Did I Over React?

I sent this letter to the Ohio Association of the Deaf, the Principal of the Ohio School for the Deaf, and the Deaf Women of Ohio. If you can think of anyone else I could pass it on to, please let me know!

I am writing you because I am concerned about an announcement of an upcoming event in my ASL class.

A professor from the speech department of Muskingum University, Rachel Pollock, came and visited our ASL 1 class last Monday. She had a wonderful idea that she presented that she wanted to do a reader's theater, called "Deaf Side Story: The Musical." Her idea was to present Deaf culture, using a play, musical, book review, and improv acting. She invited our ASL 1 students to be in this musical. This concerned me to begin with as we have had 3 classes as of Monday only. We have very basic ASL skills and an extremely limited knowledge of Deaf culture. The other flag that went up was that she is hearing and barely signs herself.

After she had presented, I began asking questions. All of the people who will be in the play are also hearing. Though she is working with someone long distance to teach signs to the cast. There will be no Deaf involved, not even helping to keep their portrayal of the Deaf community accurate.

When I asked why she didn't include someone from the Deaf community, or find Deaf to play the Deaf parts of the musical. She responded that there weren't any Deaf close enough. I found this extremely ironic considering our instructor is Deaf and was in the room at the time. While this area may not have an overwhelming Deaf population as some larger cities, they exist!

Her cluelessness about the Deaf culture, hesitancy to include any Deaf in the production, and request for beginning ASL students to join really threw up red flags for me. In addition to several performances around the area, she would like to take this presentation to Los Angeles to the American Reader's Theater Association Nationals.

I am extremely concerned that this will lead to more misunderstanding of the Deaf community. I was wondering if you knew of a way that we could work to change this. Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed, whether writing letters to the professor expressing distaste, planning a peaceful protest of the performance, writing to the department chair, etc. I was hoping you might have some ideas for me.

Amber Wiseman
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Also, I was wondering if members here would want to join me in e-mailing one or more of the below regarding concern?

Professor - rpollock@muskingum.edu
Academic Affairs - jamesc@muskingum.edu
Human Resources - moore@muskingum.edu
Department Chair - jmartin@muskingum.edu

I'm wondering if going to the newspapers or anything would help?

Any other ideas?
 
This sort of thing annoys the hell out of me.

That professor sounds like yet another majority group person that wants to show off to all of their friends about how progressive and open they are by adopting the minority group of the week as their personal rescue mission. And, as usual, she doesn't want to do this by actually talking to the people that live their lives in this group, but instead, would rather just project her own beliefs, prejudices, and stereotypes onto them in her "gallant" attempt to save/rescue/whatever these "poor unfortunate souls."

Bleh.

Good on you for speaking up on this. Hopefully the situation can be salvaged, and it can turn into a positive and accurate portrayal of Deaf culture with the involvement of some actual Deaf folks.
 
joycem137 said:
This sort of thing annoys the hell out of me.

That professor sounds like yet another majority group person that wants to show off to all of their friends about how progressive and open they are by adopting the minority group of the week as their personal rescue mission. And, as usual, she doesn't want to do this by actually talking to the people that live their lives in this group, but instead, would rather just project her own beliefs, prejudices, and stereotypes onto them in her "gallant" attempt to save/rescue/whatever these "poor unfortunate souls."

Bleh.

Good on you for speaking up on this. Hopefully the situation can be salvaged, and it can turn into a positive and accurate portrayal of Deaf culture with the involvement of some actual Deaf folks.
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Yeah is sound more like the professor is trying to show how understanding she it about the deaf community ,it really is all about her and it is using the deaf community for her own gain! I think there should be a boycott on the play if no deaf people are in it!!
 
oh, ok thanks Jiro-

joycem - cool hair:)

and yeah, more to the point - for me, there is a genuine interest in learning about various cultures and people and honoring that, vs doing a "flavor of the month" fad thing, which is really to serve one's own self-interest. As described better in joyce and whatdidyousay!'s references-
 
I'm all for more visibility for Deaf culture and issues in the public eye, so seems like this might be an opportunity to make a difference, rather than something to block. Maybe you could contact the professor directly to discuss your concerns? Perhaps a one on one discussion might be more productive than what you experienced when discussing such issues during the prof's request for participation from your group of snickering classmates (who seem like jerks, btw).

While the professor requesting help from those who know (or are learning) ASL was in the room, how did your ASL instructor react to her ideas and then to the points you brought up?
 
I'm curious, how often does the Deaf Community do plays to get hearing people involved in ASL and Deaf Culture? From my own experience, the only time I ever come across anything like this is when I go searching for it.
 
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