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 ...
You said -- "It was a very odd evening...one of the first times I've ever felt like a complete outsider. I learned something that night."
You felt like the "outsider" that most deaf people feel like -- just walking around in the "hearing world".
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "I've never heard of her."
That's because you've never heard through your hands before.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "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."
It's a "fool's quest" to regard someone like that as "normal". To regard someone like that as normal is to mistreat them. It's to have a lack of understanding. It's to fail to communicate. It's failing to recognize the facts in front of your face.
The deaf *are different* and they always will be. They are in a different culture, they think differently, they comprehend differently, they speak differently, they understand differently -- they are different.
That's recognizing that they are of a different culture and dealing with them in that manner.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Apparently, there are plenty of other deaf people who do find this protest thing a bit surreal. It's not just the hearing people, which would be the majority to find it surreal, but many other deaf and hearing people as well. What isn't surreal in a university that caters to deaf and hard of hearing students and for them to go off like a banshee because the board of trustees selected the first ever deaf woman to be the 9th president?
Yes, surreal even to some deaf/hh people.
You said -- "Yes, surreal even to some deaf/hh people."
I've seen the disagreements (over the years) about trying to make a deaf person a hearing person with a handicap, versus, a deaf person living in a completely different culture.
I suspect a lot of that difference, even within the deaf community, may come from whether a person has been truly deaf or simply hard of hearing or deaf at a later stage in life.
I would say that there is a *divide* right there -- at that point. Having been "hearing" -- puts a person in a completely different position.
I would be willing to bet that this difference in the deaf community may well "divide out" -- right at that point (having been hearing before, versus being deaf all their life).
Regards,
Star Traveler
P.S. -- What can you "say" to a "deaf person" who does not know ASL because they have become, only recently, "deaf". I say, they are not deaf -- they are simply "hearing with a handicap".
The hell it's not! I don't care what your bona fides, deaf culture is every bit as obnoxious as gay culture.
The dirty secret they are so desperate to avoid is they exist by the forbearance of the the hearing majority.
Spare me. And ASL isn't simplified English with a manual vocabulary, either.
You have truly drank the kool-aid.
OK, all that "Children of a Lesser God" stuff.
But when I see someone who is demonstrably different, I don't say, gesture, or do anything to draw attention to their differentness. Common courtesy, IMHO.
But there is a P.C. quality to the nonnegotiable demand that deaf people are different and apart, and prefer it that way.
Here's a story, in 1919, at the worst of the "Black Sox" baseball scandal, as a lighter tale emerged:
Boston had a deaf-mute pitcher named Dummy Taylor, who thought it was perfectly safe to tell the umpire exactly what he thought of him, using his fingers.
But the umpire, whose wife was deaf, understood sign language too, and had Taylor tossed out of the game.
Have the deaf always been this airtight closed community?
You said -- "The hell it's not! I don't care what your bona fides, deaf culture is every bit as obnoxious as gay culture."
Absolutely not! You have definitely proven that you have no inside understanding or knowledge of the deaf people or their culture. It exists simply because *it is* -- and nothing more.
It is not a "construct" of someone's political agenda, as you seem to think it is. It is part of their *very existence* -- whether you like it or not. It exists in the same way a person exists in this country because they were born here. It was not their choice. They way they function is their method of survival.
I have that understanding from over 50 years of being *inside* and *outside* of it.
You also said -- "The dirty secret they are so desperate to avoid is they exist by the forbearance of the the hearing majority."
I suppose you could call the ADA "forbearance of the hearing majority", too. It could also be that others around you allow you to exist -- too -- by their forebearance (which by your comments seems to be the case, I would say....).
I would venture that "dirty little secret" that you want to avoid -- is to not be perceived in the same Hitleresque way that Germans treated the Jews. This would be your secret to keep in regards to "your hearing world" in relation to the deaf people around you.
Regards,
Star Traveler
What are applauding Star Traveler for? According to deaf culture, you robbed your son of his heritage.
The last thing deaf bigots want is a hearing child. I've heard of them actually avoiding childbirth unless they were reasonably sure their offspring would be born deaf.
That's not surreal, that's perverse!
You said -- "You have truly drank the kool-aid."
No, rather..., I have "lived it" from the inside out to the outside in -- in such a way that no hearing person *nor* any deaf person can know. There are a few of us around like that, who don't live in either culture.
You're the one who lacks the understanding of the facts.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Ping........
