeafDC.com. As of this writing, both entries have 100-plus comments and I've been following them avidly with great interest.

One thing that absolutely *fries* me is that every time someone pro-ASL or pro-bilingualism speaks up, invectives such as "ASL extremist" or "Deaf militant" are heaped upon their heads. Take the original entry, "Oralism vs. ASL: Here We Go Again." The entry was written in response to John Egbert's protest announcement for the upcoming A G Bell Association conference. I understand the concerns about the protest and I have some questions about the protest myself, even though I support the concept of standing up to those who have hurt deaf education. I thought Shane Feldman made some good points. However, the title reinforced a dichotomy; a black-and-white situation. The two first words in the entry were "Oh, brother." The very second sentence reported an attempt to mock the AG Bell organization. While the rest of the entry was more balanced and sought a middle ground between the two extremes, the title and opening established a very negative tone toward a segment of our community. At best, this was not in good judgement, and at worst, it was an irresponsible choice, causing more division. Later in a comment, Shane pointed out that he is pro-ASL and because of this, I believe that he never intended to hurt the community and in fact, he may have thought he was helping us by asking us to examine the situation. He redeemed himself in his second entry by examining ways to effect positive change in organizations. The rest of the original entry, again, was much more balanced and asked us to seek a middle ground; it is just the title and opening that I found in poor taste.

I believe that the choice of title and opening passage paved the way for very negative anti-ASL comments. And boy, did they come! One of the very first exhorted people to stop being so naive, and be deaf, but not dumb. Another gem: "Quite frankly, if someone is going to protest over something as frivolous as this, they are nothing but a whiny ungrateful brat." A sweeping indictment of our world knowledge: "Many Deaf people are being ignorant about what oral approach those day is really like. Even they are ignorant about MANY other things…. That’s even sadder on their part." An assumption: "God forbid they should actually attend the conference and learn something....Go to an AGBell conference and talk to the kids! Except I know you won’t, because you might learn something." And there are more.

Granted, the majority of comments for that entry are reasonable and while there are viewpoints expressed from every single point on the continuum, they are respectfully expressed. This is heartening, because it shows that we, as a whole, are capable of dialogue and attempting to understand each other. Agreed, A Deaf Pundit, Ben M, Shane (in a couple of comments), Barb DiGi, Michele Ketcham, and several others had productive suggestions and/or asked thought-provoking questions. They succeeded in raising the bar for our dialogue and had wonderful ideas about how to go about achieving the same aims that this protest is trying to achieve. I especially loved the one about working with the National Institute of Health, which dictates a lot of public policy in this area. Props to everybody who contributed with ideas and healthy, honest, respectful thoughts!

My beef, however, is that there were far fewer oral-bashing comments than ASL-bashing comments and ASL/Bilingual advocates STILL got painted as extreme and militant. (By the by, I'm not going to tally them up because they would require making judgement calls. Just too subjective - we'd all come up with different numbers.) Agreed (But Not To This Post) put it very, very well:

Rachel, the last thing I want to say tonight… If people really are free to choose another organization that supports some other method, then why is it that Gallaudet gets hammered from every single stinking direction but AGBAD never does? Gallaudet supports ASL and all of a sudden it’s a haven for people who are out of touch with reality, a giant Deaf Club, Deaf Extremists, ASL Extremists, and the list goes on and on. AGBAD, meanwhile, advocates for the use of oral methods, and it can’t be touched? Why not? Why shouldn’t they face the harsh spotlight as well? Why shouldn’t they be forced to account for themselves? Why is their PR about only their successes acceptable, but if we talk about their failures, we’re “angry Deaf people?”

This isn’t meant for you directly but the hypocrisy of many in this community sickens me. Do you know why this is treated as a “war?” Because such people won’t get their heads out of the sand! Show me that you’re willing to acknowledge the failures and weakness of your favored approaches and I’ll open up a dialogue with you any day of the week. But until you do that, and until Deaf people as a whole are no longer bashed for being angry and extremists for daring to take control of their education from K to college and beyond, then you aren’t interested in a dialogue. You’re interested in a scapegoat.

This salient point just FRIES me. It's just so unfair that one side gets all the flak and if they try to criticize the other, the other side throws a hissy fit, raises its arm, and points a finger, crying, "Those big, bad militants and extremists are attacking poor widdle me AGAIN!!!" It'd tick me off if the shoe were on the other foot; that is, ASL proponents were criticizing oral proponents over and over again in the same way, so this has nothing to do with which side I'm on, if I'm on *any* side. Enough already. Let's stop the ASL-bashing and disagree with respect, while continuing this long-term dialogue.

Don't I get a say in this???

I'm sitting in a doctor's office right now waiting for an anaesthetic to kick in, but I'm seething because a mediocre signer was nearly foisted upon me as my interpreter.

**doctoruption**

OK, now I'm home, ready to continue my tale. I was in to see a doctor I'd never seen before due to this odd lump in my throat (apparently an infected lymph node, a byproduct of a cold. And they say colds are mild affairs. Jeez.) He came in and asked me, "Do you read lips?" I do, quite well, but when it comes to medical matters, I'm not willing to take any chances, so I shook my head and signed, "Write, please." He had the effrontery to look annoyed and left the room. I groaned inwardly because I did NOT want an interpreter. He came back in a few minutes with a very well-dressed woman, who signed awkwardly, "Hi, I'm Nancy. I'm an audiologist who works here. I'm here to interpret, help you communicate." I smiled, thanked her, and said no thanks, I prefer to write. She shrugged, pooh-poohed my comment and said, "It's better. It's easier and I'll help you." With that dismissal of my preferences and her presumption that she knew what was best, I became quite livid, but kept my cool. I grabbed pen and paper and wrote the following:

"Thank you — this was very nice. But I'm perfectly capable of communicating on my own. We can do it this way or I have typed back & forth with other doctors via your e-mail program & Patient Notes."

After I'd written the second sentence, Nancy tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't look up and held up one finger to indicate that I wasn't done. Once I showed them my note with a smile and they read it, they both looked stunned, but nodded in acceptance. I think Nancy was miffed by my insistence that I certainly did not need a third party to talk to my doctor, but the doctor seemed like he wasn't upset. I thanked Nancy for understanding with a smile and watched her walk away, quite happy to see her amscray. Dr. E and I proceeded to communicate via pen and paper and the rest of the appointment went quite smoothly.

This brings up several issues, some of which are obvious (such as the jaw-dropping level of patronization and arrogance) and some that aren't so clear.

It was interesting to note how well-dressed the audiologist was. Perfectly coiffed, lovely manicure, well made-up, and generally dripping money. Her clothes were much more Saks than Old Navy. Mm. Two things immediately come to mind. 1. Clearly a lucrative profession, hein? 2. This just may prove the adage that image, image, image is everything. Audiologists and speech therapists do have this tendency to ooze wealth, which implies class and education. And what do we pro-bilingual education professionals tend to wear? Jeans. My school has a no-jeans policy, but that's routinely violated. Some of us may wear button-down shirts and pants, but they look rumpled. Some of the people at my school definitely dress nicely and look professional, but there are a good number who think nothing of wearing jeans once a week or more often. I've even seen T-shirts or track suits (!). Which image would instill more confidence in confused parents searching for guidance? I know which one would help sway me. This is what I do as I dress for work daily: think of your appearance as PR, not only for yourself, but for your worksite and for your philosophy. You never know whom you're influencing and what way that influence goes.

On to a different aspect — this whole situation made me reflect on my communication choices with medical professionals. I feel strongly that it's so important to get accurate information both to and from my doctor. I don't want to deal with the potential for botched translation when my health is at stake, nor do I want to limp along with lipreading. Hence my insistence on written English communication, since we are both using the same language and it is completely accessible to both of us. Another issue I have is privacy. I know too many of the interpreters in this area and I see them socially. I'm not too keen about anybody but people I choose to tell knowing my medical stuff. I don't care about the code of ethics - I just don't want interpreters knowing my business. I'm not ruling out using an interpreter for a doctor's appointment or medical emergencies ever, but I very strongly prefer not to use an interpreter or be forced to rely on spoken English. Don't get me wrong – I'm glad it's an option and it's great that people who want to use one can do so. Just not for me with my doc. *headshake* No thanks — give me clear, completely accessible monolingual communication any day.

The thing that ticked me off the most about this whole thing was Nancy's refusal to accept that her "offer of assistance" was simply unwelcome and unwanted. She was ready to insist that she knew what was best, not me. I'm willing to grant her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she's probably been brainwashed by the system to believe that deaf people need help and that's what she's there for. It's also possible she's open to not being needed but she wanted to help the doctor and felt obligated, since he had asked her to help out. It's also possible she's never been exposed to someone like me, who is quite happy with writing back and forth. However, her refusal to listen to me in the first place was inexcusable. I believe the only reason she backed down was because my declining her services was there in black and white where the doctor could also see it. And that is paternalism, no matter how she wants to justify it.

I could type a whole bunch more, including thoughts on the dominant paradigm, why I'm glad I always have pen and paper, et cetera, but I'll close here by summing this entry up: We need to consider what image we're projecting and how that reflects on our stance on deaf issues. Our choice of communication method is a highly personal one that may vary from individual to individual and depending on the situation, but it is ultimately ours and ours alone, which means that it *should* be respected by those around us.

Should we or shouldn't we?

I know I've been AWOL for a long time and I apologize to any of my readers who have been wondering where I went. Nowhere. I'm still here.

I've been mulling something over for the past week - should deaf women keep their maiden names or not in order to show family affiliation? I met two women this week, one of which kept her maiden name. Soon after we met, I was able to ask if she was any relation to this guy I knew at Gallaudet, and yes, he is her brother. If she'd changed her last name when she got married, I would never have made that connection. On the other hand, the other woman I met changed her name when she got married. Because of that, I was able to connect her with a Gally classmate of mine. Without her married name, I wouldn't have known to connect the two.

That made me think. I've pretty much probably decided to keep my name if I get married. (don't you love how decisive I am? *grin*) My name is a huge part of my identity. When people first meet me, they sometimes say yes, they recognize my name because of some type of prior connection or they have heard of me from some of my activities. If I change my name, all of that is gone. On the other hand, if I changed it, I would make new connections and people would still make connections in a different way. Which way would make me lose more connections or gain me more connections? Natch, it'll depend on my Mr. Omigawd and what connections he'd bring to the union.

I'm probably keeping my name for a whole host of reasons, including the whole subjugation to men thing and a desire to maintain my identity, but for us deaf women, it's not just the usual issues - connections and community relationships also come into play in this decision.

I'd love to know your thoughts, what decisions you've made, and how they've influenced your connections and relationships!

Outing Myself (no, not that! *grin*)

I'll confess something that may get a lot of double-takes from people
who know me well. I have native or native-like proficiency in English
and in ASL. I love both languages and I always prefer the original
language to a translation. I'd rather watch TV with CC than watch an
interpreter signing the episode, and I'd rather watch signing in a vlog
than read the subtitles (if any). By the same token, I'd rather use the
language others are using in a given situation than deal with
translation. I hated grad school, hate interpreted plays, watch a person
talking instead of the interpreter, prefer IM relay to video relay, et
cetera, all because I want direct access in the same language that's
being used.

It is for all these reasons/factors that cueing intrigues me. I'd love
to be able to go to a conference, workshop, class, or whatever, and get
info directly in English without a 'terp butchering the translation. (No
offense to 'terps out there!) I'm in love with the idea, and as a
skilled lipreader and one who has a facility (and propensity!) for
picking up languages easily, I see this as doable.

I can also see this working alongside ASL in the school system, albeit
with caveats covering stuff like equal respect for ASL, cueing limited
to very specific situations, etc, etc. I disagree with Hilary's
assertion that fingerspelling would be rendered unnecessary.
Fingerspelling plays a crucial role in ASL and in English acquisition.
And no, I don't have citations at the moment - I'm on a train, writing
this from my pager. My problem is that I feel like I'm betraying my
ideals - ASL can be, and is, successfully used to teach English. (No, no
citations, but I do have an unpublished paper by Jim Cummins laying out
the evidence, citing research from more than a handful of researchers at
work.) This would have to be explored, researched, and discussed
carefully before proceeding to incorporate cued speech in the classroom
on a large scale.

So where does this leave me?
I'm outing myself as a cued-speech-curious person with questions. I'd
love answers.
1. Research on cued speech in Bilingual settings? Details, details!
2. What is the learning curve and feasibility for someone learning CS as
an adult and using transliterators in place of 'terps for complex
topics?
3. Stories from adult CS learners? Advice?
Anything would be so appreciated!

(Written in response to this entry:

http://www.deafdc.com/blog/guest-blogger/2007-05-14/cued-speech-your-unasked-questions-answered/)
note: written on my pager

A Tribute to My Hearing Mom

On Mother’s Day, how can I not reflect on the kind of mother I have and what she has done for me, especially as a hearing mother of a deaf child? This is a woman who was born into a literate, well-educated family that has never forgotten its blue collar roots only a few generations back. This is a family with an intense love of history, travel, politics, discussions, and much more. When I was born into this family, my mom eagerly welcomed me, fussed over me, did everything she could, and loved the heck out of me.

Mom suspected that I might not have normal hearing when I was very young and had me tested at six months, two days old. When the audiologist confirmed my mom’s suspicions, her first thought was, “How will she get language?” To her, hearing the birds sing would’ve been nice, but that wasn’t the point. Language was much more important to her. She tried speaking with me but making sure I could see her face and lips at all times, but she knew in her gut this was not the way to go. She took sign language classes and, being a teacher and coming from the well educated family she does, talked to me constantly (like all the parents in my family do), telling me things and explaining things. By the time I was 3, she felt I was progressing normally and just kept doing what good parents do for their children. When she started me at preschool, she told the teacher that she expected me to be on grade level and stuck to her guns when the teacher expressed doubts. She continued to encourage and expect speech development, but if that didn't work at any given time, she reverted to signs - something which is still true to this day. She instantly understood that I had to be around other deaf people. She made sure I was around other deaf children at least part of the time, no matter what, even though I did not go to the state school until junior high. In her words, "To me, it was always about communication. That's the only thing that really made sense to me - that you be around people you could communicate with {easily and without barriers}." I feel so fortunate to have Mom for this reason alone.

There are many more reasons I feel so lucky to have my mom. She has always been a staunch ally and a wonderful friend. She encouraged me to try many different things, allowed me to become interested in things, and supported my hobbies and interests. She started taking me to the library during hot summer afternoons when I was just 3 years old and putting me down, reading to me, and just reading her own book, for hours. She suspects that’s why I love reading and books so much. I think there’s more to it, including the fact that every single room in Mom’s house has at least one bookcase or place where books are stored (yes, even the bathroom and kitchen). She even drew and wrote a children’s book for me, which is one of the first books I read. She honed my debating and writing skills in so many little ways all my life. She played word and language games with me. She took me to the park, to museums, and historic sites every weekend when I was young. She talked my eyes off, and still does, explaining things to me. She fought for the best possible school placement for me. She supports me and believes in me. She even tries new things to support me. She’s a wonderful friend, sharing many of the same interests. I hope to have her in my life for years and years to come. I love my mom. This entry is inadequate and cannot explain all the reasons and ways I love my mom, but it’s a start. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!!!

The Real Info about CMP direct FROM CMP and an apology...

Today proved that I really am all too human. I’ve always held myself to a high standard when blogging here, trying to make sure it comes across when I’m simply giving my opinion and by making sure of my sources when I report on things. Guess when I slip up, it’s a doozy. *sigh*

This entry is going to do two things - set the record straight about CMP with information directly from the guy in charge and to try and explain where I was coming from. I’m doing both in the interest of transparency - I want to be open and honest about the whole situation, ensuring that you all have accurate information - without offering a bunch of excuses.

Yesterday was kind of a bad day for me (but *nothing* compared to today. *rueful chuckle*) So when I got that e-mail about CMP closing its doors from someone who was definitely in a position to know, I was somewhat more upset than I probably woulda been, tho' I woulda still been quite upset. But I asked several questions, both via e-mail and in person, to ascertain that I wasn’t misunderstanding. The answer I got in person - “TRUE BUSINESS. C-M-P FINISH DECIDE CLOSE. ALL VIDEOTAPES G-O THROW-OUT BYE.” When I asked about the possible move to Internet films, “NO. C-M-P FINISH CLOSE WILL. NOTHING LEFT, M-A-R-C-H 30 LAST DAY FINISH.” Unmistakable, hein? I also asked questions about how CMP was planning to inform those who depend on the program, where they would go for captioned films, yada, yada, and the answers all made it clear that the *entire* program was going to be history as of March 30th. The source was unimpeachable, and no, no names or hints. I’m not going to do that to someone else. But I fired off an e-mail to the guy in charge, asking for more information anyway. I always go directly to the source if at all possible in order to ensure that my understanding is accurate.

I left work upset and stewed on this information all evening. I love CMP so much. I want nothing more than to support it and be one of its cheerleaders. I talked with a friend about it last night. She helped me get my fighting spirit back, because if this was really happening, I shouldn’t take it lying down, and neither should any of you who respect and value the program. That conversation made me determined to blog about it because the more people who act on it, the better chance we had of a Hail Mary pass to save CMP. I turned it over and over in my head, checked my e-mail several times to see if Bill had gotten back to me yet, and realized I wasn’t going to sleep until I got it out of my system. So I blogged for over an hour, reviewing notes I’d made last summer, refining the wording, and so on. Then I clicked “Publish,” something that I now regret. I should’ve saved it as a draft. I think I was thinking the community needed to know. I don’t care about “scooping” anyone - never have, but gosh, there’s not gonna be any Hail Mary pass without people being aware of the closure. Hence the decision to publish, both because people should know and because my source seemed infallible.

I woke up to a lovely e-mail from Bill, saying, no, CMP was definitely not closing its doors and here was what was happening with the program. After my initial elation faded, I felt sick to my stomach. WHAT HAD I DONE??? I immediately replied to Bill, thanking him and asking for permission to post what he had sent me. I also got in touch with higher-ups at work, asking them to make sure everyone on campus had accurate information about CMP, because others were talking about it too - and they sent out a flurry of clarifications. I had nary a minute to myself all day, but I broke my personal “no blogging at work” rule for the first time ever because I realized a retraction had to be made ASAP. When I had a few minutes between classes, I banged out my retraction and published it quickly, knowing that it would not undo the damage but maybe it would help somewhat.

Truth is, I feel just *sick* about the whole thing. I’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out what exactly went wrong, and I think it was the moment I clicked on “publish” instead of “draft.” I mean, I asked tons of questions when I first found out and I got in touch with the best possible source right away. I carefully - very, very carefully -evaluated the validity and reliability of the person who first told me. I carefully wrote my post, checking the accuracy of what I had learned last summer, edited it several times, and believed I was doing what was best for the community. But my mistake was publishing without waiting for verification. I accept responsibility for that and I apologize to you, my readers, the deaf community, and to CMP. I never wanted to hurt you or CMP in any way - just the opposite, actually. But no excuses. I’m sorry. No words can express how sorry I am.

Now, what’s the real deal with CMP? The entity known as CMP *is* legally closing its doors, BUT the PROGRAM lives on. It is going to, for all intents and purposes, become the Described and Captioned Media program, as I described here and here. Information about its new mission is also found on CMP’s home page, which will now be www.dcmp.org. Here is a paragraph describing the mission that I got directly from Bill at CMP today:

The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) provides services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind. These services include (1) a library offree-loan described and captioned educational media, (2) a clearinghouse of information related to educational media access, (3) a gateway to Internet resources related to accessibility, and (4) a center for training and evaluation of any service provider desiring to appear on the DCMP’s approved lists of video description and captioning service providers. There are no user registration or service fees. The DCMP is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the National Association of the Deaf.

Here is the original e-mail I got from Bill this morning:

Hi (my name removed)!

Hope you are well. Seems like it was just yesterday we were in Utah!

This is not really a sad time. Here is a summary:

*Your school will keep all the videos you have now. They will be for
use on your campus (your teachers, dorm staff, parents, etc).

*All mailings will be made from a centralized depository in Oklahoma.
But because we are moving to DVDs, all shipments will be made first class. It is cheaper to mail them a fast way that to mail videos the old slow way. Media will be delivered faster than ever to people in California or anywhere else.

*We are going digital in big ways. We must do this in order to effect faster delivery of services deaf kids need. Delivery through Internet streaming will be emphasized. But we are also going to make it possible for anyone to download a title on their computer hard drive or burn it to disk. No more waiting to receive a title in the mail! Isn't that neat? (If it is mailed, it will be DVD and first class. It will get to clients faster).

So, it is all going to work out well, (my name removed). Change is always hard for people, but the best is yet to come. Teachers of the deaf need the best possible service and need to be on the cutting edge of the digital world. That is our goal for them.

You take care. Please ask me any other questions you might have. - Bill

And when I asked Bill if I could post this on my blog, he replied with the mission paragraph above and added more information here:

Here is a link to a one page flyer about the new DCMP: http://www.cfv.org/flyers/dcmp/nadf301.pdf .

Sure (and thanks!) tell everyone that the individual libraries like CSD-R will not be mailing out things, but we will have this national library at the Oklahoma School for the Deaf: http://www.cfv.org/caai/nadh6.pdf . Captioned DVDs will get to everyone cheaper and faster. And also that our push will be to bring Deaf kids into the digital age through Internet streaming and digital downloads!

Take care. Thanks for all you do. Bill

To sum, CMP is changing, not closing down. It will now serve both deaf people and blind people. How will this affect deaf users? DCMP is going to focus on those who provide services to deaf people and individual deaf people will not be able to borrow titles anymore. No more videotapes. DVDs will be stored at (and mailed from) the Oklahoma School for the Deaf, and all titles will be available for viewing online.

I hope this helps clarify the situation and I apologize again for my post last night.

CMP IS NOT CLOSING ITS DOORS!

