jillio
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2006
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Why does Deaf Culture exist? To me, that answer is both simple and complex. Deaf Culture exists to support the members of that culture, to transmit values and norms and language from one generation to another, to preserve the history of a struggle long fought and still continuing today.
Fundamental to the human condition is a need for belonging, a place of safety, where one is free to be one's imperfect self and still feel acceptance and understanding, and to experience a sense of pride in one's history and existence. Given the fact that the vast majority of Deaf come from hearing families, have been raised more in hearing society than in Deaf culture, and have always, no matter the best of circumstances, been in a position of knowing that they are different than are their most close family members. The feeling of true belonging, of true safety, has never exisited for these individuals. Their first experience with such is when they discover a culture that is built around the very same experiences, the very same emotions, the very same struggles that they have endured their entire life. No longer do they feel that they are trying to be what is unconsciously expected of them, but are free to be just as they are, to function in the way they were meant to function, and not fall short. In hearing society, no matter how hard they tried, they always, always fell short...not because they were incapable or unable to compete, but simply because of the fact of their birth. They could not hear. Nothing, nothing, nothing could make them hearing. And in a society that values auditory function, no matter how much they excelled, they would never achieve what they strived to achieve...hearing status. Deaf Culture makes that striving unnecessary. Deaf Culture provides the empowerment of allowing the individual to know that their deafness is no more a significant difference than is the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes. Deaf Culture provides that sense of sameness, of acceptance, of being valued for intrinsic qualities rather than extrinsic, for those that have been able to find it any where else. Deaf Culture exists to provide a refuge from the audist society in which every single deaf individual must function on a daily basis. Without it, many would not survive the struggle intact. Deaf Culture exists to heal the wounds created, often unintentionally, by an audist society.
