Below is the English version, although not an actual precise translation, of my ASL rebuttal of the allegation that Deafhood is a tool for discriminatory profiling against fellow members of the Deaf community.
DEAFHOOD. What is it? It IS the Deaf experience… that’s it. However, this concept needs some elaborating upon. You might have noticed the clash between two camps…those who agree with the term Deafhood, which is defined as the Deaf experience, and those who view Deafhood as a worthless and discriminatory concept. I will discuss the latter view later on, but for now, we shall examine whether Deafhood is discriminatory against those who are not culturally ASL Deaf members of Deaf families.
Let’s take a look at those (of us) who agree with the term, Deafhood:
• I’m from a Hearing family, but grew up in a Deaf school.
• Ella is a member of a Deaf family, and an alumnus of a Deaf school.
• Don G grew up oral (in a mainstreamed setting) and later discovered ASL.
• Ridor is from a Deaf family and attended a Deaf school.
• InsaneMisha? She was raised oral, but now uses ASL.
• DeafChip was the only Deaf member in a Hearing family and attended a Deaf school.
• The DeafJeff: Jeff had an oral upbringing and later on started using ASL
• Mike Schmidt is from a Deaf family, but he is hard-of hearing, and progressively losing more of his hearing.
• Barb DiGi, like Mike, is hard of hearing and from a Deaf family.
• Patti Durr isn’t from a Deaf family, nor did she grow up in a Deaf school. She is hard of hearing.
• And many others like Carl, Aidan and others whose backgrounds with which you are familiar.
We are all from diverse backgrounds, yet we share the Deaf experience, which includes the struggle against audism and the second-class citizenship treatment.
Even Barry, Kelsey (HonBrit), Russell and others of like minds do go through the Deaf experience. They actually have struggles against audism, whether they deny it or not. Regardless, they do go through Deafhood.
To further assist in understanding Deafhood, I’d like to refer to Star’s vlog, which explains womanhood. In that vlog, she says all women go through that experience as mothers, daughters etc. Some women enjoy being women, while others don’t. Some would rather be men due to the enviable “status” of men. Experiences vary. Some women have positive experiences while others have negative experiences being women.
Likewise, some Deaf people may have positive experiences being Deaf, while others have negative ones. The experiences may vary, but we, the Deaf , ALL share the same general experience… the Deaf experience. In a nutshell, it’s Deafhood. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I’ll tell you what Deafhood is NOT. It’s NOT discriminatory profiling against those that are not culturally Deaf, ASL using, members of Deaf families. In other words, the argument that the Deafhood term discriminates against oral, the deafened, and those who are non-signers is implausible.
Examine those who walked out of DVTV, the very same ones who agree with the use of Deafhood term to describe the Deaf experience (Ella, Don G, Mike S, and all others that I just told you about in this post). What are our backgrounds? Then examine this individual’s allegation about Deafhood being the tool for discriminatory profiling against fellow members of the Deaf community. You will find that this profiling allegation is now rendered null and void.
That’s MY view on Deafhood. To reiterate, this term means the Deaf Experience… with a heavy emphasis on POSSIBILITY THINKING!
To view comments by people of different backgrounds under my youtube vlog, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgjcYjH8UtI
I am not antagonistic against the term of “Deafhood”. It has a place in our communication. The problem that I see is the mindset of people who are using the term of “Deafhood”.
I notice that you use the definite article “the” in your definition of Deafhood. It implies that there is only one kind of experience that is shared by people who have deafness. It also implies that it is not possible to have different kinds of experience among the diverse people who have deafness. If you are willing (I am not forcing you) to replace the definite article “the” with an indefinite article “a” in your definition, it makes a lot more sense because I see Deafhood as only one of many kinds of experiences that the deaf people have.
Other problem that I see with the term of Deafhood is that some very strong proponents of Deafhood are not very willing to allow other deaf people who do not agree with Deafhood to express their view. No one has monopoly on any view and those who have strong support for Deafhood do not have the complete control over how other deaf people view themselves.
I notice that your definition of Deafhood diverges significantly from the definition as used in the film at http://www.isignilive.com . That’s okay. It takes some time for the definition(s) for Deafhood to mature and become stable. I just want to mention that it is possible that your definition of Deafhood may not be accurate and thus, may need to change.
I fear to say that I can see how the term of Deafhood can be used in discriminatory way. It is already stated in Dr. Paddy Ladd’s book that cochlear implant and mainstreaming are seen as bad things. Sometimes, I notice that anyone who favors both or either of them is not looked on favorably by the strong proponents of Deafhood.
I see two problems with womanhood as analogy. One problem is the definition of woman. How do you define woman? Can all intersex people have womanhood (and manhood)? Do these people who change their sex from male to female acquire womanhood? Other problem is that womanhood implies the requirement to have physical characteristics that fit the description of woman. If it is used as an analogy for Deafhood, it means that people must have the physical character of deafness in order to experience Deafhood. This will exclude the hearing children of culturally Deaf parents even though they may have very similar experiences as the culturally Deaf people. Is this right or wrong? I don’t know. I only point out the problems in using womanhood as an analogy for Deafhood.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
It is OK to discuss about deafhood. I did wonder about the hearing children of culturally Deaf parents being part of deafhood. Why do you think they created KODA organizations? It is evident that they found the common goal with each other.