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for your comments and thoughts! This is very, very brief, but to make a long story short, a mistake was made by the person sending the e-mail. I queried the person a few times to make absolutely SURE, and yes, that was what the person understood - CMP was indeed closing. I'm not going to name names nor job positions to spare the person embarrassment, but suffice it to say the person was positioned in a way that the info had to be accurate. I got in touch with my contact at CMP immediately, but didn't get a response until today. No, CMP is NOT closing, but it is changing. This proves how important it is to check one's facts before posting, and I'm glad I got in touch with someone at CMP directly. I will post further information later today with details to help clarify how it is changing and how it impacts those of us who use CMP. I apologize for any confusion my post caused.

Yay, CMP is still with us!!! Stay tuned.

UPDATE 3.1.07 - Here are further details about what is going on with CMP.

The End of an Era of Accessibility

Hoo boy. Today was a day of blows for me. First, I got some news at work today, which I will not delineate at this time. It was an honor, yet it was a blow because I truly had different goals. As I was reeling from this dramatic change in direction and focus this news brings me, I got an incredibly upsetting e-mail. The Captioned Media Program is closing its doors forever as of March 30th. I've put out some feelers to find out exactly why, but I have not yet received confirmation. If any of you have any information on this, please do share! We, the community, need to know what happened that caused us to lose this valuable resource.

This news put me in a nostalgic frame of mind. The very first captioned *anything* I ever saw was a Captioned Films for the Deaf reel showing of Disney's Freaky Friday (the original with Jodie Foster, mind you, not the crappy recent re-make.) The teachers herded all of us up and ushered us off to the multi-purpose room. Up to this time, TV or movies held little interest for me, except for cartoons. I still love Disney and Warner cartoons to this day, and I proudly own all 4 Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets. Back to that fateful day eons ago... I was transfixed. I finally understood what all those moving mouths were saying, and it was interesting. I still remember the opening blue/red frames proclaiming "Captioned Films for the Deaf" and the white subtitles. I got to see a few more Disney movies, including The Parent Trap and I think Herbie, all shown via reel and projector, with that same blue/red opening. When I became older, I realized I'd experienced something very much a part of deaf culture; after all, who among us has not heard the stories about reel CFD movies being shown in the clubs and schools decades ago? As I became older, I saw even more CFD films, all reels, but they were not as much fun as the Disney movies. Instead they dealt with mundane topics like driver's education, sex education, physics, and so on. One of my favorites, though, was the old black-and-white version of A Tale of Two Cities. Now *that* was a classic! I can still picture Madame Defarge's face contorted in fury as she denounced the Marquis St. Evremonde, not realizing said marquis was standing in front of her. At Gally, I saw some CFV (now Captioned Films and Videos) videotapes in classes. When I started teaching, I saw CFV eventually become CMP. I used their stuff a few times, but it was, um, not the best. A few years ago, a dear colleague of mine contacted me and asked me if I wanted to become an evaluator for CMP. I was surprised because I wasn't using their services and I didn't know that much about it except via personal experience as a student. But I'm open to new experiences, so I accepted. One of the best decisions in my life.

I was put in touch with several people at CMP in order to do a field evaluation in my area of expertise and to plan for a trip to Hartford. I found the study to be a very tall order, being completely unfamiliar with the current catalog, but I managed to come up with an assessment of strengths and gaps in the current collection - trying my very best. They were so supportive during the whole process. Much to my surprise and delight, I discovered that CMP had overhauled its offerings significantly. There were few titles older than five years, and those that were were appropriate for the most part. The titles were more aligned to national standards and to appropriate grade levels than they had been a few years previously. I resolved to start incorporating CMP titles more in my teaching, and sent a glowing evaluation, along with a honest assessment of areas that were still lacking or could be strengthened. I became excited and nervous about the sojourn to the American School for the Deaf. Hartford was amazing. I attended the opening ceremonies for CMP with no real idea as to what to expect. The next three days were a whirlwind of evaluating, socializing, and learning new things. I was inspired by the warmth I felt from everyone and the spirit of teamwork, cooperation and flexibility. They are wonderful. The whole process was incredibly complicated and required so much preparation before we started evaluating, but it went smoothly with incredible efficiency. I left, richer for the experience, hoping to be invited back for the next time, and awed by the Captioned Media Program. I, over the next two years, told some people to check the titles out, praised CMP, discussed it with my library manager and got her interested in hosting an evaluation here, checked some titles out myself, and continued evaluating titles at home. It was so cool to see titles I'd recommended appear in the catalog! I felt like our hard work was having a nationwide impact. When I was invited back to Ogden last summer, I was thrilled and eagerly looked forward to it. The Utah School for the Deaf proved to me once again how special this program is. I was inspired all over again by the people present and the work that we are doing. It felt like a reunion and I met more wonderful people and gained even more respect for CMP.

But Utah was very different. The "big kahuna" was noticeably absent, even though he was in town. His wife stayed behind in Spartanburg, unlike Hartford and apparently unlike any other time previously. (We found out later she stayed behind to work on saving the program.) The opening night, in the middle of the festive reunion greetings, bore ill tidings. CMP's budget had been slashed to half of what it has had and it had been ordered to provide video descriptions for the blind. As we blinked in confusion, he explained that while we can see someone closing a cupboard door on film, a blind person just hears something close and has no idea what it is. Video descriptions would voice over visual cues for the edification of blind viewers (now that's an oxymoron. Blind viewer? *grin*). For example, suppose you see a dishy blonde walking up to a cupboard, opening it, taking a glass out, and closing the cupboard. One might hear the patter of feet, the clink of the glass hitting the counter, and the gentle slam of the door closing. But what the heck just happened?? Video descriptions would fill this gap. A grim statistic - only 10% of educational media is currently voluntarily captioned. It doesn't surprise me, since I've been responsible for placing orders for my area for a few years now, and yup. Very little out there is captioned. Hollywood's doing a better job of captioning than educators are??? *doink* What's wrong with this picture??? But I digress. So this decision was cutting back on access for us and our kind. Hm. He went on to describe how they were fighting this and appealing the US Depatment of Education decision. We were told no more home evaluations, all the libraries might close, maybe no mailing of tapes anymore due to the cost and moving the whole collection online, this might be the last biennial evaluation, a position was closed, and so on. Things looked frighteningly grim, and when I got home, I blogged about it here urging action. CMP has a number of libraries across the nation that house and mail out videos and DVDs, including one at my school. I heard a few weeks ago that all the libraries were going to close, except for the one at the Oklahoma School for the Deaf. It'd house all titles. I haven't been contacted to do any work since last summer and the website currently announces the change in mission to include video descriptions, but at least the program was still going. And the info I got last summer did not appear to spell the end of CMP. Today's e-mail changed that.

CFD had to change to survive. But it still served a vital purpose, and shutting it down and/or crippling it is a major mistake. We *still* need it, in spite of the advent of captioning done by the private sector. The private sector is NOT fulfilling its responsibilities, and since the government is not enforcing ADA regulations, this is a vital program for us. I was so upset, I got on AIM and set my away message to "VERY UPSET! CMP is closing its doors forever!" A friend got in touch, asking what was up. I filled her in and she said we have to fight it. I gloomily told her it was too late and she said, "We can't think like that!" She's right. Even if it's an exercise in futility, we gotta fight to the very end. Contact your congressional representative, the US Department of Education, and the NAD. (Contact links are in the post I referred to earlier. If you don't want to click to see the earlier post - www.house.gov, www.senate.gov, and www.ed.gov are starting points where you can get the contact info you need.)

UPDATE 3.1.07: CMP is *not* closing its doors. For my retraction, go here. For further info on CMP, go here.

Profanity in DeafBlogLand

This is something that seems to be increasing exponentially, and the first instance I recall appeared in January! So we're talking a month, a month and a half ago. I'm growing concerned. For the record, I have no issue with profanity at all. I enjoy using it at appropriate times and marvel at how creative we can be in any language (the French are mighty creative and colorful in their vulgarity!). I believe that in order to master a language wholly one should be able to swear in the language, even if one chooses never to do so for personal or religious reasons.
But I digress...

Aidan Mack posted an open letter to the DeafRead.com editors here regarding the issue of profanity. It raises some interesting points.

One of the major "red flags" this poses for me is the issue of censorship. Censorship is a slippery slope, and once we start down that hill, there is every risk of snowballing and censoring unnecessarily. (Banning Huck Finn from school libraries, anyone?) I do *not* recommend that DeafRead, nor any other editor begin censoring entries.

My comment is copied and pasted here in its entirety. Thoughts? Comments? Please feel free to respond, members of the Teeming Millions - we need to mull this over and talk about this topic.

I agree with you both, Aidan and IamMine. I, too, work with students, and I'm now concerned about recommending DeafRead to them because of the profanity in what seems like an ever-growing number of entries.

However, there is the issue of freedom of speech/expression, and censorship isn't the way to go.

I personally have no issue with profanity and have been known to use it in my personal life. However, I'm mindful of who is around when I use it, and I never ever use it with people in grades 12 or below or younger than 18... And I refuse to use it in the blog I maintain that's
syndicated by DeafRead, because I want it to be appropriate for all interested parties, which include students and those who do not appreciate profanity. Those who choose to use it on the Internet are definitely well within their rights to do so and they are availing themselves of a wonderful part of the English language (in my opinion), but they run the risk that their entries become inappropriate for a segment of their potential audience. This means their thoughts are not reaching all of their intended audience.

As for what DeafRead can do... I think the idea of sections is intriguing. However, it would be a lot of work for both the editors and readers. As a reader, I'd far prefer to keep the current format with everything on the front page. I think we run the risk of missing entries just because we wouldn't click on every single section. I vote to leave it as is. But maybe they could code the ones with profanity somehow, maybe with a red flag? ;) That would warn parents and other interested parties.

I believe the responsibility ultimately lies with all of us in DeafBlogLand. We bloggers/vloggers need to be mindful of how we present ourselves to our audience, and if we choose to use profanity, it should be a conscious decision, made with the awareness that we are closing ourselves off from part of our potential audience. But we *should* all strive for respectful and open-dialogue entries. We commenters should keep the same things in mind when we comment on entries. Bloggers/vloggers CAN control comments, though - and SHOULD when comments are disrespectful or attack people/groups, in my opinion. In
WordPress, one can remove ANY comment, with or without moderation. Blogger requires moderation, though. People with Blogger accounts can moderate comments and refuse to allow disrespectful comments to be published. Again, we, as individuals, all bear the responsibility. I don't think dumping it on DeafRead is the way to go, but they should be aware that there are concerns.

Thanks, Aidan, for raising this issue!

***Notes: I wrote this last Thursday (I think) and attempted to post this via email, but Blogger wouldn't post it simply because they were forcing everybody to upgrade to the new version, and I didn't have a chance to deal with it till now. Grr. Second note - the info about Blogger above is now inaccurate. Blogger will allow the blog owner to delete *any* comment with, or without, moderation.

Man, are we deafies flexible or what?

It struck me today how fantastically well we deafies are able to adapt to situations that limit our communication access. I went to a water aerobics class, and this time was harder than usual thanks to an instructor who shot out instructions like a New Yorker on speed. I've done water aerobics off and on for years, thanks to a family that swims almost constantly and a water aerobics class I took at Gallaudet, so I'm comfortable with the moves and a lot of other aspects. I'm also an adept lipreader, which I confess helps quite a bit, much as I hate to admit it. But the class today tested my limits. Her rapid-fire instructions and frequent turning her head away made it so I actually had to work to follow instructions (which is not normally the case for me). I managed okay, but it was work that I wasn't used to doing. And I realized today how much I use techniques other than lipreading to follow what the instructor is doing. I position my body so I'm always facing the instructor, no matter what, even if it puts me out of alignment with others. I also watch to see what others are doing if I'm a bit lost or if the instructor has us jump around in circles or something like that where I can't see her as clearly. I can't recollect what else I do right now, but wow, I never really articulated to myself how many little ways I adapt to situations that don't provide printed English or ASL signs. A hearing person was with me and tried to interpret several times, but I pointedly looked away, focusing on the instructor - and I was fine. It was very sweet of her, and she doesn't usually do this. That struck me - gosh, I bet hearing people have NO idea how well we adapt. It doesn't matter how well we speak, lipread, or how well we *don't*, we still can function and communicate a lot better than many people think we can. It reminds me of the first time I went to Europe. I was with a hearing person, and I had an easier time communicating with the locals, thanks to gesturing and using different forms of communication. If she didn't speak the language, she was unable to find other ways to communicate. So, deafies out there, don't ever put yourselves down because of communication ("I can't speak," "I can't hear," etc.) - you are more flexible and adaptable than many hearing people!

Captioning all v-logs... Really?

Jamie Berke has written twice now in the past few days to urge captioning of all video blogs, joining the small but growing chorus of calls for accessibility. Berke makes a number of good points, many of which I agree with. One I especially agree with is the need to be accessible to every segment of our community, which is crucial for our unification. After all, unity cannot happen without an understanding of where we are all coming from. I will not attempt to rebut any of her points, because they are valid and I logically agree with them.

BUT there's a double standard at work in the calls for captioning of video blogs. Consider: Have we bloggers ever been asked to provide ASL translation of our writing? I'm not aware of any requests, except for a general cry for more video entries. If there are any, they are few in number. But by not giving deaf people who do not have good English language skills access, we are denying access to a large segment of the community. Why the disparity in the calls for accessibility? The minority culture/language is always the one most asked to adapt, not the majority, and this is glaring evidence of that.

Food for thought, n'est-ce pas?

Concrete Reasons Against Anonymous Attacks

As I sleepily and groggily read Chris Leon's latest entry, I read this amazing comment about why not-so-positive comments written under the guise of anonymity destroys unity. We all know why, but it was spelled out so clearly that I just had to highlight it here. This response contained salient issues and points that need to be considered, touching upon so many issues, including our children, dispelling a myth about hearing culture, and a lot more. Whether or not readers agree with his assessment of Chris Leon's and Ricky Taylor's blogs should not be the issue - what he is saying as a whole is so much more than that, exploring cultural norms (both hearing and deaf), thoughts about the next generation of deaf people, and more.

Thank you, DE, for posting this thoughtful treatise that encourages honesty and constructive criticism when appropriate, but makes it starkly clear why personal attacks are so destructive.

Found at: http://chrisleon.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/ridor-threatens-to-sue/
14. DE | January 9th, 2007 at 6:04 am

Aidan- as always, your comments are soothing and that “let’s get along” tone of yours is infectious. Keep being yourself, Aidan. I admire you.

Chris’ post is very reasonable. Yes, he is correct that responsibility begins with the individual. However, negative comments could (and has) cloud(ed) the blogger’s agenda, stance, image, or whatever. I’ve seen people complain that “Chris said this” or “Ridor said that” only to find that it was an anonymous commenter who made that remark, not the bloggers themselves. Sometimes people would even claim that Chris or Ridor themselves are overwhelmingly negative, hateful, and crossing the line. I often have to return to their ORIGINAL entries, and I see none of those “negative, hateful, and crossing-the-line” energy in the bloggers’ writings.

Not only that, anonymous comments that are personal, cross the line, and simply hateful gets in the way of Deaf unity. Why anonymous comments fundamentally violate and prevent our Deaf culture from thriving–

1) Deaf culture is heavy on social context. We collectively discuss issues, and like to know who said what. Anonymous comments warps that. Majority culture (i.e. hearing capitalist societies) that emphasizes individualism might have no problem with anonymous comments- they don’t live with those people. Deaf people, on the other hand, do have suspicions who made that negative comment anonymously, and have to struggle with that. That’s why Deaf people, in person, continue to complain that “anonymous comments” are not acceptable in our culture.

2) English. While English AND ASL (or any country’s Sign Language) are our languages, discourse is more honest face-to-face. However, if one wants to post a critical comment in English, use your real name. That way, the criticized/accused has a chance to follow up with that person, and resolve issues. Simple. I’ve seen one situation where one Deaf blasted another Deaf, but used her real name. The accused offered to talk with the accuser over videophone. They did, and now they are working together beautifully on Deaf-related issues. Bottom line, discourse is not healthy if negative and personal anonymous comments are posted online. Discourse is much better when people face each other, and honestly share their thoughts, feelings, and hopes.

Even hearing non-profit organizations ban e-mail discussions, because “discourse is better in person”. Not all hearing people enjoy discussing online- many do prefer to talk in person, so they can catch the tone, implications, gestures, etc. We shouldn’t assume that online discussions are acceptable for hearing people- therefore they should also be acceptable in our culture.

3) Children do read those comments. Anonymous comments discourage our next generation of leaders from rising up and taking the reins. They’d see what commenters say about their parents, friends, and peers and probably will decide “It ain’t worth it. Deaf people are indeed vicious! Why should I join a non-profit organization, volunteer at Deaf events, plan a gathering, etc.?” Minority cultures place a high value on “futurography”- our children’s futures.

Ultimately, what is our goal? Bloggers may claim that they want the truth to come out, hold people accountable, etc. Sure. I believe that bloggers like Joey, Chris, Ridor, Mishakenza, Shane, Mike, Jared, etc. are for real and doing us a great service. But what are the personal/vindictive anonymous commenters’ agenda? Do these help elevate our discourse, support our leaders (of course, I don’t mean be nice to our leaders all the time! If they warrant feedback, by all means! Blunt criticism with a name attached, fine!), and improve our community? If they have a personal beef with people, they can simply contact that person and work things out then get back to the business of improving Deaf people’s lives. We have a lot of work to do.

I want to believe that deep down inside, all Deaf people- even those anonymous commenters, really want the best for our community. I hope so.

There but for the grace of God go I

Sarah's story really hit home for me. I wept. Her three entries thus far are a very moving account of a deaf woman who grew up alone, never meeting another deaf person, and has experienced a series of epiphanies after reading Gina Oliva's book, Alone in the Mainstream. Her second entry describes her very real pain in heart-rending words. Her third entry is positively upbeat and describes how she and her husband are processing this together and they both sound quite willing and happy to explore this new aspect of their lives.

This is just the latest wave to hit me on so many levels. I've been following Zoée Nuage's accounts of how she grew up mostly isolated from other deaf people, using a form of manually coded English to communicate, and how she is growing more and more interested in learning ASL and in joining the deaf community. Brown Eyed Girl, whomever she may be, is also a "solitaire," as Oliva puts it. She's been rebuffed by deaf people in the past and is wary, but interested in joining the community. Karen, a deaf mom from the Chicago area and Diane Gutierrez also talk from time to time about how growing up mainstreamed and joining the community as an adult have shaped their experiences and perspectives.

Gina Oliva's book set off a spate of interesting reviews and commentaries, not only from Sarah, but from Karen and Brown Eyed Girl in two separate entries as well.

They all have made me reflect on something I've known for a long time, yet never really understood. All of these people are literate, thoughtful, and intelligent. They are clearly able to make connections with others, no matter what their mode of communication. As far as I'm concerned, they are all part of this community. They are all part of us. I'm looking forward to meeting each one of them in person, as tends to happen in this small community of ours. Sarah, if you're reading, may I offer a huge, warm welcome to our community as you make your way through this journey.

What shook me to the core is simply the realization of how lucky I have been. I, too, have a hearing mom whose goals for me included the best possible education and for me to be highly literate. In fact, when she started me at preschool, she told the teacher that she expected me to be on grade level and stuck to her guns when the teacher expressed doubts. She had never met a deaf person nor thought much about what deaf is before she had me. She suspected I might not have normal hearing when I was only six months old. She had me tested at six months, two days old. What's unusual about Mom, though, is that her first thought when she heard the diagnosis was not sadness about not being able to hear music or the birds, but concern about how I would acquire language. She tried speaking with me but making sure I could see her face and lips at all times, but she knew in her gut this was not the way to go. She took sign language classes and, being a teacher and coming from the well-educated family she does, talked to me constantly (like all the parents in my family do), telling me things and explaining things. By the time I was 3, she felt I was progressing normally and just kept doing what good parents do for their children. She continued to encourage and expect speech development, but if that didn't work at any given time, she reverted to signs - something which is still true to this day.

What made Mom really unique is that she instantly understood that I had to be around other deaf people. She made sure I was around other deaf chldren at least part of the time, no matter what, even though I did not go to the state school until junior high. In her words, "To me, it was always about communication. That's the only thing that really made sense to me - that you be around people you could communicate with {easily and without barriers}." That's one thing that made my blood run cold while reading Sarah's story and recent blog reviews of Oliva's book. I've never had the experience of thinking I'm all alone in life and that I'm different from everyone else. I've had similar experiences to theirs while being mainstreamed and feeling alone and like I stuck out like a sore thumb in that setting, but I expected and knew that that did not have to be the way it was all the time.

When this realization hit me, I cried. I wept in gratitude for my wonderful mom, I wept in sadness that Sarah and others have had to feel so alone for so long, and I wept in anger at the fact that this story of aloneness is not going away - in fact, it's getting worse every year. More and more deaf children are literally all alone in the world. In the old days, most deaf children had each other, whether they were in oral programs or in manual programs, but that's less and less true these days. More and more deaf children and people are going to go through a chunk of their lives feeling different, isolated, and alone. That's cruel and unnecessary. It saddens and infuriates me, and leaves me wishing I knew what to do about it.

Truly, there but for the grace of God (and Mom) go I.

I'm grateful that people are able to find us and make their way to us, while retaining the good parts about how they were raised and how they have lived their lives up until their epiphany. DeafBlogLand appears to be helping that along, as evidenced by Zoée, Sarah, and BrownEyedGirl. It is up to all of us, the Teeming Millions, to make sure we keep the welcome mat out, fresh and inviting, for these three and for all the others who have not yet found us or for those who have not blogged publicly yet. In the meantime, BrownEyedGirl, Zoée, and Sarah, welcome! Everyone else who is in a similar position to theirs, welcome! We're here, ready to embrace you and we're willing to accept your process, regardless of what form it takes and the length of time it takes. Welcome to our community!

Little Pitchers...

I've been following all the comments and posts about the Bay Area gala event with great interest. The person who can be credited (or blamed, depending on your perspective) is Chris Leon with a roar posted the day of the gala, several hours before it began. While I, naturally, am stunned at the viciousness of some of the attacks and have thoughts (largely echoed by Saunière) about the need to explore issues with respect and dignity, I wanted to highlight one aspect of all this that has yet to be addressed.

