Do we have a challenge ahead of us to avoid becoming Hearing?

shel90 said:
So if one is willing to fight for Deaf rights, how should that person dress? I have noticed those who fight for Deaf rights have their own distinctive styles..some dress unflattering while others do. Look at Bill Gates...very very intelligent but wasnt into the latest fashions. From my understanding, it meant that his passion was about the mathematical equations that went on in his head not fashion.

I am trying to understand what you are implying here.
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Well, that kind of illustrates what I was saying. Bill Gates was not concerned about social niceties...his focus was on his math. So, dressing fashionably was not a part of his world view. His world view was focused on intellectual pursuits.

Likewise, someone who has been oppressed may feel the only way out is to appear to be just like the culture that is oppressing him/her, so will mimic the hearing culture. Their world view is of being oppressed, and the struggle to find a way out of it, so dress is important to them.

On the other hand, someone who has been oppressed or marginalized may accept the status of being a second class citizen, so that they don't really care about their appearance because it doesn't matter what a second class citizen looks like. It won't make any difference in the way the rest of society treats him/her, so why worry about it?
 
jillio said:
You are neither in the academic market, nor the job market. You are elderly and not as active in society as a younger person is. It is only natural that you would not be engaged in those activities that make oppression so obvious.
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I am going to take off on this as the underlying point is, to me, so profound.

One can engage in, or disengage in, virtually any activity.

For example the greatest oppression is in what I think of as "The Worker Ant" position. Management tends to get upset with me when I point out to them that they may be better paid worker ants, but they are still just worker ants.

It is difficult for a Deaf person to get a job in a worker ant position, and even more difficult to work their way up the ladder to be a better paid worker ant.

People talk about Thomas Edison and how he "overcame his disability". Maybe the real truth is he found a way around his "disability" by being an inventor instead of a hired hand. It may have never been a real issue for him.

But what about heading to other fields, outside the worker ant system. Artist, cartoonist, programmer, buying and selling on the net. I know some Deaf people hate mimes but Billy Bragg is a legend. If you can golf as well as Tiger Woods does it really matter if you are Deaf? There have been two great Deaf baseball players.

The problem is our school system trains the student to be a "good worker". That is the student learns to read, and to think, well enough to follow written instructions, but is never taught to think about WHAT they are reading let alone HOW to think about what they are reading. They are trained to go out from school, get a job where they will earn more than people with less education, and BECOME A LEADER. Somehow being a worker ant who tells other worker ants what to do is seen as Being Master of Your Fate. All of this is hogwash but is a great ego booster for those who believe they have achieved worker ant nirvana.

So perhaps the best solution is not to fall for all the "achievement in school means a better life" agenda and look for other ways to be a well rounded self sufficient human being outside the system.

Find something you love and keep at it.
 
jillio said:
I have been following Sweden's educational system as it pertains to deaf students for several years now. The States could certainly learn a thing or two from their model. The medical establishment could learn much from their protocol regarding CI implantation, as well.
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Actually the "Bastion of Freedom" could learn a lot from Sweden in almost every social/political area.
 
jillio said:
Here you go again, jumping in to advise on situations of which you know very, very little. Kokonut is well known, and not well liked, within the Deaf community, or the deaf community. He has quite a history, and that history follows him here. Many members of this forum have a history with koko that you are completely unaware of. There is more than one member that goes all the way back to his college days. Many more that have had frequent contact with him regarding deaf issues. He has been guilty of ranting in more than one forum. Likewise, he takes issues from AD and comments on them negatively, to include making inflammatory and dishonest statements regarding specific individuals. Again, I would advise you to gather more facts regarding situations before you give unsolicited advise.
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I think Beach Girl is just a natural born "defender personality".

Kind of sweet, really, but naive and often misplaced.
 
jillio said:
Not a problem for me.

So are the Deaf in danger of being totally assimilated into hearing culture?
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The answer is yes. Whether total assimilation will ever happen, how eminent this danger is, or whether it is truly possible are the real questions.

In order to fully understand what the dangers are it would be a good idea to understand how and why Deaf Culture came into existence to begin with.

Deaf Culture came into existence largely because they were outside the mainstream culture. They were not part of it and were not given an opportunity to become part of it. Getting a job, being accepted, even being understood, outside the group was difficult.

The solution was go group up, pool resources, pool money, pool skills, do whatever it took as a group to survive.

Deaf Culture was born in oppression.

Deaf Culture was born in lack of acceptance.

Most Deaf people would like to end oppression and be accepted.

The very achievement of these goals is a threat to Deaf Culture. Once there is no oppression and there is full acceptance then most of the reasons for Deaf Culture disappear.