Only people like you, Barry and few others who chose to overreact about deafhood excluding Deaf people. Deafhood does apply to *all* kinds of Deaf experiences … even with cochlear implants and speech.
Why keep on beating the dead horse over and over?
R-
Deafhood began as a social theory, in the tradition of Maslow, Adler, Erickson and others. It became developed further by the Californians Lentz, Eberwein, and Gertz into a philosophy that some considered cult-like. I disagree with that; it is simply an interesting theory, no more.
Elements may be in it that need to be discarded, such as speech and the CI being anti-Deafhood. Many Deaf people are using these and yet continue to be comfortable with being Deaf. This is how social theories develop until one day they can be tested in controlled studies.
Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop d/Deaf people from developing different social theories about how we grow and develop as a society.
JPR –
She said “THE” Deaf experience, because collectively, all Deaf people’s individual experiences are our experiences. Not all of us grew up in residential schools, not all of us grew up in mainstreaming, not all of us grew up with oral training, not all of us were abused (physically or psychologically), and on and on. Yet, in EACH of our stories, we recognize the reality of these as part of the Deaf experience, and we recognize that these experiences could have been ours. That is the essence of Deafhood: recognizing the common bonds and experiences that we all share, whether as oral, signing, mainstreaming, residential, hard of hearing, etc., etc. Deaf people.
As for those who say Deafhood is about rejecting speech and the CI, again, this is far from the truth. Deafhoood is about recognizing DEAF ways of life, and wishing to see DEAF-centered ways of raising/educating Deaf children. I know people with CIs who embrace the Deafhood concept, and these people are embraced by those who do not have CIs and support Deafhood. I know people who do not sign very well at all, but support and embrace Deafhood for themselves and the community. I personally can use my voice (and I have a nearly “Hearing” voice), but in my personal interpretation of Deafhood (which applies to me, only) I have decided that I do not need to give Hearing people the privilege of benefiting from my voice, and I alone am in control of when and if I choose to share the use of my voice with others. But this does not mean that I reject others who choose to use their voice; as long as in choosing to do so, these people are not utilizing it as a weapon against other Deaf people or as a means of establishing power or privilege over other Deaf people.
As for the analogy of womanhood, my understanding is that those who choose to undergo gender reassignment are referred to from then on as “she”. This indicates that they have now achieved “womanhood”. They may not be able to bear children, but there are many biologically (from birth) female persons who are unable to bear children; does this then preclude them from claiming the label “woman”? Of course not. So it goes with Deaf people who may not have been born Deaf. By becoming Deaf, they have begun to undergo the process of understanding their own Deafhood. They may not become fluent ASL signers, they may not develop a fully developed sense of Deafhood, but by physically becoming Deaf, they have achieved the right to be called “Deaf” and to say they have “Deafhood”.
Hi Shelley – thank you for vlogging and blogging about this
Because you did it both in ASL and English we see that you are not excluding non-signers nor are u excluding ASL folks.
Point of clarification
Joseph states:
“I fear to say that I can see how the term of Deafhood can be used in discriminatory way. It is already stated in Dr. Paddy Ladd’s book that cochlear implant and mainstreaming are seen as bad things. Sometimes, I notice that anyone who favors both or either of them is not looked on favorably by the strong proponents of Deafhood.”
Dr. Ladd’s examination of cochlear implants and mainstreaming in promoting social isolation and excluded Deaf children from fully accessible and natural language etc is something that MANY other scholars have written about (see cummins, lane, bauman, etc)
Nothing in Dr. Ladd or the other’s work say that we should exclude folks who come from oral, CI, or mainstream backgrounds. They all call for an examination of the systems (medical, educational, “hearing specialists,” social services) that are imposing EXCLUSIONARY practices upon Deaf children and their families.
I do not support the rejection of non-signers, folks with CI (and their families) or folks from mainstream backgrounds.
I know of NO one who has been advocating for an ASL only education and ASL Deaf organization etc
however we know that the AG Bell association advocates for oralism (it recognizes that ASL exists and some folks use it) but in its AVT programs in which it trains and certifies specialists it EXCLUDES and BANS signing and lipreading. In practice and principle they discriminate against ASL and the Deaf childs natural visual acuity
Joseph – i have always enjoyed reading you thinking but i am continually puzzled as to why you have never challenged or questioned AG Bell Association on their practices. One might say you are a strong proponent of Oralism and allow no room for a Deafhood. Is this accurate? I hope not
You said there is a problem in defining what is a Woman – im very puzzled by this – pls elaborate.