Soneone posted, saying he/she is a CSD Fremont student and said something to the effect of "We young 'uns do read this stuff, y'know..."

That embarrassed me. It really embarrassed me. It made me ask myself this:

What kind of role models are we?

As someone who works with school-age students, I instantly wondered if any of my current and former students are reading this and/or penning comments behind some of these pseudonyms. If they are, they are witnessing firsthand that all my exhortations about the need to be respectful while stating one's perspective and disagreeing with someone else are unnecessary and that adults do not do this. They are learning that it is OK to attack. It is OK to be cruel and insult others. After all, this is what adults do.

My usual style thus far while blogging has been to present ideas and thoughts for discussion, but I must step out of that mold for a minute to ask this:

If you had ANY part in attacking the Bay Area or individuals in the Bay Area, what have you taught the next generation of deaf people? Think long and hard about this.

We, no matter whether it's in person, online using our real names, or online using pseudonyms, all have a responsibility toward future generations of deaf people. We need to be showing them how adults can have a reasoned dialogue and disagree with civility. Chris Leon's post and Deaf Tea Time's first post on the topic, as well as most of the comments there, are not appropriate models, in my opinion. Deaf Tea Time redeemed herself somewhat with her public apology, which was a wonderful example to set for future generations.

I'll get off the soapbox now, but every single one of you (myself included) need to be mindful of the example we set for deaf people in high school, college, and younger. *click* Preach mode off now.

A Kinder, Gentler 2007

I just had the most interesting experience. When I only had a private blog with a teeny, tiny readership consisting of close friends and family, I wrote a review of a collection of deaf cinema that was shown all at once one night. The first film was Jennifer Visco dancing and signing an apparently original song, talking about how we are all deaf "same-you-me," no matter where we're from, our schooling, et cetera. My words were rather unkind. In my defense, I never dreamed she'd see what I wrote, since my readership was so limited.

When I started this more public blog, I went through my entries to see which ones I could copy and post here too. Figuring deaf cinema had mass appeal, I copied that entry in its entirety here, completely forgetting what I'd said about Visco's performance.

Well.

She read it.

She commented.

I replied, offering a white flag and a sort of apology. From her response, she doesn't seem too offended, thankfully. I stand by my original review, though perhaps I could have worded it more gently. *rueful smile*

I've been so frustrated by the recent attacks on the Bay Area, because while some criticism seems to be valid, a lot of it is just baseless attacks on a whole community or on specific individuals. I try to be a good person and go about my business without offending or hurting people with careless, thoughtless comments and actions. But I'm not perfect. And this was a wonderful reminder.

2007 is a fresh start for all of us operating on the Western calendar, and I'd like to take this opportunity to call for a kinder, gentler 2007. Let's conduct our discussions with civility, openness, kindness, and respect. If we have not-so-nice opinions, let's watch how we word them.

Here's to a kinder, gentler 2007 and beyond.

We All Matter

My mind's just jumping all over the place right now... from the micro level (the moi-universe) to the macro level (the entire deaf community) and many points in between. Even though my thoughts are a real jumble right now, three themes are emerging:
1. We are all amazing and we all have something to contribute.
2. I'm being expected to do too damn much, and I need to take care of myself first.
3. We all need to do our part and contribute.

These may seem contradictory, but there *is* rhyme and reason, I promise.

First, a bit of background, which is being offered to help illuminate what led to this tangent. I become overwhelmed just listing what organizations I'm involved in and what responsibilities I hold in each organization. For example, at one recent meeting, there were around ten reports, and I gave three of them. This in a group of 15(ish) members? Yes, there were extenuating circumstances (one is an ad-hoc committee and I was asked to take over temporarily for the other two chairs). Don't get me wrong - this is a hard-working, dedicated group and everyone contributes in their own way! But what I'm trying to say is that this is just one of my many affiliations and I’m doing a lot there. Now multiply that by my other affiliations and you get an idea of how much I’m expected to do lately. Is it any wonder I’m so overwhelmed and feeling burned out?

I confess that this train of thought was on the whiny side for a while and contained mutterings along the lines of “Why me? Why can’t others just bleepin’ do their share??” But being the practical, realistic person I am, I soon realized that I was being unfair. Take the organization I mentioned earlier as an example. If I were to break down what each person has done recently, I would be forced to admit that maybe I’m doing too much but almost everyone else is doing a lot and contributing in many various ways that enhance their individual strengths and that we all really complement each other very well. That led me to marvel at the beauty of this organic group and how we are evolving and growing with each other.

My train of thought continued through the various groups and endeavors I’ve been involved in recently, pausing to wonder at how impressive the people I’ve had the fortune to work with are and how honored I am to know them and work with them.

The next leg of my journey went through the Gallaudet protest. The whole thing was so organic, with many, many people stepping up to the plate, each contributing in their own way. Elisa Abenchuchan did an astounding job of reporting during the May protest. No one appointed her, nor did she consciously decide she would become “THE” reporter. It just happened. The same thing happened with Elizabeth (MishkaZena) during the October protest. People throughout DeafBlogLand analyzed and dissected the events that other people reported. Some dashed off to 800 Florida Avenue, NE posthaste or contacted their legislators. Others in local communities sprang to action, doing many different things. Some became Tent City mayors, while others acted as concerned parents. Still others collected funds or maintained websites. It would be impossible for me to list everything different people did, but every single one of those people, no matter how they contributed, made a difference. Every single one of you who did something for the protest, you made it so that the Board had to give Fernandes her walking papers. For that, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Some of you are still working to ensure that reprisals are not enforced or that they are reasonable and appropriate. Some of you are continuing to be active in your local community, but with a different focus. Some of you are among the bloggers that populate DeafBlogLand, shaping discourse and raising topics for all of us to consider and discuss together.

My train ride concluded with: I think the protest has proven that all of us can do something for the betterment of our community on a local, state-wide, national, and/or international level. We don’t need to depend on the “same people” to do everything. All of you/us have talents that, if we tap into them together, make the Teeming Millions a force to be reckoned with.

While I will be concluding some of my responsibilities soon and declining some future opportunities so I can take care of myself, I will not abdicate my place in the community. I will remain involved to a limited extent until I’m ready to take on a bit more. I deeply appreciate those of you who are actively involved in some fashion and I hope that those of you who are not contributing will reconsider that and allow us to become stronger through your talents. We managed to move the Rock of Gibraltar, otherwise known as Jane K. Fernandes, when we banded together. Imagine what else we, the Teeming Millions, can do if we continue to pool our talents!!!

So where is ASL from anyway?

Carl Schroeder posits the idea that we have no concrete evidence that ASL is descended from la langue des signes française (LSF), and cites one source that is rife with grammatical and spelling errors. It is an interesting supposition and one that may have some credence. I, however, beg to differ.

Schroeder is right in that we have no record of what ASL looked like in the early- to mid- 1800s, neither taped nor written, so it is difficult if not impossible to determine what it looked like. We have no way of knowing what the pidgin mix of LSF and Martha's Vineyard signs looked like.

However, I believe plenty of evidence, both linguistic and historical, exists that clearly demonstrates beyond a doubt that ASL and LSF are linguistic relatives.

Sign "with."

Really. Go ahead and sign "with."

Okay. Look at your hands. What handshape are you using to sign "with?"

That's right. A.

And the French word for "with" is...
*drumroll*
avec.

And the LSF sign for "with" is a cognate of ours.

There are more examples. Sign "see" as in "I see something."

What handshape are you using? V. The French word for to see? voir

Want another? Sure... sign "search" or "look for." Handshape? C. French word? chercher

And all of these signs have LSF cognates (if I remember my LSF right... my LSF book isn't handy at the moment). There are many ASL-LSF cognates that do not have English-French cognates, such as the sign for "excuse me," which is a near-perfect cognate of the LSF sign that corresponds to "pardon."

Another factor pointing to the idea that LSF existed first and was one of the progenitors of ASL is that there was a deaf school in Paris for close to a century before there was a deaf community in America, not counting Martha's Vineyard. The Institut National des Jeunes Sourds is where Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc went to school and later taught. This is where Gallaudet was taken once he had decided to check out the French way of teaching deaf children. (aside here: if you ever get to visit the school, head to the right rear stairwell. There's this stone engraved passage talking about how Gallaudet came to the school and brought Clerc to America, and started a school for the deaf in America. In their definitive French deaf history book, Les Pouvoir des Signes, or The "Can" of Signs, they speak of Gallaudet and American deaf education in very reverent tones.) LSF was already in existence and in use when Gallaudet talked Clerc into leaving everything he'd ever known for the American wilderness. There was a book of LSF in existence as early as 1779, written by Pierre Desloges. (The site is in French, but the info is in the first paragraph.) In Nora Ellen Groce's book (by the by, Schroeder's source quotes from this book as well), it discusses the differences between ASL and Islander signs. One of the eldest islanders said in an interview that he could never understand young deaf sign language because the signs used on the island were so different. Ergo, Islander sign language is probably not the most significant source of ASL. We've established that LSF existed before ASL as much as possible and that it is substantially different from Martha's Vineyard signs without concrete evidence of what ASL looked like a century and a half ago.

Another clear indicator is the grammatical construction found in ASL and in spoken/written French. One oft-quoted example of ASL grammar is CAR RED, in which the adjectives occur after the noun, unlike English, where the adjectives precede the noun, as in red car. Care to hazard a guess which construction spoken/written French uses? Yup, you got it. Same as ASL - la voiture rouge. The linguistic similarities are much deeper than simple word order, however. There's an idiom in English which reads, "It's clear as mud." If this were to be translated into French, it would read "Il est clair comme boue." If we translate word-for-word back from French into English, it would be "It is clear how mud." Feel familiar? It should if you use ASL, because this is a construction that often comes up in ASL, but never ever in English. As a Francophone, I've found I have a much easier time translating between written French and ASL because their grammatical constructions are more similar than those of English and French. There are more examples, but you get the idea.

While this is probably not sufficient evidence to satisfy everyone out there, it is way more than enough to satisfy me that ASL is directly descended from LSF, with other influences thrown in and time and distance have helped to separate the two languges as well.

"I wanna go to Gally, but I don't wanna sign."

There is an interesting discussion going on at DeafDC.com. Christopher Brown wrote this thoughtful article designed to spark discussion about how to fix Gallaudet, but the discussion has strayed to other items. I actually feel sorry for the dude, 'cause his article was thought-provoking and deserves to be discussed. I was very surprised by one discussion thread. Apparently there is a small but very strong and vocal group that believes that Gallaudet should NOT require everyone to learn how to sign - not students nor faculty. I don't think fluency should be required to enroll at Gallaudet, but I do think fluency should be the goal upon graduation. I thought everyone agreed. But nope, apparently not. Here's what I posted in response.

(#32170) | 2006-11-04 14:59:45
Christopher, I apologize for not answering your question at this point. I just need to respond to this phenomenon of people who actively resist learning ASL and about deaf culture who still attend Gallaudet. As people who read my blog know, I’m very accepting of various backgrounds and communication modes. I didn’t grow up in a deaf school, I didn’t grow up signing ASL, my family is hearing, and so on, so a militant Deaf Culture stance is not where I’m coming from.

I’m not going to criticize or attack this stance - that would undermine the open dialogue we all need to have. But I really, really do not understand this perspective. If people don’t want to learn ASL, that’s okay. They have hundreds of other options for college, and some of them have sizable numbers of deaf students. So it is possible for these people to find a community and socialization opportunities outside of Gallaudet. Why, then, would they want to go to Gallaudet at all? What does Gallaudet have to offer them that they can’t find elsewhere if they aren’t interested in signing/learning how to sign or interacting with deaf people who want to sign?

Furthermore, why can’t we be allowed to have just ONE place where we sign, can expect professors and other employees to sign with some level of competence, and where we welcome those who did not grow up signing but are willing to learn, and so on? Why do we have to give up the only option we have if we want sign?

Again, before anyone flames me, I respect people who don’t want to learn how to sign. I’m just confused at the idea, “I don’t want to sign, but I want to go to the only college that has signing everywhere, even though I could go just about anywhere else.” Please help me understand rather than shooting me down.

So what do you think, Teeming Millions? Any thoughts? Any nuggets that can help me understand this phenom?

What if Alexander Graham Bell never existed?

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Sliders, a sci-fi show about an unlikely quartet that is stuck wandering the multiverse, landing on parallel/alternate earths in a perhaps vain attempt to return to their home Earth (known as Earth Prime.) They travel the Einstein-Rosen-Podolosky wormhole between Earths over five seasons. During their five seasons together, they encounter a wide array of parallel Earths that we can only imagine. Take, for example, the world where the colonies lost the Revolutionary War, George Washington was beheaded in 1779, and we are all British subjects. Or the world where the Sino-Soviet Empire swept the globe in the 1950s, and the U.S., the lone holdout, was annexed into the Soviet Union in 1961, resulting in a world full of communism except for pockets of resistance here and there. Nueva España, the world where the Anglos lost the war and Candians flee the poverty of their country for the riches of La California is a fascinating one. One of my favorites is the one where JFK was assassinated by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1963, so J. Edgar Hoover took over the presidency, declared martial law, and abridged the Constitution. For more worlds, visit the Travelogue.

As someone who loves history and science fiction, Sliders has always captured my imagination and I enjoy imagining possible alternate Earths, where there was some divergence at some point in history, trivial to major. Today I started wondering what if Alexander Graham Bell never existed. A partial description of the damage Bell hath wrought on our community can be found here.This man was a strong proponent of eugenics and wanted to eradicate deafness from the earth. (By the way, note how the Wikipedia section on eugenics closes with how he was a kindly grandfather in an attempt to water this powerful section down?? How infuriating!) Bell's work, as well as those of his contemporaries, led to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, according to Patrick Boudreault's research. He was one of the more instrumental forces during the infamous 1880 Milan Conference banning sign language in deaf education. Bell was one of the most successful colonizers of our people and his destructive influence continues to this day. This has led me to ponder what an Earth without Bell would be like.

What would a world without Bell be like? Would oralism have been marginalized, with manualism gaining primacy, or would it have retained its stronghold where it was strong before yet failing to gain much footing where manualism was the norm? Would Adolf Hitler still have risen to power in the 1930s, and if the answer is yes, would der Führer have written Mein Kampf with the same arguments he made in our world? Would Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps have claimed as many lives, or indeed any lives at all? Would cochlear implants and genetic engineering have become the perceived threat they are today? Let your imagination run wild!

The protest climaxed... now for the denouement

WOW!!! This has been an incredible day. I didn't expect Pandora, my pager, to survive the barrage of e-mails trading information, reactions, and the like from all over the nation, but she managed. She's now taking a breather.

I had decided to declare a moratorium on protest-related news and messages for most of the weekend. I spent yesterday curled up in bed with my laptop, watching Netflix'd DVDs and managed to write one blog post on this blog. I did the same for most of this morning, but knowing that the Board of Trustees was meeting, I grudgingly reached for Pandora and logged on to the 'Net. I spent the next few hours in tense anticipation, reading messages relayed from DC and from other friends who were passing on messages from DC. Then finally the news that the Board of Trustees meeting was over, but no announcement yet... White-knuckled, I scanned and refreshed a few websites so often, I'm surprised my trackpad didn't declare itself finished with me.

Then...

Pandora vibrated. I hastily scooped 'er up, opened Mail, and read a brief message saying good news, BoT terminated Jane. *doink* Wha'? What the...?? True biz? Pandora then went off every 5 seconds for the next ten minutes with various people confirming the news. Yup, the Board of Trustees had decided to think independently of the Kendall Monarchy and seen that the only hope for resolution was to give Fernandes her walking papers. Frantic pages of celebrations sped through the airwaves. I hastily dressed and dashed to a friend's place, where we took pictures, laughed together, and processed the enormity of this event. It was wonderful!

But...

Y'know, this isn't over. This is Gettysburg in the Civil War. This is a turning point, indeed. But we haven't won the war. We cannot stop being involved now. Fernandes' selection and the stand-off that lasted for the better part of a year were simply symptomatic of a larger problem at Gallaudet and in the larger community. I, personally, am saddened that things had to get to this point. I believe this could have been prevented at so many points along the past year, the major problem being perception, as Mark Drolsbaugh so eloquently describes. Hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20. We're here now, and there's nowhere to go but forward. Resolving these problems is going to demand our continued involvement. The good news is that we can relax and get our lives back, but we still need to support our compatriots on Kendall Green. How, you ask? Good question. Allow me to refer you to two excellent posts written by Surdus and by Mr. Sandman. In a nutshell, we need to focus on the problems on campus and on healing the rifts in our community. Let's all do that together, both in DeafBlogLand and in person.

*lifting champagne glass*

To us, the community. May we win the war... all of us, so there are no losers (except for those who would perpetuate colonialism and divide us even further). May we all become united, no matter where we are from and what our backgrounds contain. May we all blend together to become a stronger, diverse, accepting community. May Gallaudet become an institution that we revere, because of its historic place in our community, because it pushes us to excel academically, and because it is a place where everyone is accepted yet ASL and Deafhood flourish.

*lifting glass even higher, with a nod*
*sip*

Elitism, Deafhood & the Current Protest

This is the first time I’ve signed into my Blogger account since early this month. There is so much I want to talk about, because so much has happened in the last two months. But those posts will have to remain simply nuggets and partially-written snippets in a word processing file for the time being. On to the topic.

As we all know, the Deaf community is in the midst of an uproar because of what is happening on a 99-acre college campus in the northeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. My heart, mind, and soul have been consumed by this situation. I’m so heartbroken by what is occurring at my beloved alma mater that no words can describe what I’m feeling.

There is so much I could say about the Gallaudet protest, so much of what I am thinking and feeling, that I could probably write a rather weighty tome. But right now my thoughts are focused on one question: Why are we in this situation? There are many auxiliary questions, such as: Are they hiding something? Why aren’t faculty members and staff members handing over evidence I KNOW for a fact that is there to the media? Why cannot some people see that this is not a bunch of kids whining that they didn’t get their way? Why do some people insist on believing the lies that the Gallaudet PR machine is spewing left and right? What is keeping Fernandes going like the Energizer Bunny? Why is Jordan willing to destroy his legacy to support a woman that has alienated most of her constitutency? Why are people on the Board of Trustees not openly breaking away from the party line? Etc, etc. However, one auxiliary question to “Why are we in this situation” that seems very important and that requires closer examination is the “not deaf enough” issue.

Confession: I would very much like to swat the student who first said this protest is about JK’s not being deaf enough. Now that I’ve confessed that, I must note that I’m furious with Jordan, Fernandes, and the PR machine for perpetuating this fallacy.

But is it truly a fallacy? Yes and no. The truth is that there is a small number of people who would have been dissatisfied with this selection because of a pre conceived notion about what a deaf person is. Some of these people may have initiated a protest. But this protest is about so much more than that. This protest is about a questionable search process and about the inappropriate selection of a person who has proved time after time that she is incapable of leading a group of people. It is about the marginalization of the most important people on a college campus; namely, the students and faculty, and to a smaller extent, the staff members and the alumni. It is about administrative mismanagement and manipulation to the point that there are questions about Gallaudet’s accounting and where people are working and living in a climate of palapable fear. However, there is a kernel of truth to the “not deaf enough” card.

This is where elitism and Deafhood come in. One key idea posited in the book is that deaf people have been colonized. I talked about this in one of my posts on the NAD conference, and I've copied and pasted the relevant passage, shown here in italics.

The Deafhood workshops were amazing. The first one encapsulated the concept and previewed what the next three would cover. The second one, presented by Ella Mae Lentz, focused on the language aspect of Deafhood. A brief history lesson occurred first, focusing on European colonization and how they subjugated native peoples. The colonists (called missioners in the book) systematically destroyed governing systems, traditions, ways of life, and banned native languages. They installed white governments and forced the children to go to white schools and be educated in the colonists’ language, to learn the values and traditions of the colonists, and so forth. Eventually the colonists installed native people that were best able to speak their language and function much like the colonists in positions of power. These native people became the force which kept the natives subjugated. Paddy Ladd’s book posits that this is what has happened to deaf people. Oralists colonized us too by destroying our education systems, outlawing our language, and forcing us to use their language. Our values and traditions were discarded in favor of hearing mores. As a result, we have been divided and we act against each other. We even argue about our identity amongst ourselves. We disagree about the best way to educate our youth. Many of us genuinely believe that those who can speak are lucky, those who have some hearing are lucky, and that English is superior to ASL. Many of us gladly participate in our own oppression. This is known as colonialism of the mind, because our hearts, minds, and souls have been colonized to the point where many of us believe English is superior, we need to worry about fitting in with hearing people, and to speak and hear is better than not to speak and hear. This is a powerful and mind blowing concept, and I was glad of the reminder. The workshop made me think of how sick and tired I am of the phrase “can’t hear.” I’ve been railing against that phrase for years because “can’t hear” implies that hearing is an ability or a skill. Granted, in some contexts, it is. But we deaf people cannot practice and practice to develop a greater ability to hear. Our being deaf is simply a state of being. I’ve been advocating changing from “can’t hear” to “don’t hear” and changing “can hear” to simply “hear,” because language and perception are inextricably entwined. Genie Gertz focused on identity related to deafhood and David Eberwein focused on the politics of deafhood. Somewhere in there, the phrase “deficit thinking” was discussed. It is basically the idea that deaf people lack something; that we are flawed. This is an example of how thoroughly we have been colonized. For example, (the following is simply my own musings) we often say “hearing loss,” which is predicated upon the assumption that hearing is special and valuable. Is it? Well, depends on your paradigm, really. There are so many unpleasant sounds that hearing people are subjected to on a daily basis. I know I hear a lot that I really would rather not have to put up with. (back to the workshops) A few links that discuss the Deafhood workshops are NAD's, Ridor's, and Sandman's. It remains to be seen how much impact these workshops have on the general discourse, if they clear up the misunderstandings and misinterpretations that have circulated in the past few months, and if they help heal the damage that the Gallaudet situation has wrought on the community, but I believe they will go a long way.

