No it doesn't have to be. Think about it. What is the source of the problem? My answer is communication. If we were able to communicate with each other all of the frustrations and the wall that divides us would vanish. If we can agree on that then what is the next step? The choices I see are that the hearing world learns to communicate with the deaf or the deaf learn to communicate with the hearing. The logical side of me says that you will never get the majority (the hearing) to learn and retain sign language. Its just not realistic to expect that from every hearing person because they may never encounter a deaf person in their entire life. And ASL like anything will get forgotton if you don't use it on a regular basis. If you don't use it you will loose it. So assume that a hearing individual learns sign language but doesn't use it regularly because they don't encounter deafies in their job or social life. Many years go by since they learned to sign and all of the sudden they meet someone whom is deaf. Do you honestly believe they will have retained what they learned many years ago but have not used since then. I know from my personal experience that I would have forgotten much of what I learned and would struggle to communicate using sign.
If you agree with what I just said then the only remaining choice is for the deaf to learn to communicate with the hearing world. Which method or technology is used to do that seems to be contraversial. For me, as long as the end result is our ability to communicate with each other, it doesn't matter how that is accomplished. Lipreading, HA, CI, pencil and paper, signing or any combination. Don't sit back and wait for the hearing population to learn to sign. It will never happen for the reasons mentioned. There are many hearing people that know how to sign but my guess is that they are a minority. If you are waiting on the hearing world to accomidate deafness you will wait forever. Instead you should accept the fact that it's not going to happen and move on to the next logical solution. That is for the deaf to learn to communicate with the hearing world. That is a general statement and IMO doesn't apply to hearing people that deal with deafness because of job and/or family. Those individuals should learn to communicate with deaf and the deaf people in their lives should also make an effort to communicate with the hearing. In those situations it's a two way street and meeting half way would be fair to both sides.
As far as deaf people being treated equally, I agree. But make no mistke that you don't automatically get the benifit of the doubt. Hell, even hearing people don't get that luxury. We have to prove ourselves in life and I can't tell you how many times I have to pay my dues over and over. It's part of life for deaf and hearing. IMO everyone should at least be given the chance to prove themselves. From there, its up to the individual.