RE: CODAs – Dr. Ladd wrote quite about about how much we have to learn from CODAS and also from parents of Deaf children – he definitely sees the family members as being part of Deafhood (notice my lack of article before the term)
Padden and Humphries have also written about how CODAs help to reaffirm that Deaf culture is actually a culture and not a disability by showing folks who dont possess a hearing loss – can also be members of Deaf culture so its not based solely on the physical condition of being Deaf
Since womanhood has been used as a case in point – the term feminist can be utilized by both women and men
NOW (the National Organization of Woman) has explained “Feminism is the radical notion that woman are people”
non-women (i.e. men) may also be considered feminists or supporters of feminism just as heterosexuals can be allies etc
As Diane pointed out – its all brand new and folks can put forth other frameworks without needing to destroy other ideas
Ridor’s point about – why do folks have to keep saying the same thing – Deafhood does not exclude folks
The only folks it might exclude are those who say to be Deaf is horrible and bad and should be destroyed – there are PLENTY out there saying and doing and nearly making that possible – would that we turn our eyes to them and challenge their words, actions, and agendas
One thing for sure about Deafhood is that it is not about deafness. It is basically the “radical notion that Deaf folks are people too” – so what is all the fuss about folks?
Shelley – again thanks for generating this vlog/blog and fostering this discourse
peace
patti
Well said, Don, and Patti. You guys just took the words right out of my mouth…or hands, in my case.
Joseph, I do have some questions regarding your comment:
You stated that Deafhood has a place in our communication. What do you mean by “communication”? Why that particular choice of term, Joseph? Why not use the term “language”? Language as in ASL and/or English.
As for your argument re: the use of article in my definition of Deafhood, Don responded beautifully. I was indeed referring to Deafhood as the GENERAL experience, and as Don pointed out, we vary in specific experiences on an individual basis Collectively speaking, we all struggle with societal attitudes and perspectives of us Deaf people as disabled, and with effects of audism in its various forms. Thus, we share a common general experience.
I don’t differentiate between d/D when it comes to Deaf people. The lower case d makes the term an adjective in my view. The use of d/D to differentiate between people in the Deaf community is quite divisive, and it should be discontinued, IMHO. Deaf with the capitalization refers to us as a people (in the similar vein as Black people, Gay, Jews, etc).
“No one has monopoly on any view and those who have strong support for Deafhood do not have the complete control over how other deaf people view themselves.” Who said anyone wanted to have complete control over how we view ourselves?
Let me ask you these questions, Joseph:
Is it OK for Deaf people to view themselves as less than whole beings, and therefore in need of rehabilitation? Is it OK for us to say that we need to be able to hear and speak in order to operate on an equal footing with Hearing people in society?
“I notice that your definition of Deafhood diverges significantly from the definition as used in the film at http://www.isignilive.com.”
Perhaps you could direct me to the part where Aidan mentions Deafhood in that website? The word I saw there was “audism.” Audism and Deafhood are not synonymous. Aidan and I are talking about TWO different things, so I’m not sure how you see us as using the same term?
You say Deafhood can be used to discriminate. Identity politics is unfortunately present in oppressed minority groups who live under the shadow of a dominant culture group. I could name tools for discrimination in other minorities, i.e. the paper bag test for the Black people, and the presence of French language police in Quebec. I must emphasize that I dislike identity politics in any form.
I need to remind you that Deafhood is NOT a profiling tool. It is simply the general experience, much like that of womanhood. Womanhood is the general experience women go through. Patti was correct in her point that feminists do not necessarily have to be women per se. Don hit the nail on the head in his response about gender reassignment.
Re: your contention that Deafhood excludes KODA/CODAs purely on the basis that they do not have the physical characteristic of “deafness”. You forget: Deafhood is the general Deaf experience, which includes the struggle against audism. As you yourself stated, children of Deaf parents have similar experiences as those of culturally Deaf people. These children struggle against the effects of audism too. They absorb the cultural values and language of their parents.
Here’s food for thought for you, Joseph. If we said we have ASL culture, people will scream that we are being exclusive and rejecting oral people and those who don’t use ASL. Yet, we include CODA/KODA. When we say Deaf culture, and use the Deafhood term, we are said to exclude CODA/KODAs. We cannot win! It’s truly a case of “damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.”
So, I suggest we begin looking at the glass as half full rather than half empty, and stop accusations of exclusivity. These accusations of exclusivity only serve to divide a community even further. ☺
Indeed, Ridor.
Responding to the comment made by Dr. Donald Grushkin: I notice that you used the word “all”. I don’t believe that Deafhood applies to all people who have deafness. Maybe, it applies to many deaf people but I don’t think that it applies to all deaf people. That’s one problem that I have with Deafhood if one attempts to claim that it applies to all deaf people. It is possible that there are other processes that some deaf people go through and these processes may not fit the definition of Deafhood.
I really have no problem with people believing in Deafhood and all that stuff. I have no problem with people who don’t believe in Deafhood. It is their business. I am minding my own business and they are minding their own businesses. Things become ugly when one attempts to impose his or her view on me and mine on him or her.