The most important result of being colonized is that we have been set against each other. We tear each other down. We pull each other apart. This is exactly what is happening, as we debate the protest. There is a kernel of truth to the “not deaf enough card,” but by and large it is a fallacy, seized upon by the administration and parroted in every single public relations move the administration makes.

This is exactly why I, and many others, have called for elitism and acting superior to end. As we all know, some people who speak exclude those who don’t speak, some who went to deaf schools exclude those who didn’t, and so on. All of us need to stop it, as I discussed in length in this post. We all play a role in this and our individual actions are more powerful than we know. Some of us, myself included, already practice collectivism and acceptance of all types of backgrounds, and I strongly urge those who don’t to begin doing so. It’s amazing the types of people one meets, once one is open to others. This is why I love Deafhood. It promises to unify us all, if we can stop our infighting and examine the history of our own colonization then unify to defeat colonialism. We have begun the necessary dialogue about how to bring us all together. Let’s continue this dialogue, all of us, without resorting to personal attacks, no matter what happens at the Board of Trustees meeting tomorrow.

To voice or not to voice? That is the question.

For months now, Dr. Brenda Brueggemann's choice to voice instead of signing her speech at Gallaudet's commencement last May has been a source of controversy, and the renewal of the protest has also brought renewed debate regarding her choice. There are those who yowl in outrage, saying her choice was audistic and oppressive, while there are those who defend her choice saying she had every right to choose the method of delivery she felt most comfortable performing.

I’ve had strong opinions about this since the moment it occurred (amazing how plugged in we are these days, n’est-ce pas?), but the controversy has helped me articulate just why I feel so strongly about Dr. Brueggemann choice.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I recognize the diversity in our community and that we have no business dictating one set of norms for whom is acceptable and whom is not in this pluralistic country of ours. People in our community are free to choose what language they want to use in various situations - I absolutely agree with that. Dr. Brueggemann's choice, however, went far beyond the bounds of diversity and was, in my view, a grave offense. I took great affront at her choice that day, even though I don’t care what language choices she makes in her everyday life.

And exactly how did I draw this conclusion, you may ask. Good question. Read on for the answer. *grin*

Fact: Gallaudet University is a place where the vast majority of students are deaf.

Fact: People who go to Gallaudet for their undergraduate degree and stay long enough to graduate have learned how to sign, at least to an extent, if they did not sign before they enrolled at Gallaudet.

Fact: People who go to Gallaudet for a post-baccalaureate degree are working toward degrees in a deaf-related field and should be able to sign to an extent by the time they participate in commencement.

Conclusion: The people receiving formal recognition of the completion of their studies during a Gallaudet University commencement are deaf for the most part and should be able to sign with a reasonable level of proficiency.

Fact: In America (and perhaps elsewhere), people who present addresses at university commencements are expected to tailor their addresses to the graduating students. This involves considering the population that a particular university serves.

Conclusion: To tailor an address to this particular population of mostly deaf signers, it is not unreasonable to expect that someone who knows how to sign would sign their address. Therefore, since Dr. Brueggemann knows how to sign and since this is a group of signers, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that Dr. Brueggemann would have signed her speech.

Fact: Dr. Brueggemann, for whatever reason, chose not to take note of the previous facts and conclusions and chose to address a signing population using her voice.

Fact: Dr. Brueggemann is deaf herself.

Fact: Dr. Brueggemann is the current chair of the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees.

Fact: Dr.Brueggemann is chair of the ASL Department at Ohio State University.

Fact: A university department chair is generally expected to be an expert in her chosen field.

Possible Conclusion 1: Dr. Brueggemann is not comfortable enough signing to use ASL when addressing a large audience.

Problems with Possible Conclusion 1:
*What business does Dr. Brueggemann have chairing an ASL department if she doesn’t sign well enough to use the formal ASL register to deliver an address?
*If a Spanish language department chair were not proficient in Spanish, everyone would howl in outrage. The same is true for any foreign language, including Chinese, Arabic, French, et cetera. It would never be acceptable for a chair of any language department to be uncomfortable functioning in that language in any situation. This conclusion, if accurate, implies that ASL has second-class status and is not worthy of equal respect with other foreign languages.

Possible Conclusion 2: Dr. Brueggemann honestly believes that it is better to use voice than to sign when addressing a signing population

Problems with Possible Conclusion 2:
*She ignored the fact that she was addressing an audience of signers.
*Using an interpreter causes a disconnect between the speaker and the recipent because it requires communication to go through an intermediary, which means that by making the choice to disregard her audience, she failed to connect with her audience.

Possible Conclusion 3: Dr. Brueggemann was playing to the general public and to the media when giving her presentation, ensuring that her words were fully accessible to her true intended audience

Problems with Possible Conclusion 3:
*This makes Dr. Brueggemann seem manipulative and like she is pandering to the public.
*If this is true, then Dr. Brueggemann callously disregarded the students, which is perturbing, since she is chair of the university Board of Trustees.

Possible Conclusion 4: Dr. Brueggemann interprets her role as acting chair of the Board of Trustees differently from most of us who are stakeholders in the University. Most of us regard the position as special and should be held by one who reflects the Gallaudet community, and that includes direct communication without going through an intermediary, while apparently Dr. Brueggemann does not hold this same view.

Problems with Possible Conclusion 4:
*This conclusion is riddled with assumptions. Who is to say what the role of the chair of the University Board of Trustees is? Who defines what the Gallaudet community is?

My personal conclusion: None of these make Dr. Brueggemann look good. They all show her to be the wrong person to lead the University Board of Trustees, especially at this time of crisis. And yes, Dr. Jordan, there IS a crisis of confidence and of leadership at Gallaudet, in spite of your words at the NAD conference. It doesn’t matter whether she’s genuinely not comfortable signing, or she’s manipulative and playing to the media, or or if she’s a believer in speaking and not signing. Any of these situations strongly indicate that she has no business leading the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees and she made a grave mistake in choosing to voice during commencement last May. She needs to change or she needs to go. People who defend this choice are naturally entitled to their opinions, but in my humble opinion, they fail to recognize that it is the combination of factors that make this choice particularly egregious - her status as chair, her job as friggin' head of an ASL department, the audience being signers, and the disconnect that occurs when going through a third party for communication. The woman screwed up big time and I personally believe she needs to quit her job and resign from the Board of Trustees immediately.

Reclaiming our dignity and equality

This issue has been bothering me for a while. In fact, I blogged about it on my private blog last week and just now decided to bring the topic over here. I work in a school for the Deaf, in a position that has frequent, direct student contact. The mission and values of the school purportedly provide a safe, fully accessible place for all of our students and all of our staff. But that isn’t completely the case.

To me, full access means not using voices on campus when everyone else around you is capable of carrying on a conversation in signs. Yes, this includes simultaneous communication or “simcom,” which is to voice and sign at the same time. This may seem extreme or radical to some of you, but it’s not about “my way or the highway” at all. There are studies documenting the following when simcom is used:

*Signs are dropped
*Signs look unnatural
*It is harder for deaf people to understand, no matter how good their English, lipreading, or voicing skills are.
*Conversations happen quickly and deaf people miss out because they’re turning their heads and don’t see what was said because the hearing person(s) didn’t bother to wait.

Because of these factors, hearing people are in control of communication and information in a way that deaf people are not when the hearing people simcom.

I would like to posit the idea that simcom is a form of disrespect, even if it is unintentional. This is how I feel when people at work simcom even if everyone else present can sign. I feel disrespected because my understanding what is being said is apparently less important than that of the hearing people. I deeply resent the loss of access when this happens. I feel like hearing people must think it’s harder to communicate with me. It’s apparently easier to call someone’s name than to have someone else get my attention. That, in turn, makes me feel like I must be a burden to hearing people. I wonder why we adults don't get the same respect our students get in terms of signs only. Are we less important than our students? Are our access needs less important? Furthermore, I question their commitment and acceptance of Deaf culture and Deaf people because they are not willing to fully immerse themselves in the language and culture while they are at work. It also makes me wonder how comfortable they are signing. If they were comfortable signing, they wouldn’t need their voices, would they?

To hearing people reading this, I ask you to consider this: Do you use your voice when you are around deaf people? If so, please consider why you do that. Is it necessary because some people don’t sign or maybe because you are an interpreter and part of your job is to voice what is being signed? Do you do it with other people who can sign in front of deaf people? If so, why? How do you think this helps your relationship with your deaf clients/coworkers? (Slight tangent here - one of my pet peeves is team interpreters who chat with each other in voice when I’m standing or sitting right there. To me, that is the height of rudeness.) Back to the point - please take the time to consider your choices of when to use your voice and when not to. I have worked with some wonderful hearing people that I love to death, so please don’t feel like I hate you guys. I just want you to consider whether or not you are behaving in culturally appropriate ways and showing appropriate respect to us. And if you are, THANK YOU! If you aren’t, I hope you’ll change and encourage other hearing people around you to change too. *smile*

Here are a few situations that have occurred recently at work and they have made me wonder.
Situation 1: For example, one woman called another by voice to get her attention during a meeting recently. Why was that necessary? That deprived both hearing people of an opportunity to practice culturally appropriate means of getting attention. It also made me feel like “Gee. Is it THAT hard to get my attention?”
Situation 2: Another time a large group of colleagues went out to lunch. 5 hearing people and 6 deaf people were sitting at a long table. (I do love my worksite because hearing and deaf people mingle freely and often eat together). Three hearing people sat at one end and they were simcomming through the entire lunch. Some deaf people turned to join the conversation, realized there was simcomming, and turned away to join another conversation. I was one of them and I turned away, because simcomming gave me the impression they were signing just to be polite but they preferred to use their voices. Their voices became a wall dividing us, and that was unnecessary. The other two hearing people kept their voices off and they were part of many different conversations going on at the table, which is the way it should be.
Situation 3: Simcomming can be bad professionally because it becomes a question of access to information that we all need in order to do our jobs. Recently there were 6 hearing people out of 9 present at a meeting and I missed out on a lot because they were going so quickly and not waiting for all of us to turn our heads to follow the flow of conversation.
Yes, when my coworkers use their voices, they tend to simcom... which is a step above voicing only. But adding signs does NOT make using their voices okay, period.

Yes, I fully acknowledge the need to respect hearing people and to allow them to be hearing. I would never go so far as to forbid them to bring cell phones on campus or to say they couldn’t use the phone in private. And if a nonsigning parent wants to talk to them privately without a Deaf person present, who am I to insist that they use an interpreter? But they chose to work in this field when they have a plethora of career options available to them. I don’t get why they can’t keep their voices off at all times when they are around other staff members who sign too. They chose to be part of our world for part of the day. We have a right to expect them to integrate themselves into our norms and not to deny us access nor to show us disrespect.

The bottom line is that using their voices at all when everyone else is capable of signing is blatant disrespect in my book. It disenfranchises us and subtly cements “hearing power” in a way that we do not need, whether they intend to or not. Again, this may seem strong or extreme. But the issues here are access to information and the subliminal messages that using voice sends to us deafies. Voices OFF, please.

The Nature of Oppression

One situation at work has really rankled for a few years and it was recently resolved. Without going into specifics, we as a team were discussing whether or not we wanted to change one policy, and if so, how we would change it. Most of us wanted to change it in a certain way to reflect Deaf cultural norms and the change would be linguistically appropriate in ASL. One woman insisted that it had to be changed in a way that reflected hearing mores and values. She basically squashed all of us and I feel that the person in charge totally wimped out, letting her do it, even when we protested. I even tried to talk to the person in charge privately explaining why she should not allow this person to dictate this policy, only to be ordered to drop it.

This situation has now been resolved as of a couple of weeks ago, but it’s made me reflect on the nature of oppression, who does it, and who’s on the receiving end. Not only that, it’s made me think about how feeling oppressed can magnify issues.

Truth is, the policy change was not that big a deal for me. I happened to be doing it myself anyway, but it was a personal decision, and I was not going to criticize others for choosing differently. When it was brought up by someone else a few years ago, I supported it but it wasn’t a big issue for me. But because I was told straight out that I was wrong and because the administrator allowed one person to make the decision for all of us, in spite of many objections, it became a huge deal to me. In other words, because I experienced oppression, it heightened the issue for me and made it more important than it ever was before. Being squashed and dismissed like that was such a horrible feeling, one that shook me to the core of my being. It’s also one I will never forget and I think I may always find this topic a sensitive one from now on, when it wasn’t before. This could be a valuable insight on how disenfranchised minorities feel. H’m!

This situation proves that members of a minority group are not immune from oppressing others. The person who declared all of us wrong is an African-American, and I know she is sensitive to racism. The administrator who decided not to stand up for what was right is also a member of an ethnic minority. I'm not saying that all members of minorities oppress others, but it highlights something I believe is important. We are all capable of oppressing others, regardless of our membership in groups or our experiences.

This capacity for oppression that we apparently all have regardless of our experiences should make us pause and consider our words and actions carefully. It is one thing to disagree, but it is another to impose one’s opinion on others and to devalue others. To do so could end up making others hyper-sensitive about something and make unity even harder than it already is. This should be a valuable lesson for all of us, myself included, especially now with all the discussion about how fragmented our community is.

Update: Access, kindness, and cooperation

Mr. Sandman and MishkaZena commented on my previous entry about museum access, rightly pointing out that their saying that there was only one copy was unacceptable. I agree, and I had already mentally composed a letter saying very much what they said. Thank you, Mr. Sandman and MishkaZena, for your eloquently crafted arguments showing that the museum bears most of the burden, by far, for ensuring access for us. I absolutely agree that they need to ensure access and that we need to speak up in a courteous manner when we are denied acccess, yet we need to do our part by returning materials. That said, I think I'll get to that letter now so it goes out in tomorrow's post.

Access, kindness, and cooperation

The Golden Rule is always a good way to live our lives, but it is especially true when it comes to access issues. If we all did to others what we wanted others to do to us, the world would be a kinder place.

My point in spouting off about kindness and the Golden Rule, you ask? Well, I went to an once-in-a-lifetime exhibit today. The exhibit focused on one artist with a particular theme and had paintings on loan from museums and private collections all over the world. Audiotapes were available, but they were obviously useless to me. We asked about a printed transcript of the audiotape only to be told that someone had borrowed it and never brought it back, and that was their only copy. What a disappointment, because I will never again have the opportunity to see some of these paintings.

The transcript could be MIA for a variety of reasons, including thoughtlessness or it was a honest and unintentional mistake. We will probably never know why, but this highlights how important cooperation is in our small community. We don't want to be in the position of denying any of our own people access to anything, do we? We need to be sure to thank museums for providing transcripts. We need to be sure to return said transcripts so others can delight in the same exhibit. We need to do whatever we can to work cooperatively and to ensure that we are not blocking access for anyone else.

P.S.: The exhibit was amazing otherwise and I'm glad I had the chance to experience this artist's works up close and personal. Still woulda loved to have had the transcript, tho'.

Access is a two-way street, m’dear.

Erin Himmelmann over at DeafDC.com wrote about a very frustrating experience where she went to a concert and the interpreters were placed too far away to watch them and the show at the same time. She has some type of vision limitation, which made that even more frustrating. Adam Duritz, the lead singer of the Counting Crows, refused to let the interpreters move closer because they “bother him.” He requests that at every show, so he is aware. After she objected, they turned down the lights even more on the interpreters... which just made things worse.

Erin argued that this was willful denial of access, she paid good money to see this, and she expects to get her money’s worth. All true and all are valid arguments. However, in the comments section, there are two brilliant gems that reframe the situation. Joseph Rainmound, who blogs at surdus.blogspot.com, wrote the following comments:

1. Or you could say that the interpreters are for the hearing singers so they can reach as wide an audience and make as much money as possible. One deaf girl is not paying his “bills” but she’s certainly paying for a ticket. *rolling eyes*

2. That’s why the access model doesn’t work. We need hearing people to start taking ownership of their own communication. I for one would like one of them to realize the interpreters are there so they can get their message across to all people - including but not limited to Deaf people. Without interpreters there’s individuals and populations the speaker wants to reach but can’t.

Rainmound brilliantly reframes the situation in a way that puts the onus on the hearing communicator by pointing out that to deny deaf people access, they are also denying themselves the opportunity to get their message out to as wide an audience as possible. This is the type of reframing we all need to be doing to get anywhere. I doff my cap to thee, Rainmound.

Erin’s article and all the comments can be found at: http://www.deafdc.com/blog/erin-himmelmann/2006-08-28/this-wasnt ignorancy/

To Be or Not To Be?

Anonymous, that is. DeafBlogLand is populated with writers/signers as well as readers/viewers who sometimes comment. Some of us citizens of DeafBlogLand have elected to publicly reveal our identities, while others of us have elected to pen our thoughts, reactions, and comments under pseudonyms. There has recently been some talk about whether or not pseudonyms are good for DeafBlogLand.

I have thought a lot about this question for various reasons. People who know me know that I have no problem with owning my opinions and perspective. I’m quite open about my beliefs and I do not hide my standpoint from others. When I first started blogging on my private blog, I chose to hide my identity because I work at a school for the Deaf. I did not want my comments to be used against me, and that would be unfair because my opinions and beliefs have absolutely no bearing on my job performance nor on my contacts with my students. But the risk was and still is there.

Over time, it became clear that some citizens of DeafBlogLand react to whatever writers and readers say based on who they are. Some perspectives were dismissed because they were held by a person who graduated from somewhere other than Gallaudet. Others were dismissed because they were held by someone who comes from Deaf parents. There are more examples. That took me by surprise and it gave me pause.

When I launched my public blog and allowed it to be syndicated, I had to make the decision all over again whether or not I wanted to reveal my identity. To make this decision, I had to look at why I was launching my public blog. I launched my public blog so I could contribute to the global discourse in the Deaf community, to respond to others, and to allow others to respond to me, whatever their opinion is on my contribution. I also wanted a blog separate from my private one since my private one is where I write about a wider variety of topics, and yes, I write there a lot more than I write here. I realized that if I revealed my identity, my contribution would be colored by who I am, who my friends are, who my family is, where I live, and where I work. That made the choice clear to me. Anonymity is the only way to go at this point if I want my thoughts to be taken at face value.

When people challenge others to reveal themselves or argue that we should do away with anonymity, we need to consider whether or not DeafBlogLand provides a safe place to do that and whether or not thoughts are able to be taken at face value without judgement. Are we there yet? At this point, my answer is no, we are not. I would love to reveal who I am because I have nothing to hide and because openness is a healthy thing. But I believe that to do so, unfortunately, would diminish what this site can contribute to the dialogue right now. Don’t get me wrong. I admire those of you who have put your names and faces out there. Thank you.

So, Teeming Millions, what do YOU think? What is your perspective, and what are your arguments for or against anonymity in DeafBlogLand?

Steps Toward Unity?

Tonight found me in a lovely courtyard hangin' and chillin' with a remarkable group of diverse, fun, and fascinating women. After a while, our discussion turned to Deaf community issues, and we had a wonderful discussion on several topics.

We all agreed we've noticed the recent backlash against Deaf of Deaf, and some new insights on this phenomenon were uncovered for me tonight. Half of the women present have hearing parents and many of us were mainstreamed at one point or another during our academic career, so this is not a group of Deaf of Deaf women feeling victimized. I myself have no other Deaf people in my family.

Part of our discussion centered around DeafBlogLand and some issues that blogging has raised in our community. The backlash against Deaf of Deaf came up, and puzzlement was expressed. It was pointed out that there are some oral Deaf people that look down on signing Deaf people, some mainstreamed Deaf people that look down on Deaf-school Deaf, and so on, so why are people focusing on just one group? All of us need to quit putting others down, period. One gal expressed her belief that this is a result of the perception that Deaf of Deaf are privileged and better off than the rest of us. Another countered that she's only second generation Deaf and she grew up with so many horror stories from her parents telling them how hard they had it growing up - and she has felt their pain and experienced some of the same things with her own extended family. Yet another chimed in, saying she had heard all through her childhood how lucky she is to be at a school for the Deaf, because her parents who had hearing parents, were denied that experience. This is a crucial point, because most Deaf of Deaf are only second generation Deaf and/or they have a significant number of hearing people in their family, so they too experience frustration and communication barriers with family members. Someone commented that apparently people who are doing this bashing are the ones with issues, so they're obsessing about one group. It's sad that they are incapable of evolving past their anger and envy. Speaking for myself only, I know I went through a phase of envy and feeling like I was different from people with Deaf parents. But I evolved. I put that aside and took the time to get to know varying kinds of people as people. Now I don't feel that's an issue for me personally. Anyway, all of us agreed that blaming Deaf of Deaf is not going to solve anything. We need to focus on ceasing any and all attacks on people because they're different from ourselves, as I said (and discussed in length) in my "Elitism in Our World" post.

Singling one group out for censure and criticism is not going to help unify us. We need to all recognize that yes, some of us are small-minded enough to put down others simply because they do not share the same background we do - and that we all have a responsibility to put a stop to it when we catch ourselves doing it or when we witness others doing it.

Miscellanous Topics
We discussed so many things that it would be difficult to write down everything and include perspectives, but here is a partial list. We talked about what appropriate ways are to reach out and unify the community, including positive and negative examples we have seen recently in DeafBlogLand. I'm not going to get into specifics about that, but we are concerned and shared information. We shared stories about how Deaf people with hearing parents feel when we see our two worlds collide (parents meeting friends) and how weird it feels because we act and sign/communicate so differently with our parents and with our friends. We shared our frustration with the misunderstandings and mistruths being perpetuated about Deafhood by people who haven't read the book or attended workshops or have issues that need to be resolved or have a personal agenda, including the ridiculous idea that people with cochlear implants can't be part of Deafhood or of the Deaf community. One person offered an interesting perspective regarding the difference between hearing schools and Deaf schools. One intriguing discussion centered around simcomming and whether or not it shows respect for Deaf people. We opined on the Gally protest and what FSSA is up to. We also got into national politics, the FDA, a recent state law, and other non-Deaf-related topics too.

