Horizontal violence in Deaf community

Grummer

Grummer

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Hi,

I have extracted some examples from a website which discuss emotional/psyhological abuses which the 'more enculturated' Deaf individual may inflict upon other d/Deaf persons and using 'Deaf cutlure' to rationalise their treatment or behaviour'. Here is a short list of the examples that I have found, I wonder how common are these sort of situation are, they are related to put downs according to a lack of sign competent, form of denial as in a refusal to help another, a form of power play taking place in a pattern which follows a threat of some sort or possessing 'ownership' of social status as possibly a response to learned behaviour of the hearing families?

I'm curious to know what you think
here are the four mani examples..


A) If your colleque or partner is Deaf, he puts you down by calling you "hearing" because you are not fluent enough in ASL, or because you do not identify strongly as Deaf Making fun of your speech or English skills being uncharacteristic

B) Telling you that you are too sensitive, too “hearing,” or “hearing-minded”


C) Telling you that you have problems while he has no problems interacting in the Deaf community

D) Demanding that you discuss issues with him first before discussing with others in the Deaf community

looking forward to see what you think

Cheers
 
I have only had A) imposed on me and right away I told these people to fuck off and that they better stay that way. LOL!

As for B), C) and D), I have never witnessed anything like that..maybe it is cuz I wont tolerate hanging out with such people like that. :dunno:
 
Hoh with moderately hoh husband. (My audiogram calls me deaf)

I don't know where these bad people come from. All deaf we know from community and my husband's work are nice and go out of their way to include us.
 
I've had to deal with #1, #2, and #3 very often.

When I was at RIT, there would be some deaf organizations and clubs that won't listen to me because I'm not "deaf enough" or don't truly understand their needs. :roll:
 
i've experienced a, but not b, c or d.

your post is a perfect example of audism in reverse: discrimination against the hearing, deaf (small "d" deaf) and hoh by the Deaf (big "D" deaf).

by the way, i wonder what is meant by a person's english skills being "uncharacteristic?" could someone who knows what that means please explain? <confused> does that mean a person writes english like a hearing person rather than using asl grammar?
 
Grummer said:
Hi,

I have extracted some examples from a website which discuss emotional/psyhological abuses which the 'more enculturated' Deaf individual may inflict upon other d/Deaf persons and using 'Deaf cutlure' to rationalise their treatment or behaviour'. Here is a short list of the examples that I have found, I wonder how common are these sort of situation are, they are related to put downs according to a lack of sign competent, form of denial as in a refusal to help another, a form of power play taking place in a pattern which follows a threat of some sort or possessing 'ownership' of social status as possibly a response to learned behaviour of the hearing families?

I'm curious to know what you think
here are the four mani examples..


A) If your colleque or partner is Deaf, he puts you down by calling you "hearing" because you are not fluent enough in ASL, or because you do not identify strongly as Deaf Making fun of your speech or English skills being uncharacteristic

B) Telling you that you are too sensitive, too “hearing,” or “hearing-minded”


C) Telling you that you have problems while he has no problems interacting in the Deaf community

D) Demanding that you discuss issues with him first before discussing with others in the Deaf community

looking forward to see what you think

Cheers
Click to expand...

I've experienced all and the results were funny!

A) I remind them that the hearing folks come to me before going to them due to language differences as some hearing collegues don't understand their written English skills.....

B) I look at them and remind them who gets the promotions at work. Thus who has more money.

C) I ask, "why limit yourself?"

D) I refused to discuss anything with a certain individual as I was planning to fire this guy. He heard that I was discussing things and came to me to demand why I haven't spoken to him about it. My response was this: " I am planning to fire you for incompetency and am networking to see who would be a better candidate to take your job." His response was this : :shock:
 
I've had plms with #1 and basically told them to take their butts elsewhere. I don't care what people label me, etc., but who I am is who I am.
 
I think the worst thing that ever really happened to me was getting teased that I did not have enough facial expression while signing.