Responding to the comment made by Ms. Patti Durr: I don’t think that we are able to understand each other through this discussion. I will wait for right time where there is better dialogue that may help us understand each other better. I am not trying to avoid you. It is just that I thought I expressed my position pretty well in other online discussions but apparently, I did not succeed in that way.
Responding to the comment made by Shel, the blogger: By communication, I meant discourse, conversation, dialogue, discussion, debate, and so on. No one should prevent or stop you from talking, discussing or signing about Deafhood. I may not agree with your thinking in respect to Deafhood but I do recognize that it has a place in the world of discourse, conversation, dialogue, discussion, debate, and so on, all packed in communication.
When I said that no one has monopoly on any view, I noticed that some or few strong proponents of Deafhood attempt not to give any place to those who think otherwise. I let you believe in Deafhood. Can you let me believe that Deafhood is not applicable to all deaf people and can you let me not to believe in Deafhood? You don’t have to answer these questions.
To answer some of your questions, if a deaf or Deaf person wants to view himself or herself as less than whole being, that’s his or her business. I may try to persuade him to think better of himself but if he continues to believe that being deaf is not desirable, that’s his decision and it is not my place to impose my view on him. If a deaf or Deaf person says that he needs to be able to hear and speak in order to function in the real world, I would wince at that and will try to show him the other ways of functioning in the real world. If he still believes that way, that’s his business. Things will become very ugly when these deaf or Deaf people are trying to impose their views on me.
As to where the word of Deafhood appears in the film, this occurred in the entertainment room early in the film. It happened some seconds before the students started to cuddle and sign to each other and a principal told them that signing was not allowed and was forbidden. The captions gave the definition for Deafhood.
Each culture needs to draw a boundary to show what is part of culture and what is not part of culture. So, it does not surprise me that Deaf culture and even also ASL culture need to draw boundary and thereby, need to set up criteria to exclude some people. Otherwise, it is pointless to have culture if it does not have any boundary. This kind of exclusivity can be good or bad depending on how it is used. I do not know the exact contour of Deafhood. It seems that different people have different idea of how the contour of Deafhood should be outlined. That’s normal process and it always happens in the world of communication. Dialogue can help us understand better about the contour of Deafhood. If you and many other people think that hearing children of culturally Deaf parents should be within the contour of Deafhood and there is strong consensus among them, so be it. If there are some disagreements among them, then, there is a potential confusion in using the term of Deafhood and the burden will be upon a user of Deafhood to explain clearly what it means and what it includes and excludes during his or her discourse.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
> I notice that you use the definite article
> “the” in your definition of Deafhood. It
> implies that there is only one kind of
> experience that is shared by people
> who have deafness.
I was trying to decide which newspaper to buy, when I realized that there was a guy behind me, and, yes, he was mad, so I understood that he thought I had been ignoring him. When I explained that I was deaf, he apologized, and quickly offered to read the newspaper to me.
This sort of “Hazards of Deafness” story doesn’t change much if I tell you I am late deafened, which is my situation, or if I were born Deaf of Deaf.
To my mind, Deafhood is that sort of similarity in our journeys.
JPR said:
> When I said that no one has monopoly on any view, I
> noticed that some or few strong proponents of >Deafhood attempt not to give any place to those who
> think otherwise. I let you believe in Deafhood. Can you
> let me believe that Deafhood is not applicable to all
> deaf people and can you let me not to believe in
> Deafhood?
I don’t think the problem is so much that strong proponents are attempting to restrict others’ arguments, but that one strong OPPONENT of Deafhood keeps insisting both that he doesn’t need to understand Deafhood, but that he can explain what it is REALLY about…
Not surprisingly, these explanations are gross distortions of the proponents’ arguments, and force defensive responses from the many people who have done the study, and DO find the perspective of personal value.
This has been followed by implications that “SOME” people are making profit on it (Deafhood Foundation is non-profit), that it is discriminatory, or even “profiling”…
Please understand that I have felt JPR’s objections have been careful and well-reasoned, but the discourse is already poisoned by those who actively work to muddy the very definition.
I just haven’t seen the limiting of discourse come from the Deafhood side. Deafhood is couched in the language of discourse, which REQUIRES other possible discourses.
I keep seeing that whatever Ella chooses to support, “some people” work to tear down by any means necessary, with nothing to replace it with but “look at me, I’m a REAL leader, not Ella!” DBC, Deafhood, CAD… What does Ella support that doesn’t have this one very personal attacker?
Remove that one personal vendetta, and we might see a whole lot more actual agreement on both sides, and, like JPR’s, the discussion could be expected to be more respectful on both sides, more based on actual study and thought, so there COULD BE less defensiveness all around.
IF we just started by recognizing that there really IS one very active personal vendetta against Ella distorting the discourse around Deafhood.
If you honestly try to discount the defensiveness that is CAUSED by deliberate distortion of actual ideas and motives, I believe you would find most people who feel Deafhood a useful perspective would prefer to discuss it on its merits.