All in all, it was a fabulous outing with wonderful discourse and stimulating company! Kiss-fist you gals! I'm looking forward to the next Ladies' Night out!
Over and out to catch some Zs. *grin*

DeafBlogLand - bringing us closer together?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've become addicted to reading blogs. Truth is, a lot of blogs out there are pretty boring, talking about one's personal life. You know what? I don't care... unless I'm friends with the person and I care about the person. THEN I want to know how the person is and what the person is up to! *smile* Otherwise, I'd rather read sites that stimulate my thinking, offer points of views on topics, make me reflect, and even teach me something. As a result, I haven't been into reading blogs all that much, except for a select several sites, until several weeks ago.

So what happened several weeks ago? I discovered some more blogsites that I enjoyed, then DeafRead.com was launched. That clinched it. DeafRead.com just reeled me in, and I'm currently flopping around like a fish out of water, holding on to that bloggin' worm for dear life. As a blogger, I've been more interested in raising issues for discussion or offering an offbeat perspective than waxing rhapsodic about my latest trip to the beach all along, and I've been wishing there were more sites like that. Well, gee, I got my wish... and then some. *chuckle* No complaints, no complaints.

One thing that's taken me by surprise is how I've grown to care about people I've never met and formed opinions about people I've never met. Take TactileJunkie, for example. I discovered her blog recently and I just admire her so much now. She is a warm, caring, intelligent, scrappy, and feisty young woman. Frarochvia is another example. She's good friends of a good friend of mine, and the chronicles of her Matisse, Picasso, and baba are a must-read for me now. Her writing is fresh and original, playing with language to great effect. QueenAlpo, both on her site and on DeafDC, is an enjoyable read with a lively writing style. I've never met Tayler or Jared, but because of blogging, we have corresponded and I have a great deal of respect for these two young men. I could go on and on with more positive examples. There is the flip side of the coin, however. One blogger comments everywhere in DeafBlogLand and he is the most infuriatingly condescending person who is amazingly comfortably ensconced in his jingoistic myopia. Nothing anyone says sways him. He just replies, repeating himself, completely dismissing anything anyone has to say, and accusing others of misunderstanding or misinterpreting his comments. There are some people out there who are so filled with anger that they lash out at people who don't agree or attempt to engage them in dialogue. They are ridiculously sensitive and accuse others of outlandish things. As a result, there are a few names or pseudonyms that when I encounter them in DeafBlogLand, I actually cringe or groan. And I have never met any of these people, yet I respond to them just as I would those who I have known for months or years.

As I and other bloggers have said recently, DeafRead.com is a wonderful thing, because it provides a central place for discourse. But I'm realizing more and more that the explosion of DeafBlogLand and the centralization provided by DeafRead.com is having a more profound effect than just on the types of discussion and the depth of discussions. We are all relating to each other and responding to each other on a personal level as well. We are becoming more and more interconnected. I can only conclude that this is helping to bring us closer together as a community, even though at times the road seems quite bumpy. While some of us may disagree on some things, those disagreements are out in the open and this is an opportunity for us to work things through by rational, courteous discourse and listening to each other. This is just amazing to me - how we're learning more about each other and responding to each other just as we would with people we are already acquainted with. I'm looking forward to more dialogue and to becoming closer with people out there in DeafBlogLand. *handwave* to y'all, the Teeming Millions.

What is the Least Restrictive Environment?

Tonight at the gathering, we discussed a lot of stuff. But one thing we discussed was mainstreaming. I have grown to hate mainstreaming more and more as I become older. This is not intended to be a "bashing mainstreaming" post. As I said in an earlier post, we did not choose our educational experiences - our parents chose that for us. This is simply intended to posit the idea that mainstreaming is not the best educational placement for many of us, especially during our formative years. I was mainstreamed part-time through elementary school and junior high, then again a bit in college, then again full-time for grad school. When I was younger, I didn't mind too much, but when I was an adult, I grew to dislike it, feeling suffocated by it. But what really, really hit me and helped me articulate just what the issue with mainstreaming is was being mainstreamed to take classes this past semester to get my Level 2 credential.

Before I go on, let us look at PL 94-142, otherwise known as the Education for the Handicapped Act (EHA), later re-named the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In its first form, and in all later incarnations, it has mentioned two things that must be considered by law:
1. All children with disabilities are required to have access to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). (emphasis mine)
2. All children with disabilities are required to be educated in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) possible. By law, this is defined as full mainstreaming, without support services. If that does not work, then support services are added one by one, with residential schools for the deaf being defined as the most restrictive environment. Yes, I will go into what "LRE" should mean later on, but this is the law as written.
In other words, every member of the IEP team at every IEP meeting is required to consider whether or not the child's placement is a free appropriate public education, and whether or not it is in the least restrictive environment possible.

This past semester, I found mainstreaming to be the most restrictive environment for me. I, an educated Deaf adult with an excellent grasp of English who is comfortable around hearing people, could not function freely as a student in a mainstreamed setting. My words were not my own, because they were filtered through a team of two interpreters. I was wholly dependent on them for processing my thoughts and signs and accurately translating them. Even the most skilled interpreter cannot do this with one hundred percent accuracy all the time. This had the effect of limiting my participation, because I ended up deciding whether or not it was worth trying to say something. I also cut my comments short when I did comment, because I did not feel my teacher and classmates would truly hear me and my individual voice/perspective. The current trend in education is for classes to be run as group discussions or at least have a lot of student participation in lectures and have an ongoing dialogue between the teacher and the students. As a result of having to keep my gaze on one three-foot space in front of me, the others' comments all blurred together because they were, again, filtered through one person. I use the word filtered because communication, no matter which way it flowed, went through one of two individuals, and they had complete power over what words/signs to use, how to phrase things, and it was completely their call on how to transmit information. In other words, interpreters added a barrier. They added an unnecessary layer between me, my classmates, and my teacher.

I was put in a tough position because of this. I compensated by going to every class, contacting my professors via e-mail a few times during the semester, and doing very well on my papers, tests, and projects. My final project for one class was an oral presentation. I thought about how I could communicate directly with everyone without needing an interpreter, and decided to do a PowerPoint presentation. That way I would let everyone read my presentation, and it'd be in my own words. I signed a sentence or so before each slide and answered questions, but this generally solved the problem for my final project. I was clearly successful in this environment if one looks at my grades - I got a 4.0 for 13 graduate units, while working full-time in a demanding job. By most standards, I succeeded.

This made me realize - wow. I, as a well-educated adult with life experience, have the tools, skills, and resources to deal with this situation. I have experience working with hearing people, which guided me throughout the semester. I have the wherewithal to provide a laptop and LCD projector for the presentation. I have the technical skills to do so. I have the experience as a student to be able to gauge what I am expected to master and to make sure I do so. I have the education to help me be self-reliant by reading the materials, checking things online, e-mailing my professor, and so on to ensure I learn the material. I have a wonderful support system, which helped me cope. I have all these tools at my disposal, and yet, I found mainstreaming to be a frustrating, restrictive environment. How can anyone justify putting children in an environment that erects a wall between them and their classmates and teacher(s)? Deaf children who do not have the skills, experience, and education I do are put in this type of situation all the time and they fare far worse than I did. Most of the time the interpreter in an K-12 placement is a glorified aide without appropriate certification nor education and the child's friends are limited to those who are willing to learn sign or to take the time to communicate with the child. What a frustrating, lonely experience.

Here are some sobering statistics: More than 50 percent of the eleven thousand Deaf children in this state are mainstreamed alone - no other Deaf child is in their school. Another 17 percent of those eleven thousand are mainstreamed with only one other Deaf child in their school. Only ten percent are in a program with large numbers of Deaf children - both state schools and mainstreaming programs with large numbers. Imagine - most of the Deaf children in this state growing up feeling completely and utterly alone. They feel different from everyone else. They feel like something is wrong with them. Before some of you squawk, this comes from personal experience and from discussions with hundreds of other people.

With all of this, it is clear that mainstreaming is a free inappropriate public education for many of us. It is the most restrictive environment, not the least. I cannot support mainstreaming as the main educational option for Deaf children and adults. Yes, it remains an option I'm grateful to have, but it should be an option only for teens or adults who have the experience, skills, and ability to handle being plunged alone in a situation where communication is not fully accessible no matter how well one talks or how well one's hearing aid or cochlear implant works. I would not wish that experience on anyone.

UPDATE: What Role do Hearing Allies Have?

Wow. Tonight I went to a Deaf gathering, and someone else brought up DeafRead.com's decision to allow hearing blog posts to be syndicated as well as Deaf blog posts. Most of the people were not aware of what DeafRead.com is, so it was briefly explained. Once they understood, they all loved the idea of all these blogs being gathered in one place, screened, and summarized, all easily clickable. Then they reacted with shock and dismay at the idea of hearing people being included. Many of what they said has already been said in the comments section of the post announcing the decision. They said things like, "We need our space," "We need a safe place," "We pah have this and now hearing involved? No!" "I love CODAs, and other hearing people, but they need to stay out of some things," and (ASL transcription) "Deaf will back off, stop involve there DeafRead.com if hearing involve there. Leave alone. Leave Deaf there only." Wow. It was a loud and clear consensus, with one suggesting that there be a separate blog for hearing allies, with a chorus of yeas. Another person suggested that instead of hearing posts, Deaf people could read one hearing blog post, then write a critical analysis of it from a Deaf perspective, providing a link so readers can refer to the original post. I love this idea.

This, again, begs the question: What role do hearing allies have in our community? This was touched upon tonight, with most of the people agreeing that hearing allies have a place in our community, but we have yet to achieve self-actualization, acceptance and pride, and self-determination. And for this reason, hearing allies can only play a supporting role. That's one perspective, and it's something to mull over for all of us. What do you, the Teeming Millions, think?

What Role do Hearing Allies Have?

DeafRead.com recently announced that hearing people could submit their blogs for publication. This got me thinking (probably for the millionth time) that we need to have a dialogue about what role hearing people play in our lives. They clearly play a huge one because so many of us have hearing people for parents, and also because we have yet to achieve self-determination. Hearing politicians, audiologists, educators, researchers and many more have so much power over us - they control our fate and our lives. We are often squashed by these powers-that-be, and we have every right to resent them. We should be battling them. But what about the hearing allies? Those hearing people that became interested in us and genuinely want to know us as people, to further our cause, and to affirm that our existence is worthwhile? What role do they and should they play in our lives? At my school, a group made sure that the person in charge of the instructional division was a qualified Deaf person. Some people felt that that was too extreme and that it was invalidating to the hearing people who have worked with us. Others countered that we need to demand self-determination and to be in charge of our children and their destinies. Now for DeafRead.com... do hearing allies have the right to expect to have their blogs syndicated if they are Deaf-centered, supportive, and can contribute to the dialogue? Or do we have the right to expect that we control discourse? What about other situations? We need to have this dialogue. So what do you think, guys? What is their role in our lives, our schools, and our institutions? Have at it, members of the Teeming Millions. *smile*

A Brave New Deaf World

Disclaimer: this may sound like a paid advertisement for DeafRead.com, but I assure you that this is not the case! *chuckle*

Before I address my topic, I'd like to say something to my audience, the Teeming Millions. This blogsite went public only a few days ago. The response has been amazing and I am humbled. Thank you to those of you who have let me know of your thoughts and feelings!

On to the topic. Discourse has been limited in many ways for us as a community. We have only been able to participate in an exchange of ideas in a limited fashion. Obviously we've been able to discuss things locally. But on a larger stage, the people who transmitted information were limited to those who presented at conferences, participants in national/regional/global meetings, and those who author articles and books. A nationwide/global dialogue has occurred only at major conferences, such as NAD convos or Deaf Ways I and II. With the advent of e-mail, pagers, instant messaging, and videophones, we've been able to stay in touch with our friends and family more often and more easily even if they are not close by. This has helped with making our dialogues less limited to our local communities, but there are inherent limitations to this approach. Blogging has taken our discussions to the next level. I've been reading blogs for a year, and blogging for several months now. Since the Gallaudet protest, the Deaf blogosphere has simply exploded. Many more are writing their own blogs than ever before, and many times that number are reading or watching. This is transforming our discourse in a way that nothing has until now.

Even with the advent of blogging, there was still a missing link. That link is DeafRead.com. Up until a few weeks ago, we discovered blogs by word of hand/mouth, clicking on links we found on blogs, and possibly by Googling for specific topics. Hence, our individual blogosphere was limited to those in our circle of friends and our extended network. But now with DeafRead.com, the blogging experience has become centralized. This has the potential to take our discourse to a national/global level, which is mind-boggling to me. The playing field has truly been leveled. We all now have the ability to write/sign our piece and participate in the nationwide/global discourse about who we are, what it means to be Deaf, and our vision for our people and reach a vast audience. Not only that, our audience can respond and discuss our pieces with us and with each other. This is truly a brave new Deaf world for all of us! *wine glass raised* To all of us, the Teeming Millions, and may we continue this civilized, open, exciting exchange of ideas and thoughts!

So how do you spend your leisure time?

I got an intriguing e-mail recently, one that made me stop, sit, and reflect. My friend's son, who is taking his upper division classes in education, e-mailed me a survey focusing on leisure in order to complete an assignment. For me, leisure is a limited and precious commodity, and I had to stop and mull over each one of his questions. Here are the assigned questions and my responses. What about you, dear member of the Teeming Millions? What does leisure mean to you?

1. What would you define as Leisure?
I'd define leisure as any activity that is not required for one's job or to maintain one's physical body or one's dwelling. In other words, leisure is anything one chooses to do.

2. How would you break up Leisure into categories (physical leisure, intellectual leisure, etc.)?
I can see so many ways to break leisure up that this would require an essay to answer it. But for practical purposes and for what "works" for me, I would break it up into physical leisure, intellectual leisure, creative leisure, and plain relaxation.

3. How important do you think each of your categories is to you in your own life?
All are important to me in different ways. I love to swim and if I don't swim for a week or so, I start feeling out of sorts and I become quite stiff. Intellectual leisure helps stimulate my mind and gets me thinking in different ways. I've become quite fond of Sudoku. Creative leisure, as the name implies, unleashes my creativity. This is probably the most important category for me, because I'm happiest when I'm creating something, whether it's a finely honed blog post debating the issue du jour, a handpainted clock, or a set of curtains. I cannot discount the role of relaxation, however. When I'm stressed out, nothing feels as good as lying down on the sofa and watching mindless sitcoms or reading Archie Double Digest comics.

4. How important, overall, is leisure to you?
Oh, leisure is extremely important to me. I love my job, but if I had a choice, I would spend less time at work and more time in other pursuits. It's a must as far as I'm concerned.

5. How important do you think leisure is to society? Explain.
I think in America leisure has become another obligation or another way to keep up with the Joneses. We're stressing ourselves out trying to outdo everyone, and this extends to our leisure time.

6. How much time do you spend on leisure weekly?
Every minute I can. It fluctuates wildly from week to week, because my job is not stable in terms of pressures from week to week. I try to spend at least an hour per night and a few hours, if not all day one day during the weekend.

7. Does the time you spend on leisure affect (positively or negatively) other aspects of your life? Why or why not?
If I'm not hyper stressed out with an overwhelming to-do list, it's very positive. It leaves me feeling refreshed, whole, and fulfilled.

8. What leisure activities do you like to do?
I could write a tome, but allow me to list some of the activities I like to do.
Sudoku
Writing blog posts that are starting points for discussions
Drawing
Swimming
Walking
Spending time with friends and loved ones
Sewing
Painting
Watching television
Going to museums, exhibits, and that type of thing
Travelling
Debating on a wide variety of topics
AIM chatting

9. Do you believe society and others understand the importance of leisure? Explain.
I will combine my answer for 9 and 10 below.

10. Do you believe that we should change our understanding of leisure (treat it more, or less, importantly as we do other aspects of our life such as work)? Why?
As I mentioned in #5, leisure has become a source of stress in America. We could learn a thing or two from Europeans. Their way of life is much more relaxed, and hence their leisure is more relaxed. I think if one took a survey, the majority of respondents would say, "Yes, leisure is important." But they would come up with reasons why they can't do as much as they like, citing numerous demands on their time. I believe leisure has become a source of stress, just like everything else. I'm not lazy by nature, and I have been praised over and over for going above and beyond in my job, but there are limits to what we can do and still maintain certain standards for quality of life.

11. What has changed in how you view leisure since you were young?
My whole life used to be leisure when I was a child, except for school, homework, and chores. I took it for granted, I think. Now that I have the responsibility of being a productive employee, maintaining my household, and all the stuff that is expected of an adult, leisure has become precious to me. I have to consciously carve out time for it or to plan so that I'm not just sprawled on the sofa doing nothing.

12. Open–ended (Feel free to comment on anything here).
I think I've said a lot on the topic, but bottom line - leisure is whatever one chooses to do for pleasure. It is often a source of guilt for people, I suspect, and that's not the way it should be. It should be celebrated and honored.

Elitism in Our World

A trend is becoming alarmingly evident as one scans the Deaf blogosphere and listservs such as GallyNet-L. This trend is the full-scale assault on deaf people who happen to have deaf parents. This is quite disturbing.

To understand why this bashing is occurring, it is necessary to examine the roots of the situation. To really delve into this would require doctorate-style research, but some of the factors are evident. We are a very fragmented community, and a complex one. We come from all sorts of educational backgrounds and communication methodologies - which we did not choose. Our parents and/or families made that choice for us. There are residential schools, mainstreamed programs, cued speech users, oral people, manually coded English (SEE and its ilk) users, and ASL users. Whatever method was chosen, it was chosen because our parents/families believed that was the best thing to do for us or they didn’t feel they had a choice. Hence, we grew up being told our placement and communication mode was the best. Many of us have internalized that to a degree. Granted, not all of us have or we changed our minds later after a great deal of reflection.

Another factor that comes into play here is the fact that we are an oppressed people. Every single one of us has experienced inaccessibility. Society has disabled and disempowered us to some degree. For example, many Internet video clips are not captioned, most notably the ones from large corporations, such as CNN. Not even the best speechreader can fully access these clips. This affects us on many levels. Many of us have grown up being told to be hearing is better, and we should strive to improve our speech and hearing skills. We have been pointed toward a peer and told, “See, Janie speaks well. She’ll fit better into the hearing world.” Or we’ve been in Janie’s position and praised, watching as our peers are subtly denigrated and diminished. In short, we have been held to a hearing standard most, if not all of our lives, and this has shaped our perception of ourselves to an extent. For further information, Genie Gertz’s doctoral dissertation talks about dysconscious audism (and a post below with that title explores dysconscious audism in some depth).

Cultural studies show that when a minority group is disenfranchised, it turns on itself, with its members bitterly fighting over who is better. This has led to the attitude of superiority some of us have. When one applies the points contained in the previous paragraph, one sees the following: Some oral people look down on deaf who sign, many don’t. Some hard of hearing people look down on deaf people, many don’t. Some mainstreamed deaf look down on residential school deaf, many don’t. Some deaf of deaf look down on deaf of hearing, many don’t. Some cuers look down on signing deaf, many don’t. Some CSUN/NTID grads look down on Gally grads, many don’t. Some Gally grads look down on non-Gally grads, many don’t. I have seen all of these occur, and I have also seen that to apply a generalization decrying any of these groups would be wrong, because most members of each group that I have met do not hold this superior attitude.

Because the bashing taking place is targeting one group, let’s look at this group. In the interest of full disclosure, I have no deaf people in my family at all. In America, because of oralism and the fact that 90% of us have hearing families, Deaf of Deaf have been the ones responsible for transmitting cultural information, stories, and ASL. This has given them a very important role, one which saved ASL, Deaf culture, and historical information. In my humble opinion, some of them have developed swelled heads as a result, but before some of you jump down my throat, many of them do not have swelled heads. Another factor is that they have been mocked for their sign language, been told they’re failures because they don’t speak well, and essentially been told that how their parents are raising them is wrong because it doesn’t meet the hearing standard. This type of treatment has the effect of enraging some people to the point where they reject others not like themselves because they assume that everyone else is the same. There are a few more reasons, but I won’t get into them at this point. This does not excuse acting like someone else is not worthy, however understandable it is.

As I wrote in my “Deaf Privilege?” post, this type of attitude and looking down on other deaf people is not exclusive to those born of deaf parents. For example, I’ve experienced rudeness because I graduated from Gallaudet. A few bloggers seem to take every opportunity they can to bash Gallaudet, which ticks me off. Gally is what you make of it, and I would not trade my years at Gally for anything. I could make a sweeping generalization saying RIT graduates hate Gallaudet and look down on people who graduated from Gallaudet because I’m seeing more and more of that. But I won’t. Most of the RIT grads I met do not have this attitude and it would be unfair to them to make such a blanket statement. All groups have members who are guilty of acting superior and devaluing others, and they all have members who are open and accepting of others, not just Deaf of Deaf.

We need to stop saying and doing such things. We need to stop accusing others of elitism, and we need to stop practicing elitism ourselves. We all need to take a hard, long look inside ourselves and reflect on whether or not we believe that others are inferior to us because of (fill in the blank). We need to reflect on whether or not we are truly open to others, regardless of their communication mode and background. Then we need to put this into action - be open to others and not put up barriers because they do not share the same background or communication mode we do - every single one of us. Let’s cease this deaf of deaf bashing and practice what we preach, all of us.

Deaf Privilege?

I went to a divorce party tonight to celebrate the end of a marriage. It was a novel experience for me, and it got me to thinking. Y’see, I was the only guest who had grown up with signs. Every one of the other nine women present did not know sign until adulthood. One of them still does not sign. This was not an issue for me at all, because that kind of thing does not hinder my acceptance and respect of others. But from a sociological and cultural anthropology perspective, it was fascinating to observe this close-knit group of women who had basically grown up together for the most part. They were all friendly, pleasant, and well-educated.

Signing skills ranged from a couple who looked like they had spent time at a school for the deaf, to a few who looked like they used some form of manually coded English when they were younger, to some who obviously did not learn signing until later, to one who knows very few signs and does not sign in general, and this woman will be called Gigi. However, all of the other women, except for Gigi, appeared to prefer (or maybe made more of an effort?) to communicate using signs. Some signed more in ASL the whole time. Some simcommed with Gigi but used more ASL signing with the others. Some signed but reverted to voice only for a few words or sentences here and there. Gigi’s deaf sister signed when others were part of the conversation, but she voiced with Gigi. This whole dynamic among the women was fascinating to observe.

