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

[deafskeptic]

Tongue depressors! How could I forget these? It actually happened to me when I was a child. I hated it when they did that because I would gag every time.

Damn, I forgot all about these things.

 

[messymama]

A mum I know did this using a lollipop instead... After exercising a bit, she gave the lollipop to the kid
But some kids are still tortured to learn to talk.

 

[Grummer]

that!!!!

that what? hmm not sure what you're trying to say...

 

[Jiro]

Yes, I am only 17 years old, I imagine things are much more different now? 20 years after the 70's. I don't think the atrocities you went through, happen really nowadays.

lol. the atrocities are still going on nowadays... very strong.... right here in America. When you hit 21, come to DPHH

But you can try to imagine it right now - an alternative dimension. Imagine your parents believing that you are a "defective product" because you're deaf and that you need CI to hear. Imagine your parents being embarrassed to show you around to people they know. Imagine your parents trying to communicate with you the way they want... not your way and getting frustrated all the time. and the worst part? imagine your parents always doubting you and not believing in you because you're a disabled boy and they think you're incapable of living an independent lifestyle - no driving, no walking by yourself, no hanging out with friends, etc. unless it's supervised.

 

[StSapphire]

I wouldn't say publicly. Our last name is chronically mispronounced! I've given up trying to make people say it right. I'm just like yeah, that's good enough.

Haha, my last name is the exact same way. The worst part - it's four letters long, and still absolutely never pronounced right.

 

[Beach girl]

See, it's because all those damn Italians kept all the vowels for themselves, not leaving enough for the Poles and Czechs and Slovaks.

I have a good Polish friend whose last name is spelled with 3 letters. All consonants. People are constantly mispronouncing and misspelling his 3 letter last name, or even accusing him of misspelling his own name. "Hey, there's gotta be a vowel there, right?" Nope.

 

[Frisky Feline]

I have to agree with you here, but isn't society as a whole much more tolerant than that? Most deaf oralies enjoy being part of both worlds, such as GRENDELQ's daughter who does ASL and speaks, (a picture of her AND sheila022 is just dashing!!)

That is so sweeet!

 

[Frisky Feline]

Tongue depressors! How could I forget these? It actually happened to me when I was a child. I hated it when they did that because I would gag every time.

Yeah same here. I kept telling them, "stop it!"

 

[jillio]

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.

This is excellent advice. I often tell people who are anticipating a career change because of job disatisfaction or an acquired disability to tell me what they would do with their time if they could do anything they chose. I personally, embarked on a career change after my son was raised. I chose to take that opportunity to further my education so that I could do what I have wanted to do for years. I am now doing what I love. Most days, it doesn't seen like a job at all.

BTW: have you read Bragg's autobiography? It is called Lessons in Laughter. It was among the first books I read when first beginning to learn about Deaf Culture, and I have re-read it a couple of times. It is very inspiring and thought provoking.

 

[jillio]

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.

The same advise is given to those first starting out in the clinical counseling field. Do not become so reliant on any one theory that you actually restrict your ablity to provide services to different individuals, nor be so eclectic that you master no theory at all. It is advised that you figure out which theory best suits your world view, use that as your foundation, but become well informed regarding all other theories so that you can incorporate them with your foundation as needed.

Personally, I think that advice can be applied to almost any area of life.

 

[sallylou]

I like Jiro's post. It's called empathy.

 

[jillio]

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.

Talk about empowering! That is a profound change in perspective.

 

[jillio]

Errr, I love the superiority of the deaf culture? I mean...I'm deaf, my kids won't necessarily be deaf, you do realize you are losing a 5th sense, which isn't a big deal, but it's not exactly a desirable element. It would be like saying, let's all become learning disabled and economically disadvantaged to convince ourselves we are superior.

The Malcom X of deafies!!! LOL

But with the change in perpsective that Berry identified, it could certainly become more desirable than perhaps you see it now. The disabling effects do not come from lack of sound, but from the societal barriers erected by the hearing culture.

 

[jillio]

I think it's more important not to hide it.

Exactly. It is not about promotion, but of being proud and refusing to hide who one is for the convenience of the majority.

 

[jillio]

I am sorry to hear your losses as well, my point had nothing to do with the jewish aspect, but that was why they were persecuted. The title of this thread is so silly when it discusses the "challenge ahead of us to avoid becoming hearing" and it's rather insulting when there are real problems and real issues going on in the world, than this "imaginary" assimilation.

The context this thread was put in really sounded like the hearing were making some type of forced conversions of the deaf, the way the Christians did in African nations, the Americas, Australia etc...

There are many who consider the assimilation of the deaf into hearing society as a real problem. And given the harm it has done over the years to the academic, social, psychological, and financial domains of the deaf, it is just as real a problem as any other you can name. Just because you don't see it as a problem for you does not mean that it is not a huge problem for others.

If you don't see it as a problem the best thing you can do is dissociate yourself from the topic and from any effort to rectify the problem. Minimizing the effects of assimilation on the deaf, however, is unnacceptable.

 

[jillio]

Most European jews are quite white, albeit they may be brunette as opposed to typical Blonde.

Holland does have many middle eastern jews though, because during the Spanish Inquisition many "sephardim" left Spain and Portugal (many jews went there first from spain) and finally came to Amsterdam.

Jews generally do not identify as "white" whether they are European Jews or Middle Eastern Jews.

 

[jillio]

I was forced to be assimilated. Against my wishes, i was brought up oral and even when I made it very clear that i was utterly miserable being mainstreamed and even outwardly expressed a wish to die if I kept going to the normal school (I first started entertaining thoughts of suicide in grade 3), my mother made me continue going to "normal" schools because doctors and audiologists and parents advocating oralism told her to.

That's forced assimilation.

Yes, it is, and forced assimilation is never effective.

 

[jillio]

I agree - GrendelQ is AMAZING! She's also the exception to the norm. She did her own research. Do you think when parents find out their kids are deaf that their doctors and audiologists are promoting both sign and oralism? Not the case at all. Parents make decisions based on what authoritative figures recommend.

You must be younger than me. Things were different back in my day.

I can assure you that GrendelQ is most definately the exception to the norm for hearing parents of deaf children.

 

[jillio]

I honestly feel, people recommend the CI not out of audist views but sincerity.
I would not be able to be where I am today if it weren't for the CI. I would not benefit from most online lectures on math if I couldn't here. Nor would I be able to be a public speaker, and having interpreters is somewhat self defeating since a CI is much more personal without any middle man transcribing, same goes to communication regarding the phone vs TTY though nowadays regular text and video chat are superior to phone calls.

Unlike the Conversions, deaf people are not being burnt on the stakes, slaughtered or sent out of the country. General America does not have ANY of those views.

Sincerity based on an audist perspective. They sincerely believe that some hearing is better than no hearing.

 

[jillio]

I real hear you, I do not in any way want to invalidate the oppression you went through. It is a shame, and your parents should perhaps have stopped after you made it really clear that you hated the process. Overal I think most oral deafies are happy, but again I feel the topic of this article finds the oral deafism also a bad thing, even if they enjoy it. Assimilation is not always done by force either, for example most foreigners assimilate into some form of americanism (whether that's good or bad)

Perhaps their happiness is more the result of not having a comparison than with the success of an oral existence.