My $0.02 worth…
HI Joseph
Thank you for stopping back by and sharing your thoughts. I welcome the chance to talk with you in person some day. I believe you have a good heart and you have made many excellent points in your 2nd entry here.
It seems many folks crave definitive labels – you are either this or you are that. And boundaries do help to define things and while cultures have stronger boundaries than communities do – the cultural boundaries are not built in stone. They are made to preserve and to protect but not to disable and diminish or destroy other ways of being.
Example: In Rochester none of the Reformed Rabbis would perform our wedding (I’m Catholic and my Husband is Jewish) because they want to preserve the Jewish culture. They do recognize children of non-Jewish mothers to be Jewish unlike orthodox or conservative Jewish which normally require a pre-birh conversion by the mother or a special ceremony in which the child is “reborn” in water as a Jew. So while Reformed Jews are more accepting of mixed (interfaith marriages) and do active outreach to these families to ensure the offsprings can have a place in the Jewish community and they recognize that many of the matriarchs in Judaism themselves were not Jewish, many Reformed Rabbis still prefer not to bless mixed marriages because they want to communicate to the couple that it is ideal for the parents to both be of the same religion and they are unsure of if they couple will really commit to raising their children Jewish.
So in our case we had to “rent a Rabbi” as my husband called it – a nice gentleman from Buffalo had to drive in to marry us. Then we found a shul that was cool with mixed marriages even though this the rabbi at this local Rochester would not marry us he did welcome us and we went on to raise two Jewish kids.
So the boundaries were not there to tell me – get the heck out of here u r not wanted to needed or desired – they were there to say – we love our Jewish heritage, we love our Jewish religion, we love our Hebrew language, we love our people – too many too many too many were killed, too many too many too many have assimilated in response to anti-semitism too many too many too many don’t care
too many too many too many don’t know
that is all they were saying to me – they were saying – if u truly want your child to be Jewish – u r gonna have to scale the wall to get in – but once u r in u are welcome
so my husband gave me the boost over the wall and we climbe in and we are loved and welcome
my children will be told they are not Jews by many due to the fact of having a non-Jewish mother
and my daughter will say – “ur kidding right”
to her the whole joke of “who is Deaf enough or who is Jewish enough” is a complete joke
My daughter knows that she would have been considered to be Jewish enough for Hitler and been sent off on the trains
My daughter knows that even the lightest hard of hearing person is deaf enough for them to be treated like idiots by the cashier for not understanding “paper or plastic” while her head turned away
The boundaries are there for a reason but they are truly not built in stone
so you are right there are some grey areas
What Deafhood is about is – defining ourselves for ourselves
folks who choose and prefer to self-identify with deafness and the hearing loss model – that is their choice and their right
by including and acknowledging Deafhood – one is not diminishing the way others want to live – they are just setting boundaries, prompting questions and introspection, and saying if u truly want to explore our heritage and embrace our possibilities – some of u r gonna have to scale the wall
ill be here to give u a boost up
extremism on either side is not a great think – in my book
to think being oral is superior only and best
to think being hearing as much as possible is superior and best
to think being ASL only is superior and best
to think being profoundly Deaf as much as possible (in physical being, schooling, and family) is superior and best
is wrong
if we look at historical oppression we see that the extremism that has controlled Deaf peoples lives and their families the most has been the ORAL ONLY side pendulum
NONE OF US should want the pendulum to swing to the opposite extreme – that English skill should be bannished, that folks speak or hear or enjoy music should be shunned
this is why i am comfortable in Deafhood – because on paper and in principle it is about accepting all to the table and exploring our history, examining the unexamined, and also exploring our potential together
Joseph – i welcome the opportunity to talk with u some day in person – i really do like much of what u say and I KNOW it is not easy for u to share your thoughts because many people are quick to judge or misconstrue or distort and hurt
not to justify their actions but it is often in reaction to some very real bad experiences and the thrust to make people of the eye into people of the ears and mouth
i have seen very harsh things said on both extremes
thankfully there is more good than there is bad
let us each endeavor to be part of that good
Shelley – thank u thank u thank u for creating this space
and for all u do and all u r
peace
patti
Linda,
I had a similar experience recently. I was waiting for my food to come at Wendy’s, and a guy behind me wanted to order his food. I was partly blocking his way, and apparently he was getting pissed at my apparent refusal to move for him (even though he COULD have moved past me — there was enough room for him — or just tapped me on the shoulder). When I looked around and saw him giving me the eye, I realized what must have happened but instead of apologizing, I just looked right back at him with an expression of “What’s YOUR problem, buster?” (The cashier was telling him that I’m Deaf at the same time). Why should we apologize for being Deaf?
JPR –
Like it or not, Deafhood is here to stay!
Deafhood is an universal condition every person with hearing loss experiences. Nothing more, nothing less.