There is a quote that I absolutely love but cannot remember who it originated with. “Deaf people are people of the eye.” This was proven to be so true tonight. Everyone moved their heads to follow the conversation, paused and waited for people to turn their heads towards the signer, and waved to each other for attention. Gigi’s being deaf was clear after some observation. For example, she waved to others to get their attention. She was also very alert. She moved her head and her eyes were constantly scanning the room or intently focused on the conversation. She is living proof of that quote, even though she can’t sign her way out of a paper bag. Apparently she wants to learn to sign, but she doesn’t have a compelling enough reason - yet. When I was sitting at that table, watching the various conversations and how they interacted, a thought struck me. This is Deafhood in action. This group of women are all on a journey to self-actualization and pride in their being deaf. They are all at different points in their journey, some further along than others, but we are all in this together. A coin doesn’t have enough sides for all of us, so allow me to take liberties with the saying - we are all different sides of the same die. It was just so cool to watch and be part of this group.

I chatted with one very pleasant, friendly woman. The subject of deafhood came up, and I asked her what she thought, how she felt, and her perspective. This opened the floodgates. She feels like the only people she can really socialize with are oral people. They accept each other and they feel comfortable with each other, probably because of their similar background. She named one deaf family that lives just blocks away from her, saying, “They don’t socialize with us at all.” She named school employees who are friendly and pleasant, but when other “strong-culturally-deaf” people are around, they ignore her. She said, “I don’t feel like I can go on campus without going with someone that works there, because I won’t be accepted otherwise.” I said, “And now me. Now we’ve met. Feel free to stop by and say hi.” Later, when she was leaving, we murmured the usual pleasantries, then she added, “I’ll visit you at school, and you won’t reject me, right?” with a smile... but she was dead serious at the same time. During the conversation, she repeatedly said she felt rejected and like the school people are so clannish, she can’t break in. I can imagine this happening to an extent, but the people she named are people who say they socialize with everyone or who I’ve seen making efforts to be open to everyone. This woman signs pretty well, so that isn’t an issue. My first reaction was, “Whoa - got chip on your shoulder?” But I listened and reflected on what she had to say. I’m wondering if she is actually overly sensitive and jumping to conclusions or if she is actually experiencing all of this. Perhaps the truth is a bit of both?

This made me think long and hard. People shouldn’t have to socialize with people we don’t feel a connection with, but we should be open and friendly to everyone, regardless, unless there is a personal issue between two individuals. We as a community need to address this. (Note to self: bring up with friends - we talk the talk, but do we walk the walk? This is a question each of us needs to individually reflect on, myself included.)

One thing that was subtly present which saddened me was how some people put up a wall when I was introduced as having graduated from a school for the deaf, graduated from Gally, and now work at the local deaf school. Once they saw I was friendly and open, the wall lowered, and with some people, disappeared. There is a lot of talk on GallyNet and on the East Coast about white privilege. White privilege is essentially about how much easier white people’s lives are because they are white. They take it for granted that they will not be discriminated against, they will not be made to feel different, and so on. I’ve wondered about Deaf privilege in the past, and tonight brought it to the forefront.

Before I go on, it’s necessary to explain my experiences. I grew up with a hearing family who signed with me almost from the beginning but encouraged auditory training, speaking, and lipreading. I always did and always will prefer signs, though. I went to several local day programs and was mainstreamed until junior high. I was given the power to decide where I wanted to go to school after sixth grade, and I decided I wanted to go to the school for the deaf. My signing was very much manually coded English, and I’d barely been exposed to ASL before. Within a few years, probably because I was in the top class with deaf of deaf, my signing improved a lot, to the point where I started socializing with them. But all through high school, I was open to anyone and everyone. The “elite” deaf people were the ones who sent mixed messages through most of high school. By the time I was a senior, my signing had improved to the point where I was selected, along with a very few other high school students, to be taped for the then-in-development Signing Naturally curriculum developed by Ken Mikos, Cheri Smith, and Ella Lentz. At Gallaudet, again, I was open to everyone, but the “elite” deaf were a mixed bag. Most were quite friendly, while others seemed to have a mental checklist to determine who was acceptable to them and who wasn’t. One time in the cafeteria, I met someone for the first time and we hit it off. An hour later, it came up that my family wasn’t deaf, and she promptly lost interest in the conversation. We never chatted again. Now I’m well respected by many people, people are often surprised I’m not from a deaf family, and I enjoy a lot of perks. But I believe this is because of who I am as a person and I’m reaping the rewards of hard work as a professional and as a community member. My friends now vary from people who are the stereotypical definition of “elite” to people who only recently joined the Deaf-World, with people at many points in between. This is important to me, because my life is made richer by knowing these diverse people, and all of them have something to offer and to teach me. All of these years, I have remained true to myself and tried to be the best person I can be in general. I still believe things like background, signing skills, schooling, and membership in organizations should not decide how valid or worthy a person is. In short, Deafhood is what I’ve believed for a long time - both the journey part and the idea that it is for everyone.

Yes, Susie, there is such a thing as the “deaf elite,” and with it, “deaf privilege.” I personally abhor it, but now I’m benefiting from it. I graduated from one of the best schools, graduated from Gally, I work for a school that is becoming known as the Deaf Mecca, I sign well, and I know “the right people.” I’m not boasting. I have seen how people react to me after they hear my curriculum vitae. It was clear at two recent nationwide events, by their smiles, slight inclinations of the head, and in the increase of warmth. Nice, yes. Fair, no. When people complain about it, I understand completely, because I’ve been on both ends of the stick. I’m sure that’s one reason I’m so overjoyed with Deafhood. It would remove all this stratification and allow people to be valued for who they are and what they have to contribute. That’s just one of the many reasons I love working where I work. Most of my colleagues value people as individuals, not compared against a mental checklist that includes items like where you went to school and how well you sign.

I want Deafhood to bring us all together. I thoroughly enjoyed the group of women I met tonight, and I would very much like to get to know some of them better. Who else have I not yet met because of how fragmented our community is?

The Family Stone

Just watched The Family Stone and all the bonus features. What a treat to have everything captioned! (Note to self: write the company, thanking them.) This may be the first silver screen production since Mr. Holland’s Opus that had a deaf character with more than a cameo appearance yet the character’s state of being deaf was simply incidental to the plotline. This is important because for many people who know someone who is deaf, it is merely part of their life rather than the sole focus. Hence, this is a more accurate portrayal of reality and we need more shows like this.

The movie was wonderfully put together and wonderfully acted. It was a quirky story, yet it had elements that all of us could relate to. They did a fabulous job of weaving Thad’s deaf state into the story. Diane Keaton was perfect as the hearing mother who signs better than anyone in the family, even if that’s not saying much, and who tries to keep the deaf kid involved to an extent, all the while dropping signs and not signing many things she says out loud. Craig T. Nelson barely signed, which is so typical of most fathers of deaf children, and the few signs he did he clearly had difficulty with. I have to confess I could hardly imagine the man signing before I saw him sign. The siblings all did a good job of being busy hearing siblings that have some sensitivity to their deaf brother by signing some things, not signing others, and signing snatches of what they were saying. It was also refreshing not to have an army of interpreters voicing what Thad was saying, though that was mostly resolved by Thad voicing for himself. Here’s a bold idea - open caption what the deaf person says so that voicing is not present. What’s wrong with that? Why is Hollywood afraid of something without voice? But I digress. As a whole, the movie was a very accurate portrayal of how a hearing family with one deaf member operates and relates to one other.

While I am so impressed with the movie and the time and care the writer/director, producer, and cast members took to ensure Ty Giordano’s inclusion and to be true to the deaf experience in the movie, I found myself bitterly disappointed by something. I hesitate to pen what I’m thinking, because I want nothing more than to support this movie. I’m not into crabbing. But the feeling is there. So here goes... I’m disappointed that yet again the deafie can speak for him/herself. Have we not been able to move away from this yet? Ty clearly did his job of making sure the film’s portrayal was true to life. A lot of thought and effort went into this. Kudos to Ty! But again, a role goes to a deaf person that speaks for himself and the role requires voicing. What message does this send? It reinforces the idea that in order to succeed in Hollywood, one must have/use some hearing and be able to speak for yourself. When will the day come that a plum role goes to a deaf person who does not voice and no voicing of the signs seen onscreen occurs? Until we see this on a regular basis, not all parts of the deaf spectrum are properly reflected onscreen.

The bonus features were a source of pleasure this time, and not only because they were captioned for a change. They were well-done and genuinely enjoyable. Again, Ty’s being deaf was simply incidental and the actors talked about it in the same way they talked about everything else. It colored their experience and needed to be remarked upon, but it was not a big deal at the same time. It was not a surprise to learn that Craig T. Nelson had the most difficulty learning to sign, but my heart went out to him when he talked about nearly poking his eye out more than once. An interpeter is clearly visible during one cast interview, but I did wonder why Ty’s face was one of the faces shown most often during that group interview. *shrug* Anyway, love, love, loved the bonus features.

While I was enthralled by the bonus features, I found myself squirming with a definite sense of disquiet. Ty chose to speak and sign for himself during interviews, and this did not sit well with me. I have mixed feelings about his simcoming during interviews. His voice was choppier than it would’ve been without signing, in my opinion, and his sign quality degraded. But it was unquestionably positive to see him signing, yes. I have to concede that Ty was in a tough position. No matter how he chose to communicate for himself, someone would be upset. If he voiced only, a certain segment of the community would’ve been all over that choice. If he signed only, he ran the risk of having his words mangled in translation and of upsetting other people. His choice to simcom resulted in awkward voicing and signing and in upsetting yet another portion of the community. I do not envy him the position he was in, and I have no desire to criticize him nor to pull him down. Heck, I’m proud of him for representing part of us accurately and for showing what it really is like to be deaf in a hearing family for those of us who depend on signs yet use our voices.

While this was a wonderful film in many ways, I was saddened. I just wish that we could see more plum roles go to those who choose not to use their voices, rather than have Hollywood be an option solely for those who speak.

So how was NAD, you ask?

“So how was NAD?”

I’ve been asked this many, many times since my return from Palm Desert. Short answer? It was amazing. It was good. A longer answer isn’t easy, because there were so many things that happened, so many impressions and feelings, and so many snippets that I could share. This was my first time at NAD, so everything was new and fascinating to me.

Let the snippets begin! *grin*

A friend commented to me how many memories were flooding back because of all the old faces she was seeing, and that led me to say, “Am I dying? My life is flashing before my eyes!” At her startled gasp, I chuckled and said, “Hey, if I am, this is a great way to go!” Seriously, I had absolutely NO idea I knew this many people!! I was pleased to see so many young faces, because NAD needs young people like us to survive. Apparently this is the first time in decades this many young ’uns have flocked to a NAD convo. This could be a real turn-around for NAD, especially since I’m hearing that quite a few people are planning on attendin’ N’Awlins in 2008. It was wonderful talking to people I hadn’t seen in years. Some of the conversations were hit-and-run, while others were more in depth and thoughtful. What struck me was how many people were genuinely interested in how I was doing. It was wonderful talking to people, seeing old faces, spending time with dear ones who don’t live locally, and making new friends.


The ASL Tribute Friday night was very interesting. For others’ opinions and in depth descriptions, go here and here. The quality of the skits/stories varied dramatically and the event went on for hours and hours. I personally think the organizers would’ve been smart to cull out the higher-quality wheat from the chaff and kept it brief. Even if the show were only an hour long, people would walk away lauding our beautiful language. In fact, I came up with an ASL poem to describe the evening - all using the “B” handshape. ALL-NIGHT, SPEAK, SPEAK, TURN, TURN, ALMOST-FALL-ASLEEP, TRY-TO-WAKE UP, ALMOST-FALL-ASLEEP. (I confess. This is when a video blog would come in handy.) Vikee Waltrip’s parody of a hearing teacher teaching her elementary-age students how to sign the Pledge of Allegiance was beyond hilarious and dead-on accurate. Bernard Bragg said something beautiful about the recent fissures in our community. He pointed out that we are all “J-U-S-T DEAF,” which is exactly what deafhood is all about, and what I’ve believed for years.. Terrylene Sacchetti treated us to a story... and then some. She was wearing a low-cut top and appeared to have gained twenty pounds in the chest. She was practically popping out the entire time, and I could not focus on what she was saying, because all I wanted to do was rush on stage and tuck a hanky around her bosom to spare her potential embarrassment. The men around me were all spellbound, grinning grins of pure pleasure, and deliriously happy. Up next was Chuck Baird. All he did was wander around the stage in a bathrobe, go into a few rants, sit down, stand up, and walk around again. His nipple was revealed in his odd bumbling across the stage, and believe me, it was nothing to ooh and aah about. I muttered, “Gee. The straight guys get to drool over Terrylene and we women get what?? THIS?” *sigh* It was interesting overall, but I confess to being glad it was over after more than three hours.

The guy who scheduled the FSSA workshop and the first Deafhood workshop for the same time slot should be drawn and quartered. Double scheduling is inevitable at any conference, but these were the hottest topics of the decade. Thankfully, for those of us who chose to go to the first Deafhood workshop, information on the FSSA workshop was posted on the NAD blog. The organizers also grossly underestimated how many people would be interested in the Deafhood workshops. The room was packed to the gills every time, with people sitting on tables in the back of the room, sitting on the floor by the stage, in the aisles, and standing five deep outside the doors. For one picture, go here and scroll down - but it doesn't capture just how crowded it was.


It was fun living in a house on the PGA West golf course for the duration. I was only sorry I didn’t get a chance to spend much time there and grow to appreciate it. It’s a lovely place, Spanish in style. I had a whole suite to myself, and my bathroom was almost as big as my bedroom at home! We had a private pool with a view of the green between the 14th and 15th hole on the Nicklaus course. Thank you, T and S, for letting me stay with you guys!

The Deafhood workshops were amazing. The first one encapsulated the concept and previewed what the next three would cover. The second one, presented by Ella Mae Lentz, focused on the language aspect of Deafhood. A brief history lesson occurred first, focusing on European colonization and how they subjugated native peoples. The colonists (called missioners in the book) systematically destroyed governing systems, traditions, ways of life, and banned native languages. They installed white governments and forced the children to go to white schools and be educated in the colonists’ language, to learn the values and traditions of the colonists, and so forth. Eventually the colonists installed native people that were best able to speak their language and function much like the colonists in positions of power. These native people became the force which kept the natives subjugated. Paddy Ladd’s book posits that this is what has happened to deaf people. Oralists colonized us too by destroying our education systems, outlawing our language, and forcing us to use their language. Our values and traditions were discarded in favor of hearing mores. As a result, we have been divided and we act against each other. We even argue about our identity amongst ourselves. We disagree about the best way to educate our youth. Many of us genuinely believe that those who can speak are lucky, those who have some hearing are lucky, and that English is superior to ASL. Many of us gladly participate in our own oppression. This is known as colonialism of the mind, because our hearts, minds, and souls have been colonized to the point where many of us believe English is superior, we need to worry about fitting in with hearing people, and to speak and hear is better than not to speak and hear. This is a powerful and mind-blowing concept, and I was glad of the reminder. The workshop made me think of how sick and tired I am of the phrase “can’t hear.” I’ve been railing against that phrase for years because “can’t hear” implies that hearing is an ability or a skill. Granted, in some contexts, it is. But we deaf people cannot practice and practice to develop a greater ability to hear. Our being deaf is simply a state of being. I’ve been advocating changing from “can’t hear” to “don’t hear” and changing “can hear” to simply “hear,” because language and perception are inextricably entwined. Genie Gertz focused on identity related to deafhood and David Eberwein focused on the politics of deafhood. Somewhere in there, the phrase “deficit thinking” was discussed. It is basically the idea that deaf people lack something; that we are flawed. This is an example of how thoroughly we have been colonized. For example, (the following is simply my own musings) we often say “hearing loss,” which is predicated upon the assumption that hearing is special and valuable. Is it? Well, depends on your paradigm, really. There are so many unpleasant sounds that hearing people are subjected to on a daily basis. I know I hear a lot that I really would rather not have to put up with. (back to the workshops) A few links that discuss the Deafhood workshops are NAD's, Ridor's, and Sandman's. It remains to be seen how much impact these workshops have on the general discourse, if they clear up the misunderstandings and misinterpretations that have circulated in the past few months, and if they help heal the damage that the Gallaudet situation has wrought on the community, but I believe they will go a long way.

Who’d have thought simply ordering pizza would cause such drama? On Friday, a large group of us decided to go back to M’s room and order pizza and just hang out until time for the ASL tribute. I called to place the order via my Sidekick, placed the order without incident, and warned the group that people would have to be ready to go to the front desk to pick it up and pay. An hour later, someone came to let us know the pizza was at the front desk, and T and K went to pick it up. I got a frantic page from T saying the delivery guy had already left. Several pages later, T had the front desk telephone the pizza place to ask for the guy to come back and M used her lovely new MacBook with iSight built in to VP the place. T got nowhere, even tho’ the front desk tried. He came back while M was still on VP and insisted on free pizza. The place refused, saying the delivery man had waited and waited. T believed that this was just not possible, and the VP conversation turned ugly. We got our money back and headed downstairs to find a restaurant. We ended up paying $25 each for a buffet because we didn’t have time to wait for orders to be delivered. It was ridiculously expensive, but dang, the food was go-od. The mahi mahi was to die for, and the mashed potatoes and vegetables were amazing. The desserts were sinfully rich. Others raved about the steak. We made it to the tribute with minutes to spare. *puff, puff*

Roz Rosen’s workshop on linguistic human rights was interesting, and I took away some neat words and phrases from it.
Deafheid
Painstream
Not language delayed - language deprived!
Deafness - the compound sign looks like it means all deaf people die - how fitting!

The heat was incredible. It was between 110 and 115 degrees during the day every single day. It was 89 degrees at midnight one night and 91 degrees at 7:30 am another day. For two days, all I could do was take baths with no hot water and just lie there, soaking my head, for twenty to thirty minutes, just to feel human again. The house thermostat was set to 78 degrees, which was too hot for me. I’m used to 70 degrees during the day and 55 at night, so 78 at night was miserably hot for me. Then an odd thing happened. I started to adjust. I was still unhappy, but I wasn’t thoroughly miserable. 78 started to feel pleasantly and wonderfully cool. I suspect I would never be able to fully acclimate myself, but I could have tolerated another week, which is shocking to me since I wilt in the heat like a delicate pansy.

Two very vocal bloggers nearly duked it out just before the fourth Deafhood workshop. Apparently McConnell insisted on talking to Ridor and they exchanged quite heated comments, but they didn’t come to blows, thankfully. They were able to agree to disagree, and now maybe they’ve seen the human face behind the postings, they will be able to disagree with respect.

The College Bowl was a lot of fun. I sat with two dear friends, one of whom is a college bowl alum, so he filled me in on how things are supposed to go and stuff like that. His thoughts can be found on his blog. Another account can be found on the NAD blog. I, however, had difficulty enduring Jackie Roth’s emceeing. She is an attractive lady and her signs were smooth and graceful. However, she was more denigrating than necessary to the judges, the scorekeepers, and other people involved in the competition. Furthermore, her signing was pure English word order, which bothered me. To me, it’s another example of colonialism and dysconscious audism. To her credit, it was easy to follow and understand, unlike most people who attempt to sign that way. However, I know of at least one person who could not understand her at all and had to rely on the captions - and this person grew up in a deaf family, went to deaf schools his whole life, is college educated, and is fully in the Deaf-World. Roth’s signing bothered me somewhat, but my friend was extremely incensed. Roth also emphasized her hearing in several ways throughout the whole event. For example, she made a point of saying she is hard of hearing, she harbored a fantasy of singing, and said something about using her voice. What message does this send? Other than the emcee, the event was fun to watch, and I was amazed at the level of intelligence shown in the discussions and at the answers the teams gave. Deaf IS good. *grin*

The last event I attended was the FSSA Rally on Sunday. My FSSA pin is probably in many pictures, because Ben Lewis borrowed it so he could make his speech with a pin. *grin* The rally was very brief, and it was basically “rah, rah.” We spent time talking amongst ourselves about the situation afterward. (scroll down on both pages on these blogs to see one picture and some thoughts about the rally.)

Sorry you asked how NAD was? *grin*

Here are some links that share reflections from other attendees:
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/07/nad-personal-reflections-i.html
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/07/nad-personal-reflections-ii.html
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/07/nad-personal-reflections-iii.html
http://jarednevans.typepad.com/blog/2006/07/2006_nad_confer.html
http://www.deafdc.com/blog/?p=429
http://www.ridorlive.com/?p=1790

Opening Ceremonies

Wow, I’m actually here in Palm Desert at the NAD conference!!! After a drive down without air conditioning, I was so hot I was ready to die. I was so utterly miserable I paged a couple of people asking if I could shower in their hotel room. M responded first, and I glommed onto the opportunity faster than you can fingerspell “shower.” I am ever grateful to M for giving me the chance to just wallow in a cold tub for fifteen or twenty minutes after the shower didn’t cool me down enough. I returned to the convention area with mostly dry hair (that’s how hot it was!) and much refreshed. The hallways were abuzz with what the opening ceremony would bring and what King Jordan would have to say for himself, since he was the keynote speaker.

As I walked into the room, I saw so many people and almost forgot to sit down, I was having so much fun chatting. My old dear friend, J, found me and we sat down by a whole group of people from my local community. The speeches failed to hold my attention - I was too busy chatting with J and participating in a running commentary with people around me. We kept getting shushed by this older woman seated behind me, who was very polite about it. She said things like, “This is important to me, and I would like to watch. I’d appreciate your keeping it down.” I wanted to cooperate, and tried, but no one else was, and my resolve crumbled. I did try to keep it down and be less distracting, tho’. King came to the stage and we were all, “Emergency! Shh! Watch!” He said some blah blah about how proud Gally is to sponsor NAD, then stopped talking after only a few minutes. We were all like “Huh? Wha’?” for awhile. Then it occurred to one of us that that speech was a sponsor’s speech, not actually the keynote address! Many speeches later, the keynote speech began. A transcript can be found here in Comment #25.

