Posted on 05/03/2006 1:51:08 PM PDT by kokonut
Students objected to the appointment of Jane Fernandes, who is deaf and is currently the university's provost, because she did not grow up using American Sign Language. Some students also criticized Fernandes for not having warm relations with students.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
When I lived in D.C. area, I rode the metro line that was filled with Gallaudet students. Rowdy bunch...particularly in the pubs at night. Guess they had to find other ways to express themselves.
More here, too.
http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2006/05/washington-post-live-chat-with-dr-jane.html
The party line there now is that it is immoral and genocidal to make deaf people hear again with cochlear implants, that deaf people who receive such implants are traitors and Judases, that people who lipread rather than use ASL exclusively for communication are uncle Toms who reject proud deafness in exchange for aping hearing people, etc.
It's demented. Like Aztlan-style activism for deaf people.
I see them often in Union Station and on the Red line trains. Other than using sign language, their typical college students.
Sorta like the "little people wearing lifts" controversy.
Are you actually a student there? I've heard all this stuff from a friend who was a student there in the late 90s - does her account still hold true?
Funny, I'd think deciding which of the candidates would do the job the best would be the main factor, not what race they are or if they were unfortunate enough to not have been deaf all their life. But that's just me.
I had reservations once in a hotel. When I checked in, I discovered that there was a convention going on in the hotel. Normally, that is a red flag for me. This time, however, the convention was for deaf people.
It was the most amazing thing. My wife and I went down to the bar, as is our custom when we're in hotels. It was packed, as always during a convention. It was also dead silent. Full of people conversing in sign language. It was a very odd evening...one of the first times I've ever felt like a complete outsider. I learned something that night.
it's less like Aztlan and more like gay activism. Gayness is "normal." Gay people should get "married." No one should try to cure gayness, because there's nothing to cure, etc. etc. etc.
In both cases, people have taken an obvious dysfunction and attempted to turn it into something to celebrate.
I've never heard of her.
There are any number of `Helen Keller' jokes lurking about this post, but I won't be cruel to the memory of a truly great woman, who if I recall correctly didn't wish to regarded as `different' because of her disabilities.
I had the hots for her when I was about 13.
You said -- "In both cases, people have taken an obvious dysfunction and attempted to turn it into something to celebrate."
That's a terrible linkage -- of gays to deaf people. There's not an ounce of comparison there.
In case you don't realize it, the deaf community is a different culture. Because of being deaf, it creates a different "culture" -- in a way that no other kind of disability does.
I've spent my whole life dealing with deaf people and living on the inside of it, so I know how it's a completely different culture -- in and of itself. ASL was my first language and English was my second, even though I'm hearing.
And this is not something to "celebrate" as much as it is something to enable *functioning* within society, as a subculture. Deaf people are simply *not* part of the surrounding culture. This is simply a recognition of that fact.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "This is absolutely surreal."
It's not surreal -- unless you're hearing. If you're deaf, you understand it.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "Go to one of the Irish pubs near Union Station at night. Gaullaudet students know how to party...always found them to be the rowdiest group on any given night. Nothing wrong with it. As I said before, just other ways to express themselves."
In communicating, deaf people are "physically expressive" -- rather than vocally, because of the nature of their disability. And the nature of their disability puts them in a *different culture* than the hearing world.
So, in expressing themselves, you'll get banging on tables, wildly waving hands, raps to your shoulders or arms or whatever other anatomy is near enough to hit. It's all normal -- that is, normal to the deaf person. All of this to a hearing person would be rude and extremely disturbing. I suspect that many hearing people simply don't realize that different rules pertain to communicating in the deaf culture, as compared to the hearing culture.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "Other than using sign language, their typical college students."
But, they're not typical "hearing people" with a handicap. They're completely different in that regard. They're a *different culture* altogether.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "A deaf cult has taken over Gallaudet University. The prevailing ideology there right now is that deafness is not a disability, but a culture/nationality/religion."
Now, that's funny! Considering that Gallaudet University is for deaf people -- your usage of "deaf cult" is really a "laugh-a-minute".
Being deaf does absolutely put you into a *different culture*. No matter how hard you try, you will never get a "deaf person" to become a "hearing person with a handicap". That's the problem with other people (on the outside) understanding this. It will never work.
What works is to accept the culture and work within it and understand the differences. To say that it's not a culture and they are simply "hearing people" who happen to have a "hearing deficit" is missing it totally. In fact it's of no good to that deaf person.
Being deaf is perhaps the only handicap that puts a person into a *different culture*. It creates different perceptions, it makes for different reasoning, it causes different understanding, it makes for much misunderstanding in the hearing world, it isolates, it's forces a sub-culture (through no choice of their own).
If you don't know that -- then you know nothing about being deaf.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Patty Duke... when she played young Helen Keller in 1962 and I saw her in Life magazine hand-talking with the real Mrs. Keller just before the latter passed away.
But how about Patty Duke in 1968, in "Valley of the Dolls"? By then at 21 she was _hot_!
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