I am thrilled and sad to see how deafhood is used. Thrilled that it is being hotly debated. Sad to see how so badly misunderstood deafhood is by most here and many others.
Shel, this is a good blog. Yes, deafhood can be used to discriminate.
Play Video Comment
Responding to the comment made by Ms. Linda Slovick:
About the experience that you had, I see it as a kind of negative experience. I can see how it can fit the definition as given by Shel but I don’t see how it can agree with the definition of Deafhood as shown in the film. The definition as given in the film focuses only on the positive things. This is related to what I said previously about people having different ideas of how the contour of Deafhood should be outlined. This is my observation and I welcome correction or explanation from you.
If you are referring to Mr. Barry Sewell, it is not really my place to judge him for I have sins and I have no right to cast stone but few of what he did bothered me. It bothered me that he did not give the recognizance that people have the freedom to create a new word called “Deafhood” and to define it according to the consensus among the users of the new word or the authority of few people. This is a part of the process called neologism. Rather than trying to change his mind, I let him be what he wants to be.
The proponents of Deafhood have the right to defend their position like what I do with my comments. However, I noticed that few of them took offensive or provocative approach and this only increased the tension. I don’t see how it can be helpful. (Just to be fair to them, I observed that Mr. Sewell also did use a kind of offensive or provocative approach. So did I in the past and it is not something that I would be proud of.)
Responding to the comment made by Ms. Patti Durr: I am open to any kind of dialogue, be it online or in person, at right time. Thanks.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Play Video Comment
Play Video Comment
Joseph,
You said, “The proponents of Deafhood have the right to defend their position like what I do with my comments. However, I noticed that few of them took offensive or provocative approach and this only increased the tension. I don’t see how it can be helpful.”
How true it is! As you said that you that you have done in the past and not proud of it. That applies to me too. I am not proud of what I may have done in the past of how I approach which did increase the tension.
I am learning as I go along listening to many good positive attitude people that made the difference and yet the message was just as strong.
I learned ASL when I was 19 and came into the Deaf culture and have heard many, many stories of how they have be treated like the black people have in the 50′s and 60′s. I came to understand why some Deaf people use offensive or provocative approach and it is because of their experience in the past. WE need to learn how to approach effectively but it is hard and I am learning as I am right now.
If we both approach each other anonymously some place and not know each other’s name, I bet we would get along just great on a river bank fishing and sharing stories and then eventually be surprised that we are not what we think we are after we introduce our names.
Peace,
John Egbert
Play Video Comment
Play Video Comment
> About the experience that you had, I see it as a kind
> of negative experience. I can see how it can fit the
> definition as given by Shel but I don’t see how it can
> agree with the definition of Deafhood as shown in the
> film. The definition as given in the film focuses only on
> the positive things. This is related to what I said
> previously about people having different ideas of
> how the contour of Deafhood should be outlined. This
> is my observation and I welcome correction or
> explanation from you.
My own view is that it is the SHARING of our negative experiences that STARTS the positive part of the experience… That Deafhood acknowledges the individual audiometrically deaf person’s own experience, but also acknowledges that once we get together (usually because we feel the experience as shared) that the community thus formed CAN become a very positive force.
You are right, however, that this has not actually occurred. To MY view, this is due to a possibly-deliberate muddying of the definition, especially by Mr. Sewell, who seems to believe that Deafhood means that the community encouraged by Deafhood is necessarily an exclusive one (“not deaf enough” need not apply).
When I politely challenged him on that point (saying that Paddy Ladd himself grew up oral, and was mainstreamed for his own education… Does that mean Paddy Ladd is excluded from his own Deafhood idea?), Mr. Sewell removed my comment claiming that that I had used bad language, and found an excuse to subsequently ban me.
From what I’ve seen and read, I am pretty sure that by now, my experience with attempting to politely counter Mr. Sewell’s arguments is far from unique.
Perhaps we can begin again here? It is SO very refreshing to discuss the topic with somebody who tries hard to answer what I meant!
So to summarize, I agree with you that a deaf person’t Deafhood experience is not automatically positive, but believe that this correlates strongly to avoiding the community that is formed by our very-similar individual Deafhood journeys.
That is, understanding Deafhood allows me to use the similarity of the d/Deaf situation to the situation of other subaltern groups to understand this very d/Deaf against D/deaf problem.
Not that this understanding is unique to Deafhood (Ladd credits Harlan Lane for a lot of the ideas that became Deafhood, but also cultural theorist/activist, Stuart Hall, among others), but that our situation vis-a-vis other subaltern groups shows us advocacy and activism strategies we might (or might not) find to be similarly useful.
Hence to me, the DBC’s activism, in part, DOES stem from Deafhood, but the DBC is really pretty tame, because it is just trying to use strategies others have found successful, and changes as it finds things that do and don’t work.