King's keynote speech was infuriating. Rob Rice of DeafDC.com may disagree with me, which is his prerogative, but we were clearly sitting in different areas, and I'm not even sure we witnessed the same speech. For one thing, King chose to simcom. There had been no visible mike all night, but he made a point of searching for it and spent time adjusting it to his satisfaction. His signs were horrible. He dropped many signs and was not particularly clear. I decided to listen to see how good his voice was. He sounded terrible. He had zero cadence, his voice was choppy, and there were a lot of unnatural pauses because his signing and voicing were not quite in sync. I didn’t like it, but hey, at least it’s equal-opportunity. He mangled both languages equally. *grin* The line I most vividly recollect is “The Board of Trustees’ decision is final. Jane Fernandes will be the ninth president of Gallaudet.” His voice was very emphatic and firm when he said final. Another line that drew a lot of ire from conference-goers was “There is no crisis at Gallaudet.” (emphasis his) *snort* If there’s no crisis at Gally, I’m purple with green polka-dots. He also had the gall to quote Mandela post-apartheid, along the lines of reconcilation between whites and blacks and attempted to draw parallels between apartheid and Gallaudet. I spluttered to whoever cared to listen, “How dare he use Mandela when he is perpetuating apartheid at Gallaudet???” My “gang” and I were all muttering angry rebuttals during his speech, because we were aghast at his gross and blatant distortion of the facts. We were also the recipents of requests to shush from the lady in back of me quite a few times during his speech.

When the speech ended, we could not believe how many people clapped. Some of my friends had walked out during his speech, but I chose to stay in order to see what more he had to say and how the audience would react. Well, wotta disappointment. The lady in back of me waved at me, so I politely stopped and turned to face her. She said, “He’s an important man. He did a lot for the deaf community. Why didn’t you clap for him?” My response? “You’re right. He has done a lot for the community. But he has recently divided the community. I cannot support him now.” “But he is a leader. You need to listen to him. FOLLOW what he says.” I took a deep breath and prepared to say calmly, “You and I have different views. That’s okay.” But another woman got her attention, so I didn’t have to confront her. *whew* After they were done, she turned to face me again and wanted to know where I was from. We exchanged a few pleasant sentences, then J and I were off to chat.

Framing the Debate Again

Two days ago someone said, “Oh, I did not realize there would be so many sign-dependent people here.” Hm. Cute attempt at political correctness, and I give him credit for that. Let’s start using the phrase “voice-dependent people” in our everyday parlance, shall we?

No more CMP?

We were all at the opening ceremonies for the evaluation and undergoing the obligatory introductions and speeches. Amidst the gaiety of what felt like a reunion, a thunderbolt struck. The Captioned Media Program has: 1. had its budget slashed into half, and 2. been ordered to provide video description services for the blind. The CMP has had a 5-year contract with the U.S. Department of Education, and it is up this year. When they re-applied, they were told the above. In effect, this means the budget for captioning has been slashed to a quarter of what they’ve had for five years. This has the potential to change everything for the company.

Possible impacts:
1. CMP (which is under NAD) has to become an expert in something totally different.
2. It could change the entire evaluation process.
3. Possibly instead of 300 new titles per year, only 75 titles may be released per year.
4. No more nationwide biennial evaluations maybe.
5. Only 10% of educational media is currently voluntarily captioned. Now with even less titles made available through CMP... it hurts deaf children.

They’re trying to make a bid to the U.S. Department of Education to allow the American Federation for the Blind to develop standards for video descriptions, and let THEM pretty much do it, and CMP just oversees it. But will the Department of Ed accept this proposal? Dunno.

By the way, video descriptions are voice-overs for actions that are visible but would not be obvious without seeing them. For example, suppose you see a dishy blonde walking up to a cupboard, opening it, taking a glass out, and closing the cupboard. One might hear the patter of feet, the clink of the glass hitting the counter, and the gentle slam of the door closing. But what the heck just happened?? Video descriptions would fill this gap.

Gad. We don’t have enough captioning as it is, and what there is is crap more and more often these days. This was talked about today - roll-up vs pop-up captions. Often sponsors aren’t willing to pay for pop-up captions. Why are CC for programs prepped weeks in advance so often crappy? No excuse, etc.

UPDATE: We found out that the woman who runs the evaluation program is in effect being fired. Her position was written out of the new grant. We are not going to conduct field evaluations on the tapes we weren’t able to get to this time, nor will we conduct field evals in the fall at home. It also looks like all the libraries and the warehouse in South Carolina will close if things don’t change. There is also a chance that there will be no more mailing out of tapes because it is too expensive. Things are really looking grim at this point. Time to trot out those letters to our representatives and senators and to the head of the Department of Education!!! (Links to help you find your representatives' contact info are embedded.) Contact NAD and insist that they fight to halt this, since CMP is a subsidary of NAD. We should try to fight this. Better to try and fail than not to try at all.

((UPDATE 2/28/07 - CMP IS shutting its doors for good on March 30th. For more info, check here.))

((UPDATE 3/1/07 - CMP IS NOT shutting down for good. Go here for more details.))

A GOOD step backwards!

Just finished voting and a few errands. My county has been voting using Diebold machines for a few years now, and most of the time I considered opting to vote absentee, just to have a paper record of my vote. This time, though, thanks to a new state law requiring a paper trail, they tossed the Diebolds and brought in optical scanners. They hope that new computers that will print out each voter's ballot will be certified in time for the November election, but they weren't certified in time for this one.

I am thrilled because I don't trust Diebold to record my vote and I believe the ability to double-check in case of problems is crucial. So far I've voted using 3 different systems. The first one was the punch-card ballots, with chads. I personally loved doing it. I loved poking the hole containing my choice - it had a very satisfying kinesthetic feel. The second one was the Diebold system. The third, which I hadn't used until today, was the optical method. I was handed a ballot and a black felt pen. I went to the booth and filled in bubbles, which brought back memories of the SATs and all the standardized tests I've had to take. I miss the punch cards, but I know they aren't coming back. I liked filling in the bubbles and feeling the solidness of the paper in my hand. I wouldn't mind continuing, but apparently it takes too long to count votes. Hmm. Some people were complaining about the "step backwards," but as far as I'm concerned, this was a good step backwards.

People who know me know I'm a political junkie, and I'm probably one of the best informed voters around... usually. Today, nope. What with the craziness my life has been for the past several months due to taking more than a full-time graduate courseload and working full-time in an incredibly demanding job, I haven't really been following anything. I hadda page a couple of friends to ask for their input (thanks, you two! *smile*) and do a quick half-hour of searching to print out my sample ballot (mine never came!) and reading/marking it. I felt so ignorant and like I shouldn't be voting, so my ballot had many blank spots. I feel strongly about being an informed voter. Voting is a right, but it is also a responsibility. I could not in good conscience mark names of people I did not know enough about to distinguish them from others on the ballot. People talk about the need to get more people to vote. I disagree. If people are uninformed, I'd prefer they not vote, frankly. Often the issues and people are not black and white. There are so many shades of gray that require sifting, sorting, discussing, and considering (though not necessarily in that order!) Even hot-button issues like abortion and gun control shouldn't be reduced to simple sound bites, no matter which way the sound bites lean, because they aren't that simple. Again, voters should take this right and responsibility seriously and do some research and analysis before participating in democracy (at least what passes for democracy these days).

I do not normally say this because I believe in respecting people's choices, but while we're on the topic of voting, I'd like to say it. I believe that people who do not vote do not have much or any right to complain about the way our government runs things. Why, you ask? Why, it's because they chose not to have input in the decision-making process. Yes, there is some question about whether one's vote truly counts these days, and those concerns are valid. However, that should not stop one from exercising the right to vote if one is truly interested and cares about our country and the direction it's headed in. For democracy to succeed, it requires citizen participation, and if those who follow events and decisions do not participate by voting and writing letters, it will not succeed.

With all this in mind, I will be doing more research before the November election to decide whom I want to support and what position to take on the various propositions that are sure to be on the ballot.

Checkmate? Never!

I was so exhausted yesterday that when I got home in mid-afternoon, I fell asleep pretty quickly. I had one very intense dream where I was on the subway with a male interpreter (quite gorgeous, and as it turned out, straight). The topic was, natch, the current stalemate between the Gallaudet Board of Trustees and the community. Most of the dream centered on our discussion, and the details were quite true to what had really occurred. Later in the dream, we got, ahem, distracted. But the point here is that I’ve had dreams for the past two weeks where the current situation has played a prominent role. It’s clearly something that’s weighing heavily on me and consuming much of my psyche right now. I woke up after 8 pm quite stiff and both arms were asleep. I must’ve been an immobile lump for hours and hours.

Once my arms ceased their pin-prick tingleTINGLEtingle, I groped for my pager, hoping to read good news. I scrolled down past a ton of new messages (hm! Something big happened!) and got to the first one. I read it, gasped for breath, and thought, “No, my mind is still quite fogged up. Back up here.” Re-read it in stunned silence. No. I understood it right the first time. The Board of Trustees has proven itself to be really deaf and dumb, decreeing that they weren’t budging, and now they need a new provost. Fury and a deep sadness spread throughout my entire body. I read each new message and they all conveyed similar sentiments of outrage and disappointment. There were declarations of war.

One thought pierced my shock, and that was, “All that work to re-activate the local GUAA chapter? For what now?” I’d spent the last 24 hours fighting to get officers to reactivate the local GUAA chapter so we could draft a resolution supporting the FSSA. I’d just succeeded a couple of hours previously (but unknown to me since I was fast asleep), but to what end? Then again, it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference, would it?

I checked the blogosphere and the usual sites were strangely silent. Wassup?? It’s now 1:45 pm the next day, and Elisa’s and the FSSA’s sites have all but ceased to update. Ridor posted a couple of items that are his own thoughts and perspectives. The local listserv has had no updates from Gally since yesterday morning. I’m concerned, because we need to get together on this and know whether it’s just a few of us who want to declare out and out war while everyone else is focused on a new provost or if we want to fight for both Fernandes’ figurative decapacitation and a new provost or if the majority is going to roll over or what.

I can understand why the BoT did this in a way. They’re afraid to set what would be a very dangerous precedent of giving in every time people object to the next president. But at the same time, it is incomprehensible how they can be as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar in the face of so much opposition, especially with GUAA, NAD, prominent Deaf community members, organizations, and so many alumni speaking out against this choice. I stand by my open letter, which points out that without support or the ability to build support, the woman cannot lead. I am disgusted, discouraged, disappointed, and in pain. I love Gallaudet too much to accept this decision. At this point, without knowing what FSSA has planned and without hearing from our representatives, I have decided that my financial donations are ceasing as of this moment and I am not going to support Gallaudet or set foot on campus in any way. I may change my mind once I hear the plan from our reps or from FSSA, but I’m not changing my mind about donations. I cannot believe this. I’m furious with the utter lack of leadership the administration and the Board have shown in the last two weeks.

A friend of mine was out of the contiguous United States from May 2nd through May 10th. When he returned, he had a crash course in what had transpired in his absence.

For his background analysis and perspectives, go here:
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/05/framing-stalemate-background on.html
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/05/framing-stalemate-thoughts-on.html
http://sandmanssandbox.blogspot.com/2006/05/framing-stalemate-what-now-gallaudet.html"

A Solution!

As I was taking Camilla, my ancient Bug, on her weekly trip around town today, I decided to drive past the local cheap gas station, because she could've used a gallon. (I try to keep Milly as full as possible to prevent moisture getting in the gas tank.)

The price? $3.13 9/10 per gallon of regular unleaded

That's right, ladles and gentlemints. *blink* Other gas stations were showing $3.27 9/10 or $3.24 9/10. Jeez. And Americans are still buying SUVs and refusing to consider public transportation. Our government is still sinking more transit dollars in freeway improvements than in strengthening public transportation. I have not driven to work on a daily basis for years now, partly due to the environment and gas prices. I have limited my long trips and when I have a choice for longer trips, I take Old Faithful, the economical Honda, and not Sable, my gas-guzzling sweetie. I have thrown fits, ranted at length about the idiocy of Americans, and I openly mock SUV drivers. (I know a few of you reading this own SUVs, and I still love ya, just not yer wheels. *grin*) Among the things I discuss when I do that are: peak oil is probably here or almost here, public transit is reasonably priced, it's less stressful, this is a great area for alternative transportation, hybrids are here, SUVs and 4-wheel drive vehicles for city driving are among the most selfish choices on earth, statistics on accidents, our government needs to stop subsidizing oil prices to keep costs down, our current fuel dependency means our way of life is simply unsustainable, and a lot more. But I want to keep some of ya as friends. *grin* So I won't do that right now. I will simply direct your attention to this wonderful Chron article that would solve so much. The government can and should do much more to control the marketplace. Europe is a small car driver's paradise because of its tax structure. If a car's engine is more than a certain number of liters, it is hit much harder in its annual license fees. Gas is more expensive over there because the EU does not subsidize oil there. I could go on and on, but you get the drift. It's accepted behavioral theory that in order to change behavior, one must introduce pain or reward, and this is true for American choices. It's such a shame Smirk, Scowl and everyone else in government won't go for it. Dave Richards of the San Francisco Chronicle, you are my new crush du jour!!!

P.S. I confess to having had pangs of guilt because I have 3 cars. I have looked in the mirror and scolded, "Bad, bad, BAD tree-hugger!" *shrug* In my defense, 'twas never my plan. I just bought Old Faithful from cuzzin Tom because I was convinced Sable was shot to hell and I couldn't stand going into debt for a new car. That was only after 8 months of intermittent and undiagnosable car trouble and frustration, with the last straw happening when she died on me at 65 miles an hour. I bought Old Faithful after a week of being car-less only to find the following week that my trusty shop had finally diagnosed and fixed the problem for $300. Camilla is simply to indulge the desire that I've had since high school for a VW Bug. At least that's 3 cars that are not used very much and that are not on the road spewing toxins and ruining our environment.

Boredom

As I sat in one of my unnecessary classes, trying to stave off boredom by conjugating the verb "to bore," this poem came to me.

Boredom...
Stultifying...
All-encompassing...
Tiring...
Engulfing...
I sit here completely and utterly bored.
I sit here futilely
Attempting to focus...
Cursing arbitrary mandates...
Wishing I were elsewhere...
Railing against unnecessary coursework...
I sit here attempting not to cry from sheer boredom...
Boredom...
Stultifying...
All-encompassing...
Tiring...
Engulfing...
I am so bored!

moi 4.19.06 17h16 PT

The Ultimate Fashion Accessory for Deaf People

This morning at a local museum, in the middle of a tour led by a Deaf docent, I spied what is sure to be a hot trend. (said tongue-in-cheek) And what is this accessory, you ask?

*drumroll*

A silver bejeweled cochlear implant glittering on a woman's head above her "hearing aid."

What will they think of next?

The Topic du Jour in the Deaf-World

All over the United States for the past few weeks, pagers have been vibrating and humming. Blogs have been abuzz with people furiously typing entries and with others commenting on those entries. AIM, videophone, and face-to-face conversations have been consumed with one topic. What topic has the Deaf community in such a tizzy? Why, the impending selection of Gallaudet University’s next president, of course. Last week, the final three candidates were announced and all hell broke loose in the virtual and the real Deaf worlds.

This may be just another drop in the raging sea, but I have been following the events very closely and engaging in a lot of reading and talking. Mr. Sandman’s blog has a fine entry which directs the reader to some commonly used sources of information, so I will not repeat them here. One other source is the GallyNet listserv (click on the link to sign up).

After all this reading, poring, talking, and thinking, one thing is inescapably clear — this is not as simple as people are trying to make it seem. Something is incredibly wrong with this whole process, but people do not agree on the nature of the problem. There is a lot of disagreement on many things, including how to proceed with objections. This whole situation would make a perfect doctoral dissertation in sociology. It has been entertaining, yet saddening watching members of my community run the gamut from thoughtful discourse to “Oh, be quiet. Trust the process.” to heated personal attacks to illogical reasoning in order to support a point to allegations of racism and/or ageism. Check out GallyPresWatch.com for instances of all the above.

I, too, have strong opinions about this whole situation (debacle?), naturally. For one thing, I am amazed at how far we have come in eighteen years. The candidates’ deafness continue to be a topic under discussion. However, none of the candidates are hearing this time and the type of deafness being debated is not pathological; rather, it is cultural deafness. Quite a change.

Another issue this has raised is how we as deaf people treat our Deaf leaders. We as a community are too ready to criticize and tear them down. This has been a recurring issue for me in 2006, what with a local movement and other leadership situations. The Gallaudet presidency, however, has nationwide ramifications and it has invited comment from people all over the country. The websites and listservs where people are allowed to comment shine a bright light on how we can be our own worst enemy. Some of the comments are horribly cruel, as well as downright unnecessary. This is at the root of the problem this community has in finding qualified Deaf leaders to lead our agencies, schools, and organizations. Who wants to subject themselves to this type of intense criticism by people we socialize with, work with, and know on a personal level? Stern’s children have been dragged through the mud. Weiner’s ability to lead is being severely criticized and someone likened him to an affable puppy, which is a huge affront. Fraternity affiliations have become an issue. Fernandes’ appearance has been gleefully described by a few of her detractors. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Some people are upset at who made it into the final three and who didn’t, but they are resorting to very personal attacks on these three, which is totally uncalled for. Sadly, this is part of a larger pattern in this community whenever Deaf people apply for leadership positions.

This situation has caused some people to raise the ugly “R” word - racism. There appear to be many Deaf people of color who are convinced that Glenn Anderson’s absence from the short list reeks of racism, even though there is no evidence that bears this out, other than his non-presence. In fact, there is circumstantial evidence to the contrary, though it is, admittedly, quite flimsy. There are snippets floating around that Anderson has health problems, along with heated denials of any such health problems. Thus, the potential for Anderson’s health as a factor in derailing his presidential hopes *may* exist. Another may be his age. There’s a rumor going around that a committee member said he was excluded because he’s too old, but this has not been substantiated in any way. On GallyNet right now, if one doesn’t support Anderson, one is being called racist, no matter how thoughtful and well reasoned one’s response is. People have brought up his signing as an issue and a possible reason why he was not selected as a finalist. Since clear communication skills are crucial for a job of this type, this could be one factor among other unknowns that worked against Anderson. But if anyone dares to say so on this listserv, they are charged with holding signers to a white standard of signing and dismissing people of color. In fact, there is a serious movement at Gallaudet to get Anderson included on the list of finalists, based on the need for diversity. Since I grew up in the wonderfully colorful Bay Area, I’m all for diversity and I look forward to the nation’s first president of color, no matter what minority color it is. As a member of a minority, I’m all for support and promotion of people that are not white Protestant males. As a proud Deaf person, I am in awe of Anderson’s impressive list of contributions to our community and gladly concede that on paper he goes beyond meeting all the requirements for the job. But from where I stand (admittedly not in D.C. at the mo’), there appears to be no reason for this hue and cry. I’m afraid it is going to prove divisive, both on a local level and on a national level.

Since before I was a Gallaudet student, the community, both local and national, has been asking for a strong “D” deaf president when King Jordan retires. While many people were quick to point out that King is/was a good president, they want the next president to be more representative of core Deaf values. This has remained constant for more than fifteen years. Recently more and more people have been using a phrase, which has become a buzzword, to describe their vision for the next president - “Deaf-centered.” I, too, share this vision of a president who will embrace ASL and the Bilingual philosophy, who will fight to keep schools for the Deaf open, and who will value Deaf culture. A v-log can be found here that discusses the reasons for this need. Gallaudet has long been a place where the oral and the mainstreamed come to discover our wonderful Deaf-world and our beautiful language, and it must continue to be a place where everyone is warmly welcomed, no matter what their background is. (if it has stopped being so, that needs to be rectified, clearly) It is vital that our next president embody these values without being exclusionary. Blogs, websites, and e mails have expressed sentiments that oppose this belief, but the core community has been waiting for, nay, anticipating this opportunity for close to two decades now. (More another time about how our community has become fractured, how it hurts us, and how moving to a strong Deaf center can only be good for all of us. If you can’t wait, read Paddy Ladd’s book, Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood.) Anyway, it is undeniable that we have been quite clear about our wishes for a long time now and we expect that the next president will be a role model for us.

A very serious concern, however, is the process in which candidates were screened. Fact: Roz Rosen’s credentials are nearly impeccable and pretty darn impressive. Fact: She was fired by King Jordan, and the details regarding that incident are murky. Fact: Rosen applied. Fact: Rosen wasn’t invited to interview. Fact: Glenn Anderson meets all the qualifications on paper. Fact: Anderson was invited to interview. Fact: Anderson did not make the list of finalists. Fact: Bill Marshall was invited to interview and meets the qualifications, but is not an option any longer. Fact: Ron Stern does not have a doctorate, yet is in the final three. Fact: Jane Fernandes is in the final three in spite of a lot of anecdotal evidence showing that she may not possess the preferred qualification of being able to engage in open, honest dialogue. Fact: Out of 21 deaf individuals, these three are the finalists. With all these facts, the stink of suspicion is very difficult to ignore. My theory is that this process is much more political than it should be and two weaker candidates (on paper at least) were selected in order to pave the way for Fernandes to get the position without challenges. It is unconscionable that Rosen was not invited to interview, since she would have made it past the first round anywhere else. Standard procedure holds that only people who do not meet the minimum qualifications are screened out at that point. She meets the minimum qualifications.

With all these facts, is it any wonder the community is in an uproar? The problem, though, is that we are splintered and we are not united in what exactly we object to about this process. We are not even united in whether or not we should object. Some argue that we should let this play out. Others want to re-create DPN right this minute. While I would normally advocate letting events run their course, I fear that if we do that and the choice is the wrong one, the resulting anger and outcry would be more damaging than it is worth for our community. Protests and shutting the campus down are not options I espouse at this point either. But we should not sit silent. This decision is just too damn important.