Thus the very victories Deaf people want are helping to destroy Deaf Culture.

This would eventually leave the only common bond being ASL.

Technology, with or without oralists are doing their best to end the need for ASL.

A "final breakthrough" may never happen. Or it could be here already and we don't even know it yet.

I like to turn problems, possibilities, situations, on their heads. Let me do that with this one.

Perhaps instead of worrying about Deaf adopting hearing norms the best approach might be to teach hearing people to adopt Deaf Norms.

Perhaps the best social answer isn't so much preserving Deaf Culture as in convincing hearing culture to adopt socially valuable Deaf Cultural Attitudes.

I for one would very much like to see hearing culture take a breath from its low context / Every man for himself attitude and adopt a saner Deaf attitude.

I am trying to figure out how to best phrase this.

Instead of preserving Deaf Culture for the Deaf lets promote it as bringing sanity to the hearing.
 
DeafCaroline said:
Hey Grummer - I definitely agree with you that Oralism is not better. 100%.

Just saying for practical reasons such as we live in a speaking hearing world that knowing how to lipread and speak does help add to our ability to communicate with the hearing. In no way am I pushing oralism over signing. Not at all. God no.
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DC, Just something to think about. We who were raised orally, though now learning sign language, are inclined to slip back into using speech and lipreading out of habit. Hearing people demand speech and lipreading because that is all they know and it is also habit. But, let's look at another scenario: If you were in a foreign country where no one could speak English and you could only use Sign language, you would find that the automatic mode in which people revert to communicate when they don't know a language is to use hand gestures, facial expressions, body language - isn't that correct?

It is the audist attitude that enforces spoken language to be dominant and therefore oppressive. If the scenario mention above were to play out in real life, then Grummer's idealistic Deaf enculturalization would in fact work spendidly. To avoid becoming 'hearing' we need to turn the tables on the audists. It is not really as difficult as it may seem. Sign language is sufficient enough in itself if we determine it to be.
 
BecLak said:
DC, Just something to think about. We who were raised orally, though now learning sign language, are inclined to slip back into using speech and lipreading out of habit. Hearing people demand speech and lipreading because that is all they know and it is also habit. But, let's look at another scenario: If you were in a foreign country where no one could speak English and you could only use Sign language, you would find that the automatic mode in which people revert to communicate when they don't know a language is to use hand gestures, facial expressions, body language - isn't that correct?

It is the audist attitude that enforces spoken language to be dominant and therefore oppressive. If the scenario mention above were to play out in real life, then Grummer's idealistic Deaf enculturalization would in fact work spendidly. To avoid becoming 'hearing' we need to turn the tables on the audists. It is not really as difficult as it may seem. Sign language is sufficient enough in itself if we determine it to be.
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Beautifully said !
 
Berry said:
I think Beach Girl is just a natural born "defender personality".

Kind of sweet, really, but naive and often misplaced.
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yes she is sweet but is also naive too BUT knowledgable too, so its a strange difficulty to say naive, but in 'life's term' i think yes she is inclinded to be quite conservative, but freindly yes, would share a luncheon and light talks about dogs, gym yep but i wouldnt go into Deaf debates with her, just simply because it would go sour
 
Berry said:
I think Beach Girl is just a natural born "defender personality".

Kind of sweet, really, but naive and often misplaced.
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yes she is sweet but is also naive too BUT knowledgable too, so its a strange difficulty to say naive, but in 'life's term' i think yes she is inclinded to be quite conservative, but freindly yes, would share a luncheon and light talks about dogs, gym yep but i wouldnt go into Deaf debates with her, just simply because it would go sour
 
BecLak said:
DC, Just something to think about. We who were raised orally, though now learning sign language, are inclined to slip back into using speech and lipreading out of habit. Hearing people demand speech and lipreading because that is all they know and it is also habit. But, let's look at another scenario: If you were in a foreign country where no one could speak English and you could only use Sign language, you would find that the automatic mode in which people revert to communicate when they don't know a language is to use hand gestures, facial expressions, body language - isn't that correct?

It is the audist attitude that enforces spoken language to be dominant and therefore oppressive. If the scenario mention above were to play out in real life, then Grummer's idealistic Deaf enculturalization would in fact work spendidly. To avoid becoming 'hearing' we need to turn the tables on the audists. It is not really as difficult as it may seem. Sign language is sufficient enough in itself if we determine it to be.
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People tend to develop a reliance on a single tool, weapon, or in police parlance, modus operandi. My first sensei in self defense taught me not to become a master of one kind of fighting -- simply because becoming too good at one thing often means you have no skill at anything else. Once you are in a position where you cannot use your one skill you are lost.

