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.