What the Board of Trustees needs to do is simple. They need to say, “Gee, guys. We heard your concerns about the flaws in this process. We’re scrapping what we’ve done and we’re starting over.”
Steps they need to take once this has been done:
*Dismantle the PSC
*Establish criteria for selection of the new PSC, including mandatory recusal if a conflict of interest is discovered with any applicant
*Select a new PSC with all-new people onboard - ones that do not have biases for or against any applicant whenever possible
*Develop a quasi-transparent procedure with standardized rubrics and checklists, along with safeguards to ensure that confidentiality is not betrayed
I’m probably missing a couple of things, but you get the idea.

>>Plea to the Board: Board of Trustees, it is perfectly all right to back up. If you do not, the validity of your choice will forever be in question. No one I have talked to thinks that this selection process is fair and appropriate. Extrapolate that to what is happening nationwide. You are in huge danger of losing our trust, and you are risking hurting whomever you select, because his or her selection will not be on firm footing with the community. I have already contacted you with my concerns and I urge others to do the same.<<

You Me Deaf, Keychain, and Dietro il Mondo

Last Friday I was treated to a trilingual, bicultural feast in the form of three films. The first two were brief productions from LightKitchen, René Visco's company, and the third was a feature-length Italian Deaf film produced by Daniele Le Rose of DeafMedia. All three films had English subtitles, hence the third language.

The first film was You Me Deaf, which, frankly, is... I can't say much nice about it. It is a song signed by Jennifer Visco. The action consists of Jen in a black fur coat, black top, and shiny red vinyl pants, gyrating in a most unattractive way. It reduced me to a spate of giggles, both mortified and "this is just too ridiculous." I have to say, though, that I loved the message it conveys about how we Deaf people need to come together and work together, regardless of our differences. Sara Stallard of the Tactile Mind gave this piece a rave review. (scroll down after clicking the link to read her review) I agree with her about the need for more Deaf films, but not this. Then again, all genres have their masterpieces, their good works, and their, well, crap. The good news is that it only lasts a few minutes.

The second film was an improvement and a vast relief to me. Keychain is set in Philadelphia and it is centered around a Deaf man's encounter with an ABC card peddler. This ten-minute-long flick takes us to a bar, (Gooskis, owned by René's brother, by the by), where we encounter a young urban white middle-class Deaf couple. They have a lively, heated discussion about the moral value of SSI/SSDI. The female argues that SSI is terrible, because it encourages dependence and sloth. The male argues that SSI is not bad when it is used to support one through college and it is more subtle than peddling ABC cards. She disagrees, saying that both are equally bad because they shape public perception of Deaf people. This discussion began because a man put a keychain attached to an ABC card on their table. When the peddler comes back to hopefully collect money, the man lights into him, scolding him for peddling. The resulting dialogue reveals that the peddler is Slovakian, and he came to this country illegally. He has a pregnant wife/girlfriend and he has tried and tried to find a job, but without a green card, he just can't find work. The man remains solidly unsympathetic, and the discussion ends with him grudgingly forking over a couple of bucks and the peddler saying, "You me deaf same, you me friends" and leaving. After that, the man becomes tortured by his unyielding rejection of the peddler and wondering what would have been if he had simply let go of his principles. He fantasizes about being friends with the peddler. The film makes use of a novel voice-over technique where a black and white shot of the person voicing over is superimposed on the action and you see the black and white person signing the narrative. This piece, while not wonderfully edited, raises interesting points about peddling, SSI/SSDI, and challenges us to question where the line is, if either is ever okay and to define what situations warrant peddling and what situations don't. (Insider info: the keychain is blurred out in the film because it is a picture of a Disney character, which would have invited a humongous lawsuit from Walt's successors.)

Dietro il Mondo was a joy to watch in comparison. Le Rose's creation takes us to the university in Padua and introduces us to Andrea, a first-year student, and a small group of Deaf students. It chronicles his first few months at the university, his in-class experiences, and his interactions with the other Deaf students and with the Paduan Deaf community. This film appears to be a real family affair, with Stefania Le Rose playing the lead female role of Elena and Luigi Le Rose playing the Italian Sign Language (LIS) interpreter. The ending has a rather odd twist which is easy to miss, but if you get a chance to see it, keep in mind during the whole film - what is Carla's motivation? The ending will make more sense if one keeps that in mind.

One criticism of the film, however, is the temporal discontinuity that manifests itself at times. A demostration in Rome is mentioned and it is to happen the following week, but it does not happen until after a title card showing "a few months later" has appeared and more time has passed. Also, it is clear that several months pass, but it always remains cold and characters are always dressed very warmly. Otherwise, while not in the league of Citizen Kane, this is a cute, interesting, and enjoyable film.

This was a fascinating, enjoyable film to watch. The pacing and set-up are so different from American films. It is very slow, with the emphasis being on character development rather than the plot, which is typically European. There are many cultural messages in this piece as well. For example, there are frequent discussions about problems with interpreters at the university. During one discussion, Andrea proposes getting the deaf association involved by providing classes and training. Elena retorts that while this is a wonderful idea, it is going to take years and she needs interpreters now. Another instance occurs when Andrea is anxiously awaiting his turn for his oral exam. Andrea asks the interpreter if the interpreter can voice the right answers even when Andrea is wrong or when he does not know the answer. The interpreter says in beautiful Italian signs that his job is to facilitate communication. He gives Andrea his voice and he gives the professor his signs in order to help them communicate. That is his role and he can do no more than that. While this does not always happen in real life, this is the ideal and what *should* happen in classrooms everywhere. Different examples of interactions with hearing people are also shown, mostly unvoiced. One thing that illustrates European urban culture is the frequent use of bicycles for travel by the characters and by other people.

There are quite a number of cultural differences between American Deaf culture and Italian Deaf culture that are evident in the film. While in America Blackberrys and Sidekicks are ubiquitous, in Italy, they depend on cell phones with text messaging (SMS). Apparently when the phone is plugged in, it does not vibrate, and people run the risk of missing messages. The university does not provide alert lights nor other communication devices. Andrea brings his own alarm clock, but he has no other devices. Two men, who are roommates, excitedly show off their new signal lights very late in the film. One thing that appalled me was when Andrea goes to his first class, he sees this man sitting in front of the room, so he approaches him. The man indicates that he is the interpreter, then proceeds to tell Andrea where to sit, explaining that this place is what works best. He does add that Andrea could move elsewhere and tell him where to sit, but the tone is very paternalistic. That does not happen here in American colleges (at least in my experience). Another interesting difference is that here in America, first and last names must be fingerspelled, along with a demonstration of the name sign when meeting new people. In the film, it shows university students fingerspelling only their first names then giving name signs and other local Deafies not bothering with fingerspelling at all, simply exchanging name signs.

While Italian Deaf people appear to be behind America in terms of technology, there are many similarities between the two cultures. Both groups of people are experiencing problems with the limited number of qualified interpreters. Andrea's interpreter is a person with Deaf parents. They talked about the term "CODA," which they borrowed from America. The film makes it clear how the Deaf are collective by showing their need for togetherness and how they share information. Another similarity is the relationship between "grassroots" Deafies and more educated Deafies, with its attendant frisson and their role in translation of the majority language. One elderly gent at the local Deaf club scolds a few university students, telling them going to school is a total waste of time and they should be working. Later in the film, after Paolo has helped him translate a letter and advised him on what to do, the man tells a group of university students that they need to stay in school so they can achieve great things for the community.

The two signed languages are quite different, but there are clear similarities as well. Both have subject-verb agreement implemented in similar fashions, both use space in much the same way, and both use classifiers. There are a small number of cognates. LIS appears more similar to French sign language (LSF) than to ASL, but all three languages have features in common.

I recommend this film for the opportunity to observe another Deaf culture and language, but the story held my attention as well. Part 2 is apparently coming. Hopefully it will bring a resolution to the odd ending in Part 1.

The irony, oh, the irony

I signed up to take a required technology class online. It began Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I received the following e-mail:

This is to advise that we are having some technical problems with your online course Integ Tech/Educ K-12 Levl 1 DL, Section: 055158. However, our developers are working on the problem and will have the situation resolved at the next system refresh which will be at 11:00 A.M. this morning.
Please accept our apologies for the delay.

While this probably upset other students, I dissolved into giggles. ;)

Somnorexia... it's a bitch.

Picture this. Anytown, USA, 2006. There is a dimly-lit, smoke-filled basement populated with yawning people occupying folding chairs, all facing the front of the room. Sounds of people popping No-Doz fill the air. A podium is in front and a harried middle-aged woman raps the podium, calling for attention. The weekly meeting has begun. A woman walks to the front of the room.
“My name is Sandy Shore. I am a somnorexic.”
The meeting proceeds much like a 12-step meeting. The purpose of this meeting is for those who are somnorexic; that is, people who accumulate a sleep deficit during the week and overcompensate on the weekends.

When given the opportunity to reflect on what I wanted to change about my behavior, the first thing that came to mind was sleep. This has been a source of much frustration for me for several years now, but much more so now that I’m taking 3 graduate-level classes in addition to my usual full plate, which includes: a highly demanding teaching job, extra responsibilities at my job due to my leadership positions, along with being very active in my community in various ways. I had already weeded out what I did not believe to be important and have been continuing to decline opportunities, but it’s still a lot to handle. As a result of all this, I had gotten into the habit of sleeping 4 to 5 hours per night during the week and sleeping 12 hours on the weekend. This had left me groggy, listless, and having more and more trouble functioning as the week progressed. Easy choice for this project!

The above paragraphs are the introduction for a self-monitoring project I wrote for a class this past week. Suffice it to say that my sleeping patterns did not improve much during the month I was gathering data on this behavior change project. For example, last night I went to bed at 9 pm and didn't wake up until 12:30 today.

It's quite frustrating, actually. I sleep between 4 to 6 hours a weeknight, then sleep over 12 hours on weekend nights. It feels quite unproductive and I'm always tired. Last month was really hard because I had 2 papers due a week and there were some big deadlines at work. It was awful. But this month should be much easier, because I have 2 spring breaks and they don't overlap. That'll give me some down time and there are few really major deadlines. I have time to get things done ahead of time. Hopefully I won't be so severely somnorexic much longer.

I concluded the paper with: This was a very interesting experience. I found that I have made a conscious effort to sleep more during this particularly stressful month than I would probably have done otherwise. While I have not yet met the goal, I have made progress. As I end this, I note that it is 10:11 pm on Tuesday, March 28th. While I will not meet the 8 hours’ goal, I may just yet sleep more than seven hours, as long as I end this, put my PowerBook down, put it to sleep, and walk to bed right now. Wish me luck in April!

My legs don't work? News to me!

I was shopping tonight, and as I was browsing, I had the weirdest experience. This overly effusive woman with a rather scary smile half-shoved me across the store to the dressing area. She nodded in a freakish way and pointed at the wheelchair access sign on a particular door and shoved me inside. I didn't even get a chance to let her know I hadn't finished browsing and my legs were working fine, thank you very much.

A new twist on the being handed a Braille sheet story, ain't it?

Framing the debate

I know I have felt powerless against the overwhelming tide of propaganda about how cochlear implants are going to cure deafness, stem cell technology is going to stop births of deaf children, how powerful the oralist movement is becoming, and on and on.

But we as individuals can go a long way towards making changes. We need to frame the debate, and I seized that opportunity recently.

I'm taking a course in adapting early childhood curricula for special ed children, and part of the course requirement is observing an ECE classroom. I, naturally, observed our very own preschool classroom - with great pleasure. When I wrote the paper, I peppered it with comments like "Deaf children in their element," "normal Deaf children," "rich variety of language development opportunities," and descriptions of the bilingual aspects of the program.

One portion of the paper that we were required to include dealt with how inclusive the classroom is. This is what I wrote, verbatim:
Degree of inclusiveness: If one strictly adheres to the letter of the law, no, it is not. The reason for this is that IDEA mandates that the disabled child is to be mainstreamed as much as possible. This is a self-contained school, with no attempt to mainstream the student. However, if you are familiar with the need for the Deaf child to be in an all-signing communication environment, then this is 100% inclusive, because all instruction is fully accessible via a visual language without barriers and frustrations. For Deaf children, to be mainstreamed with an interpreter adds a barrier that is not an issue in this school setting.

When I got the paper back Thursday night, he had underlined the phrases, "self-contained school," "100% inclusive," "is fully accessible," "adds a barrier that is not an issue," and circled "However." He wrote at the end of the paragraph, "Interesting perspective."

I can imagine him mulling it over and being struck by the notion that an interpreter adds a barrier. Through a seemingly mundane opportunity - a typical grad school paper - I managed to frame the debate in non-confrontational language and I may have succeeded in expanding my professor's horizons, which could have wonderful ripple effects in his day job and in his future classes.

Shift in my mental construct

Today I've been mulling over my attitudes toward Deaf people who are victims of dysconscious audism. I went through so much last month with the movement at work, and other situations have cropped up too involving cultural norms and being dismissed when I try to clarify what the Deaf cultural norm is. It's just been totally irritating and infuriating, not to mention frustrating. Somehow, last night introduced an unexpected shift in my attitude that took a bit of time to surface.

One of the big points that Genie Gertz made last night was that we are all constantly bombarded by messages created by systemic oppression coming at us from all sides, and it is no wonder that we have internalized at least a few of these beliefs to some degree. Thus, we are bound to express these feelings and thoughts in one form or another.

This is something I had already known, but for some reason, this knowledge went to a deeper level and affected me profoundly this time around. Last night, I was feeling vindicated and, dare I confess, a wee bit smug as I thought about specific people and situations that have occurred over the past few months. Today, I continue to feel justified, but that feeling has receded in intensity. The paramount emotion has become compassion toward these people. They have some work to do and some serious soul-searching to do, yes, but is it any wonder these issues have cropped up? In that case, I shouldn't be so irritated; rather, I should accept my role in their journey and do what I can to help them process their internal audism - even if my role is simply doing what I'm doing (being myself, doing what I believe in and expressing my thoughts).

Dysconscious audism

My new favorite phrase - dysconscious audism. Dysconscious audism is basically defined as audism (a belief and attitude that to be deaf is to be inferior to hearing people) perpetrated by members of the Deaf community because they have internalized attitudes that the hearing way is superior due to the systemic and pervasive oppression all around us.

Last night Dr. Genie Gertz of CSUN gave a talk, based on her doctoral dissertation and her research. It was so incredibly powerful. It validated so many things I've experienced recently and so many things I've known for years but never articulated. It made me realize yet again that some of what I've had to put up with is because I'm ahead of my time. For example, when a movement was at its peak last month, a couple of people told me I probably supported it because I've been influenced by whom I hang out with. *doink* It's actually the other way 'round. It's because we have vision and foresight that we made this demand, not because we were influenced by one person or something equally silly. Part of the reason we hang out together is because we understand each other and are able to get much-needed support. I'm so glad many things are happening, because wonderfully progressive as this local community is, it remains in need of consciousness raising.

But I digress... The talk was amazing. The woman is incredibly articulate and drove her point home extremely well. She gave many, many examples of dysconscious audism from all walks of life and many common situations - some of which I recognized as examples of national Deaf leaders and state Deaf leaders. I think for many less-aware people, the examples made it more "real" and enabled people to be able to take a look at themselves. F'r instance, after the talk, my boss came to me and quoted Genie: " 'There isn't enough room in the curriculum for Deaf Studies - it's too packed.' I am going to have to reconsider that," with a rueful laugh. She has said that so many times and it clearly hit home for her. Another point Genie made was that identity is made up of four components: language, culture, community, and education (general lifelong learning and experiences as well as schooling). Audism influences all four of these because of the systems in place that pervade our society. The information was so powerful that it needs to be in book form so the ideas can be circulated more freely and that the term "dysconscious audism" can become part of our vernacular. Anyhoo... another key point she made via her examples was that so many times Deaf people say "don't make waves," "don't rock the boat," "don't leave hearing people out," "wow, you're rejecting hearing people," "we need balance," etc, etc, but this functions to the detriment of collectivism and making progress.

The main thrust of the entire presentation was that because we have internalized audism to varying degrees and we express it, we are a weaker community. Dysconscious audism divides us and makes it extraordinarily difficult for us to unify behind anything. She's hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what happened with a recent situation. Hearing people supported us. It was Deaf people who were divided. Some said, "You're rejecting hearing people and that's not right." Other gems I heard included "It shouldn't matter," "You're too extreme," and more. One deaf person even gave me the most disgusted look, complete with eye rolls and pointedly looking away when I brought it up. Name almost any Deaf-related issue, and you'll find that we are a very divided community, due to reasons like needing to learn about hearing norms, we need balance, we shouldn't discriminate, we shouldn't oppress hearing people, and we need to face reality. Why is it so hard to get us united behind the concept that we are whole, wonderful individuals exactly the way we are and we have every right to demand respect as individuals and as experts in what our kind needs? Dysconscious audism is why, and that's scary.

On a side note - after the talk, there was a group discussing many things. During this chat, MJ Bienvenu said, "I've been told recently that I've mellowed, but the answer is no, I haven't. I have not changed! I'm the same! It's just that people have caught up to me." *laugh* She has a point.

The fall of an American icon

((written while I was stewing through a grad school lecture about how inclusion is the best thing since sliced bread))

Alexander Graham Bell...
Widely acclaimed for the phone...
Admired for having a deaf spouse...
If people only knew...
The phone was accidental.
The purpose was to eliminate deafness.
He believed that:
Deaf people were a scourge on humanity.
His raison d'être was:
To remove me and my kind from the face of the earth.
He hoped to accomplish this by:
Eugenics.
Yes, eugenics.

He may be dead,
but his destructive influence continues to this day.
The AGBAD wields so much power, it's sickening.
It is rich and powerful.
Its representatives are on all relevant boards and organizations.
It affiliates itself with research groups and the medical profession.
It stigmatizes sign language.
It is insidious in its reach.
The list goes on.

Fuck you, Alexander Graham Bell.
You are the Deaf person's Hitler.

2/15/06 17h35 PT

Question of the day

I'm not sure what sent me off onto this tangent, but for the past half hour, I've been mulling the question of how the heck ANY deaf person learns how to speak spoken English. It's not like it's the first time I've ever wondered this, but I still don't get it.

Take the word paradigm. Who'd know from looking at it that the g is silent? The Thames River - who'd know that the Brits don't say the th and they say it Taaames? What about Thai being Taai instead of THai? How 'bout the word entourage? I can't describe it properly, but the beginning is aaan, not en, and the final a is very broad. Not obvious from the looks of the word, is it? I vividly recollect Mom correcting me because I'd Gallicized my pronounciation of carafe, which is a French word in origin - butBUTbut it's one of the few that didn't retain its original pronounciation after making its way to English. To speak English, you've gotta know pronounciation rules from the following languages: French, Spanish, British English, a smattering of German, some Native American tongues, as well as plain ole American English. And that's not all. On top of that, you gotta know when to apply what set of rules.

I can still hear the criticism from a childhood speech teacher because I didn't say San Jose properly. I did not make the common mistake of Anglicizing the pronounciation, but I remember resisting the criticism. I did eventually grudgingly pronounce "Hosay" to please the teacher. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized I was right all along. Y'see, I had had a local accent, and the speech teacher was from somewhere outta state. A few years ago, I was talking with someone who grew up in San Jose and she said everyone said it "sanna ZAY" quickly. That resonated with me, and I realized that's how I'd grown up saying it until I was told I was wrong. The next time I saw my mother, I asked her how she said San Jose, and she gave me the proper Spanish pronounciation of "San Hosay." I simply responded, "No you don't," which sent her into splutters. After said spluttering quieted down, I said, "sanna ZAY," and pointed out that was how she'd said it all my life. The question mark over her head was comically clear, and she started alternating pronounciations to see which sounded more right. After a few minutes, she paused and nodded, saying "sanna ZAY." *nodding my head with satisfaction* I KNEW it.

Pronounciation is not the only issue here - it's more complicated than that. You gotta know which syllable to stress when, and it changes, depending on your tone and on whether you're asking a question or giving an order. The cadence and speed varies from region to region, from the clipped notes of New England to the rolling drawly y'alls of the Deep South to the Midwestern twang.

This whole thing touches upon so many aspects of Deafness and Deafhood, it's unbelievable. At the forefront of my mind is the thought that no matter what is done to or implanted in a non-hearing child, spoken English is never ever going to be fully accessible. This is simply because the non-hearing child will not become hearing; therefore, spoken English is not a language that the child can acquire naturally without barriers. I happen to have a facility for languages, picking up foreign tongues like a sponge, which helps with my understanding of spoken English. My first language was acquired through signs, though, which proves my point. All my languages were possible and made comprehensible first via a solid background in a fully accessible language. My mother, however, insisted on a solid understanding of spoken English, and I am probably one of the best lipreaders I know. I also don't depend on my hearing to understand the spoken word - I do it exclusively via lipreading, which is very unusual among my peers. My abilities wouldn't be possible without first having a solid foundation in a visually accessible mode of communication and secondly being lucky enough to have an innate ability to acquire and use multiple languages. Thus, I would like to posit the idea that the current practice of denying implanted children and some non-implanted children access to American Sign Language is language deprivation, and as such, a form of child abuse.

Paradigms

Two and a half weeks ago, on January 7th, I had the first audiogram I've had since my college days. I had to have it in order to prove my eligibility for interpreting services for my credential classes this spring. When my hearing was last laid bare on paper for all to survey, my numbers read as follows:
Left ear: 85 dB HL
Right ear: 90 dB HL

Well, on the 7th, I sat in a booth that was mind-numbingly familiar in its sameness with thousands of others across the country. I sat there with headphones slapped on my cranium, and I pushed a button thousands of times. Once it was done, I had a mild headache from all the noise that'd been blasted into my ears. The audiologist came to me with a paper familiar to all people who have had a so-called "hearing loss" for a long time, newly filled out and charted.
The numbers this time?
Left ear: 80 dB HL
Right ear: 80 dB HL

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the state of my hearing has declined, and this ticks me off. *devilish grin*