And the person who did it, made it funny, and it is true.:)
 
This is exactly why I'm in the camp that believes "audism" should be a more general term. This is discriminating on the basis of hearing status or deafness, which is what "audism" technically means. There is no such thing as "reverse sexism" or "reverse racism"; this is just plain audism to me, no matter who's the one saying it.

Then again I don't belong to the group that supposedly owns the term "audism," so this is my HEARING-MIND perspective.
 
Nice to see you back, Interpretrator you always brings in valued opinion even if you're hearing, your opnions are not typical or conventional of the the hearing masses/hearies. (akhem i hope i dont offend you, i wasn't really saying about you, but more to those 'hearing (or hearies/hearing wannabes) professionals in industry...). but um, could you expand a little on what you meant by why you dont believe theres a such thing as reverse racism, or reverse sexism? ( i happen to disagree however , not wholeheartly disagree as there are what i suspect some form of discrepency that could be aligned somewhere.

While i say Yes! that i agree you about how it connect with audism and it is interesting how you said it should be expanded into a more general term (that i tend to agree on that too!) so if you dont mind, could you give one example how it ought to be expanded into the mainstream awareness/thinking ?? (but if you prefer to PM me that's fine too, that is if you think its too controversial)

:)

Cheers
 
Wow, this is all new to me. Never experienced all four. Even though I've been mistaken few times as an interpreter in college.

However, does getting a very bad grade in a deaf centered Human Sexuality course from a deaf teacher count? Even if I got 93% on the final exam? I got a D for the course. I didn't even bother to argue with the teacher over it or get the grade overturned. I actually babysat the teachers' two kids and taught the teacher a new word for something she should know herself! So I moved on. Another guy got a great grade on the same exam, and had two parents who were professors. Yet he got the same grade as I did. :dunno:

I've always gotten A's and B here and there on my reports in Jr. High, HS only to get a C from a teacher who only taught deaf students? So deafonly courses were no longer interesting or worth my time after that.
 
I have probably experienced all 4 on some level, but mainly with friends, not with a significant other. I was married for 13 years to a deaf husband (I'm deaf myself) so we didn't encounter any of these issues, obviously. Now, I'm divorced and I have been with someone for the past 1 1/2 years. He is an incredibly nice guy (he's hearing) - the kind of guy I wished I had known when I was young - he would have been the kind to stand up for me when I was being bullied, would have been my friend when nobody else wanted to be (I was known as "that deaf kid" in a school of 4,000 hearing people), and so on ... This may sound odd, but we are both poker players, so we spend a lot of time at poker outlets (card rooms and free-bar-poker - it is legal here in MN) and we have become WELL known. Everybody (even those I don't know) recognizes me on sight (or does as soon as they hear the HDC is there (the "Hot Deaf Chick" as I have been labeled as! LOL) and my boyfriend as well - they have heard of us - word has spread throughout the hearing poker community here and everyone likes and respects us. They all want to be our friends. They go out of their way to be super-nice to me and my boyfriend. It is a phenomenon I've never seen before and I admit it's a wonderful feeling to be so admired and respected when I had the exact opposite of that, growing up. Besides that, he is always looking out for me, making sure I understand everything that's going on, and if he sees me in a situation that looks like I might be uncomfortable in, he is immediately by my side asking if everything is ok. I could not ask for anything better than this. It is truly an amazing relationship. In conclusion, I could never apply any of the 4 (A-D that were posted above) to him, but I have heard of others who could say that about their signifcant others.
 
im kind of suprised there wasnt many responses, which compells me to feel like, 'shall I begin to kind of wondering if this four examples are 'too hazy' to relate to?

This somewhat beckons me to wonder if we can consider a new presupposition that some deaf/Deaf people are now-a-days better adjusted?
or is there a conditional aspect relating to some framework or a set of 'success criteria' ?