The big bad DBC image largely, in my opinion, a creation of Mr. Sewell’s persistent drumbeat to his followers that anything Ella supports (DBC, AFA, Deafhood, Deafhood Foundation, CAD) must be fought against, simply because he dislikes Ella…
What would Deafhood look like if evaluated without this bias? I DO think it would be more positively perceived, which is why I feel I can understand the film’s stressing the positive posibilities of being able to work together as a counter-narrative to Mr. Sewell’s persistent negativity on the subject, all the while insisting that he “doesn’t need to understand Deafhood.”
In my opinion, you cannot discuss anything objectively if you neither know about the subject, nor like th epeople who support it, AND do not work hard to overcome this bias.
Clearly, you DO do your homework and I DO feel that the points you make are valid.
Is there any way we can work together to get the distortions against Deafhood corrected, so that we can explore what might be useful about the perspective, and go on to developing strategies and techniques that work somewhat like those in ethnic, cultural, disability, gender studies, but that FIT our situation better because we have tuned them to our commonly-shared deaf needs, as well as our individual preferences about how much we should try to assimilate (vs. how much stress “passing” is) into the still-overwhelmingly dominant society.
Hope this is clearer! It is SO GOOD to have you in our discussion!
Ms. Shelley Potma:
I’m surprised at you for naming some deaf people on your blog without knowing the history of the deafness in their families. This is irresponsible of you to do that without askig them for their permission in advance. A school teacher like you should know better than that, Ms. Potma.
You’re making assumptions here, whoever you are, about whether I asked people for permission to use their names or not. I have no idea who you are, Mr. Anon, and I find it interesting that you’re quick to pounce on a perceived error without knowing all the facts, and under a shroud of anonymity at that. Take a look at my youtube vlog comments and see if anyone I named had objected to my use of their names. My youtube link is right in my blog. Go click on it.
As for my mistake re: Deafchip’s family background… I actually know him and chatted with him in the past. He simply reminded me of a fact that I forgot. GASP! I’m living proof that school teachers ARE human!
Ann_C,
This is to let you know I received your comment, but I would like to address your points, in another blog if you don’t mind.
I would like to continue to focus on the positive discourse re: Deafhood the Deaf Experience I see occurring here. Thank you for your patience.
Shel
I apologize for being so late to respond to two commenters’ comments. My only excuse is that I had so many other things to do. I also apologize for the length of the comment.
Responding to Mr. John Egbert’s comment:
I have been with Internet since late 1985 and I have seen people making mistakes in the discourses. I will not try to be too judgmental on these people for I also made same mistakes. It is my hope that they will reduce the frequency of making same mistakes.
There is a lot of truth to what you said about anonymity. When a person makes a comment in an anonymous way, one very immediate effect is that the readers have no personality and personal conflicts with the anonymous person. Because the readers do not know the anonymous person, the only thing that they can judge is the comment itself made by the anonymous person. It is like carrying no baggage. This principle can be applied to the commenters who are not anonymous. It takes practices to focus only on the message rather than thrashing the messenger that conveys the message.
One side effect of communicating with the anonymous people is that it makes you recognize your stereotypes and preconceptions.
But, not all uses of anonymity are helpful and beneficial. Some anonymous comments can be harmful but there are ways to deal with them. I am sure that the readers are very familiar with this dark side of anonymity.
Responding to Ms. Linda Slovick’s comment:
It would be nice that I would participate in the process to improve or change the definition of Deafhood. However, whether this will be possible will depend on how open the leaders and scholars are to the deaf people who have very diverse experiences.
I will go over three angles to demonstrate how difficult the process of defining Deafhood will be. Throughout my comment, I inserted some questions. These questions are not to provoke or aggravate anyone but are my attempts to understand the contour of Deafhood and how it is used in different contexts.
Deafhood within the context of sociology:
Ideally, the scholars in sociology should be completely objective and their job is to record the events that are happening to a group of people and to record their experiences as individual and as a group. They also study the data to form appropriate theories that describe the different characteristics of a group of people.
Do I understand correctly that the scholars in the study of Deafhood accept all kinds of experiences that deaf people had? Here is one extreme example:
A deaf person was born to hearing parents, received cochlear implant when he was one year old, acquired the spoken English language, never used signed languages, attended hearing schools, married to a deaf woman who also had cochlear implant, had one deaf child who also received cochlear implant when he was one year old, used only the spoken English language with the child, got involved in social activities with the hearing people, and was very happy to be part of the majority hearing culture all through his life.
Is his experience part of Deafhood? If not, why is his experience not accepted for Deafhood?
I understand better what you meant by a group of people sharing the similar negative experience that led them to form as a community to make a positive change in the life of deaf people. But, I am not sure if all negative experiences are supposed to be part of Deafhood. I will share a negative experience that I had.
When I was 15 years old, I entered a deaf school as a resident student for the first time. My experience at the residence during the first year was not pleasant. I was being bullied, was made fun of, and picked on by a group of deaf students, some of them are Deaf-of-Deaf. (To balance this out, I also met some new friends at the residence.) Is this kind of experience part of Deafhood?