An example would be a boxer. Many great boxers are helpless on the ground. A second rate wrestler can take them.

There is a story of a great swordsman in Japan defeated by a less skilled opponent simply because the opponent chose to fight in the middle of a field of bamboo -- Where is was impossible to use a sword.

In truth spoken language and signed language compliment each other. When I describe things to hearing people using ASL gestures, especially classifiers, they understand better. Yet many of them are uncomfortable because I am not using words alone.

The French recognize this and have many gestures that are integral to the language.

Hearing people need to learn that while spoken languages have many advantages they are not always the best for any given situation, never the only, and are sometimes the worst choice for a given situation.

The "oral only" attitude oppresses hearing people as much as it does Deaf people...It is just less obvious to hearing people and they are less apt to realize it.

I agree with the bolded part, and would like to add that if hearing people in general became convinced they are oppressed and deprived of a natural part of human communication by being forbidden to combine speech with commonly agreed upon signs, the entire audist attitude would look as ridiculous to everyone else as it does to us.

And where would we find these commonly agreed upon signs?

In the States it would be ASL, of course.
 
I think the focus of this thread has gone from, "Can we keep Deaf Culture from becoming hearing culture" into "Can we make hearing culture more Deaf."

I like that idea.
 
:wave: I'm reading and learning so much and thinking about all these things....
what Berry wrote:

" Yet many of them are uncomfortable because I am not using words alone...."
endquote-

there above so true, yes, I have experienced that...I think "majority" can become uncomfortable to have something else besides their OWN experience/perception in their face

At a Unitarian church where I sometimes do things, there was a speech/presentation by my rabbi. After, I was with another person who attended and she, myself and the rabbi were discussing...she is a retired 'terp. She shifted to me during a break this and she and I signed together voice off...I felt my perception shift, my inner "phrasing" or perspective move....then we returned to the spoken conversation with the rabbi.
The intersection of all these things - this particular church <which in itself -being a Unitarian - is varied>, rabbi, signed/spoken, all the hearing people - was :hmm: it was multi-dimensional, potentially a microcosm of possibility.

Oppression has this insidious quality also, which makes it so cunning; when it becomes so "everyday" that no one SEES it, there is its power, so those who want to shift that, the rising up has to be consistent and visual. But then those who are IN power may be overwhelmed and so defensive because their safe little world where they didn't have to think is upended, maybe just even by an action of one, a phrasing, a new picture...their old picture blotted out everything else. The new picture animates everything above and below, but they can't see below. They only see in straight lines.
 
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shel90 said:
Actually in the Deaf community, there are the diversity in style of clothing and groups...the jocks, the Goths, bikers, urban, country, and a few more..just like with hearing people. I think it is the same for all cultures.

In the Deaf community, we have our own Deaf style of dress...colorful CIs, glittering HA molds, and a few more.
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Speaking of glittering CIs, I plan to get stickers for my upgrade. I've had it for a while just never got around to getting stickers for them.
 
dogmom said:
:wave: I'm reading and learning so much and thinking about all these things....
what Berry wrote:

" Yet many of them are uncomfortable because I am not using words alone...."
endquote-

there above so true, yes, I have experienced that...I think "majority" can become uncomfortable to have something else besides their OWN experience/perception in their face

At a Unitarian church where I sometimes do things, there was a speech/presentation by my rabbi. After, I was with another person who attended and she, myself and the rabbi were discussing...she is a retired 'terp. She shifted to me during a break this and she and I signed together voice off...I felt my perception shift, my inner "phrasing" or perspective move....then we returned to the spoken conversation with the rabbi.
The intersection of all these things - this particular church <which in itself -being a Unitarian - is varied>, rabbi, signed/spoken, all the hearing people - was :hmm: it was multi-dimensional, potentially a microcosm of possibility.

Oppression has this insidious quality also, which makes it so cunning; when it becomes so "everyday" that no one SEES it, there is its power, so those who want to shift that, the rising up has to be consistent and visual. But then those who are IN power may be overwhelmed and so defensive because their safe little world where they didn't have to think is upended, maybe just even by an action of one, a phrasing, a new picture...their old picture blotted out everything else. The new picture animates everything above and below, but they can't see below. They only see in straight lines.
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People see that which they expect to see -- And only that which they expect to see -- Whether it is there or not.

In extreme emergencies airplanes will land on highways, roads, or streets. A surprising number of cars drive straight into them.

Why?

"I didn't see it."
 
:hmm:yes...

I think there are many kinds of seeing....
literal and/or detailed, like the plane example

seeing the "whole picture", that which is hidden

seeing what people feel, between the lines

people get stuck in only seeing one way
 
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