Hmmm
 
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Grummer said:
Nice to see you back, Interpretrator you always brings in valued opinion even if you're hearing, your opnions are not typical or conventional of the the hearing masses/hearies. (akhem i hope i dont offend you, i wasn't really saying about you, but more to those 'hearing (or hearies/hearing wannabes) professionals in industry...). but um, could you expand a little on what you meant by why you dont believe theres a such thing as reverse racism, or reverse sexism? ( i happen to disagree however , not wholeheartly disagree as there are what i suspect some form of discrepency that could be aligned somewhere.

While i say Yes! that i agree you about how it connect with audism and it is interesting how you said it should be expanded into a more general term (that i tend to agree on that too!) so if you dont mind, could you give one example how it ought to be expanded into the mainstream awareness/thinking ?? (but if you prefer to PM me that's fine too, that is if you think its too controversial)

:)

Cheers
Click to expand...

I agree with Interpretator that there is no such thing as "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism." Sexism is the discrimination of a person based on sex. It can be a woman discriminating against a man, or a man discriminating against a woman simply because of the other's sex. It is still just sexism by any definition. Sexism is not limited to the discrimination of one particular sex against another particular sex, but refers to any discrimination against anyone based on sex.

Same with racisim. If a white person discriminates against a black person based on their race, it is racism. If a black person discriminates against a white person based on their race, it is racism. Racism is a term that refers to discrimination against anyone based on their race.
 
This may be hazy but I've noticed Blacks giving each other a harder time at times than giving others of different ethnic orgins. I am not sure about Hispanics and Asians. Never paid too much attention to the last two. Hispanics definitely stick together, and whites too if they are part of the Hispanic culture like living in Miami. Just commenting on this thread.
 
IslandBreeze07 said:
This may be hazy but I've noticed Blacks giving each other a harder time at times than giving others of different ethnic orgins. I am not sure about Hispanics and Asians. Never paid too much attention to the last two. Hispanics definitely stick together, and whites too if they are part of the Hispanic culture like living in Miami. Just commenting on this thread.
Click to expand...

I agree with that, IslandBreeze. In group racism happens, too.
 
jillio said:
I agree with Interpretator that there is no such thing as "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism." Sexism is the discrimination of a person based on sex. It can be a woman discriminating against a man, or a man discriminating against a woman simply because of the other's sex. It is still just sexism by any definition. Sexism is not limited to the discrimination of one particular sex against another particular sex, but refers to any discrimination against anyone based on sex.

Same with racisim. If a white person discriminates against a black person based on their race, it is racism. If a black person discriminates against a white person based on their race, it is racism. Racism is a term that refers to discrimination against anyone based on their race.
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't get back to this thread until now, but yes, jillio sums up exactly what I meant. And to my mind, a Deaf person making fun of a HOH or hearing person on the basis of that person's not being Deaf is audism, just as a hearing person making fun of a d/Deaf person on the basis of that person's deafness is.

Like I said, though, I understand this is not the accepted use of the term "audism." The derivation of the word ought to make it apply in both directions, but I realize the community wanted a word to describe the particular type of oppression it experiences, and so the connotation is the oppression of the deaf by the hearing.
 
I could apply all of those to my ex-husband.

He made fun of the fact that I couldn't hear him and often yelled at me. He would come up to me say "I'll give you some spending money if you can tell me what I just said." Of course this was when I was jobless and had no money of my own to spend so this was very demeaning.

He told me I was way too sensitive.

He often put me in social situations where it would be difficult for me to interact with others then he would make fun of me if I misheard something or if I didn't hear it at all. I would often have to pretend to listen by smiling when everyone else in the group smiled, never understanding any of the jokes and catching just bits and pieces of the conversation.

And he often accused me of working against him by talking about issues that I felt were irrelevant to him.

Needless to say it was a very abusive relationship and I hardly recall any happy moments.

If I married again, it would be hard for me to embrace the marriage fully given my horrid past experience.
 
The original questions made me think of the parallels between the deaf and some black people, who are ridiculed for trying to be "too white".

It may be human nature to want to pigeonhole people into nice, neat categories, but I find that variety is the spice of life.
 
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