Shel’s perspective on Deafhood as the Deaf experience seems to include all kinds of experiences. Is that correct? I really don’t know. Do the strong proponents of Deafhood accept all kinds of experiences regardless of whether they are positive or negative? How about the scholars in study of Deafhood? If it is not correct that Deafhood accepts all kinds of experiences, are there any criteria that are used to exclude some experiences from being part of Deafhood?
Deafhood within the context of philosophy:
I notice that a lot of discussions were on the philosophy of Deafhood. Some said that Deafhood is this way and not other way. Other said that Deafhood is that other way and not this way. Some insist, sometimes in forceful way, that Deafhood applies to all deaf people regardless of whether they think otherwise. Others thought that Deafhood did not apply to everyone. Some said different things about Deafhood.
I am fine with all of these different views on Deafhood. Yet, I still have a problem with some people who insist that their philosophy of Deafhood applies to all deaf people including myself. Can they even recognize that Deafhood is not the only one way that applies to all deaf people? Can they even have enough tolerance and respect for some deaf people who do not think that Deafhood applies to them? Can they acknowledge that there are some deaf people who have diverse views on the lives of deaf people?
I am not oblivious to the fact that some philosophers think that their philosophies are right and that the other philosophies are wrong. I observe that few strong proponents of Deafhood are like them. They think that they are right about Deafhood and those who disagree with them are wrong. I have encountered such kind of people. I will not force them to accept my positions even though I don’t agree with them and I let them be what they want to be. But, I hope that they should at least recognize that if they are insistent that they are right, they are partially responsible for not allowing others to participate in forming the definition of Deafhood. In other words, Deafhood could be used as an exclusionary tool. This can lead to problems. In this case, it will be very difficult for deaf people to participate in forming the concept of Deafhood.
It is not hard to acknowledge others’ different opinions on Deafhood but it seems that it eludes few strong proponents of Deafhood.
Deafhood within the context of organizational activities:
I observe that some organizations such as Deaf Bilingual Coalition and California Association of the Deaf use Deafhood as part of its agenda, policy or activity. I have no problem with the organizations using Deafhood. It is the business of the organizations to use or not to use Deafhood for whatever purposes. However, their use of Deafhood is slightly different from the use of Deafhood in philosophy and sociology. They may have specific reasons for using Deafhood. It could be that they use Deafhood to advance their goals. Sometimes, the goals are beneficial. Sometimes, the goals serve only the organizations. In this context, it is extremely difficult to allow the deaf people who have different opinions on Deafhood to be part of these organizations.
It is not surprising that the very serious tensions that we saw in the deaf blogsphere occurred when Deafhood is used to advance an organization’s interests and these interests are not aligned with the dissenters’ interests. There are ways to handle this kind of situation but I will not go into this.
I want to mention one last point before I close. It is about deleting comments that some commenters experienced at DeafVideo.tv. This is unfortunate. It is not limited to one side of the issues surrounding Deafhood. I have seen both sides eliminating the comments or not allowing some comments. I am very worried about what Shel did to the comment made by Ann_C. I hope that Shel will post the entirety of the comment in her next blog entry.
When one removes a comment or blocks a person from making comment, what he really does is that he takes away the space of communication from the commenter. This rarely helps anyone. Every time that a commenter feels that his or her space of communication is taken away, he does not feel that he has the respect or tolerance for his view. To me, giving anyone a space in the sphere of communication is like giving respect to the person and this can lead to greater tolerance for the person’s view. To take away the space from the person is to diminish the respect and tolerance that the person deserves. This is my personal view and I can understand how others may feel differently. In this case, I really don’t condone anyone trying to remove your comments.
I again apologize for the length of this comment.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Hello JPR, Your views are interesting, but I cannot take the time to respond fully at this time. You will know why in the next few sentences.
Ann C and I already corresponded via email about this, and I explained to her why I held her comment up, and moved it to the next blog entry. I also asked for her patience as there are things happening in my life… hectic right now, especially with the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend that is here. I am not sure when the next blog will be posted. Her comment had me thinking in different directions, so that is why I wanted to move her comment.
Others are welcome to respond to your lengthy comment.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to you!
This is a good open honest discussion here.
Is Deafhood a tool for Discriminatory Profiling? Well, it is either yes or no, as it vary from one person to another, depending on the development and functioning of personality within social contexts of the deaf person.
As Dianrez pointed it out the “Deafhood began as a social theory, in the tradition of Maslow, Adler, Erickson and others. It became developed further by the Californians Lentz, Eberwein, and Gertz into a philosophy that some considered cult-like….”
All deaf persons will go or live through various stages of deafhood and its final stage “self-actualization” of accepting their deafness without any prejudged feeling toward themselves and others.
It seems like everyone has their own ideal final stage of “self-actualization.” I think no individual have the right to impose others to conforming to their individual’s or group of individuals’ expectation.
The Gestalt Prayer
I am I, and you are you. I do my thing, and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine.
If by chance we meet, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped. –
Fritz Perls, M.D.