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*