You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension one must be "a part" of something to evaluate it. Nothing could be more conceited.
As for the rest of your pandering drivel, I invoke Godwin.
Game.
Set.
Match.
My, how unique you are! Do you prefer to be celebrated in verse, or in song?
You said -- "My older son was born deaf, it took years of surgeries and therapy to make him fully functioning in the hearing world. I was supposed to cave in and accept his disability, but one look inside a School for the Deaf made me into the Mother I am today."
It is good for you and your family that you were successful in doing this. This enabled your son to be part of the hearing world. That made him part of your world, instead of being in a separate world (like it is for many deaf people).
If it had not been that way, he would have been different and he would have been in his own separate and distinct culture, no matter what you would have been able to do after that. But, you were successful and that is good.
There is a large group out there -- for various reasons -- who are deaf and will always be that way. It's not something that is going away. And while there are individual successes (like you've recounted to us) -- there still remains that deaf culture.
This is what people don't realize -- that it's a *different society* in understanding, in functioning, in perception, in relating -- in everything. It is *different*.
It's a big mistake to make "deaf people" to be "hearing people with a hearing deficit". It's not that way. They will never function fully in life -- with that kind of thinking. I can see it directly myself. This "understanding" that I have only comes from *direct experience* and not from any kind of political or any kind of motivation.
That's just the way it is....
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "But when I see someone who is demonstrably different, I don't say, gesture, or do anything to draw attention to their differentness. Common courtesy, IMHO."
Well, I would say that's true for most handicaps. It's respectful to have that kind of attitude. However, the way some people handle it with handicaps, it can be embarassing for the handicapped person. It's like something doesn't exist -- even though it does.
But -- for the deaf -- it's different. This is something that puts them into a completely different culture. It produces different ways of even thinking about their *very existence*. They perceive their environment around them in completely different ways that the hearing person does. It's a *different world* for them -- than it is for you, a hearing person. That produces the *different culture* for them.
Deaf people do not think the way that you do. They do not perceive things the way you do. They do not react to things the way you do. They filter everything through different mechanisms than you do. They co-exist in this culture, but they are not of it.
You also said -- "But there is a P.C. quality to the nonnegotiable demand that deaf people are different and apart, and prefer it that way."
Perhaps it seems that way to you. However, this *difference* and the fact that they exist in a different culture -- predates anything having to do with "political correctness." It's not the same thing.
It's simply a recognition of things being different and thus -- we realize that we're dealing with a *different group* of people. They're still "people" of course -- but they are not going to think the same way you do or comprehend things in the same manner as you do.
You also ask -- "Have the deaf always been this airtight closed community?"
I would say yes, whenever they've had a chance to function together, as a group. Yes, they've always been "this airtight closed community".
If you're a hearing person, you're always "suspect" to them. There's a general distrust of hearing people. However, if you've ever grown up in a deaf family -- there is no distrust of you, even if you are hearing. It's an odd thing.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "What are applauding Star Traveler for? According to deaf culture, you robbed your son of his heritage."
That's not true. Deaf parents definitely want their kids to be "normal" -- with full hearing and no handicaps like they have.
In this lady's case, she was able to successfully help her son, and any parent would want to do that.
The questions comes *after* someone tries and it's not successful and they are deaf. *Then* the question is whether they should be functioning fully in the "deaf culture" or if they should limp along in the "hearing world" with their handicap of not hearing.
If they are not able to correct their handicap, then they will forever *limp along* on the hearing world, always feeling out of place, never being part of it and never being fully integrated -- always not understanding what everyone else understands in the hearing world.
But, if they are in the deaf culture -- it's like "coming home" -- then. They will be with others who think like them, who understand like them, who perceive things in the same way as they do. It's *their culture*.
Regards,
Star Traveler
You said -- "You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension one must be "a part" of something to evaluate it. Nothing could be more conceited."
Well, I'm not "part of it" -- in that I'm not deaf. However, I've had experience with it for over 50-some years.
I've had many hearing people come to me and ask me about things in the deaf community and if things are "this way" or "that way" (according to what they're asking me). Some things seem incomprehensible to hearing people other than just taking it for -- "that's just the way it is..."
And that's what it comes down to with deaf people and their culture. "That's the way it is" -- no matter whether you like it or not.
That comes from years of seeing it from the inside out and the outside in. I know it probably better than the deaf people themselves do, and certainly better than most hearing people. And *definitely* better than you do, that's fur sure.
Regards,
Star Traveler
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