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.