1.

“I can’t hire you beause you’re deaf.”
“It isn’t a safe environment for someone with a hearing loss”
“I can’t promote you to supervisor because of your hearing loss.”
“ASL is a “fun language”, less important than English.”
“I can’t rent this apartment to you because you’re deaf.”
“Deaf people must learn English (forget ASL) because when they grow up they will have to function in the hearing society and need it to find jobs, find happiness and have a full and useful life.”

(Malkowski. The Canadian Hearing Society Magazine. Spring/Summer 2003 and Malkowski.Removing Attitudinal Barriers and Audism in Policy and Practice. 2010)

2.

“I can’t hire you because you’re black.”
“It isn’t a safe environment for a woman”
“I can’t promote you to supervisor because of your Jewishness.”
“Spanish is a “fun language”, less important than English.”
“I can’t rent this apartment to you because you’re Iraqi.”
“ Immigrant people must learn English (forget Spanish) because when they grow up they will have to function in the [American] society and need it to find jobs, find happiness and have a full and useful life.”

Which set of statements would get people outraged, and upon what grounds? The second set, of course, because they are either blatantly racist, or sexist.  The outrage would spill over into the media, in government buildings, in human rights tribunals.  Many in the majority group would side with women, racial groups on this, and justifiably so.

Yet, the silence is resounding when it comes to the first set of statements.  They are blatantly audist.  How many people would speak up? Admittedly, my choice of words in the first and second sentences of this paragraph could be construed as audist .  This just goes to show just how pervasive this type of language is in this society.  To wit: I obtained Mike Schmidt’s permission to use his vlog from Facebook.  This vlog will show exactly how pervasive the negative perception of the Deaf is, and how the term deaf has such negative connotations:

In his vlog, Mike called for a change in the use of language when it comes to the term deaf, and I agree that it is necessary to challenge the audist language as applies to us Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.  The language as shown in text in Mike’s vlog are actually deaf slurs, in the same vein as racial slurs.  This language reflects the attitudinal bias, which is audist in nature.  Audism is so similar to racism in attitude, and is reflected in discriminatory language and behaviours that uncannily resembles those of racial discriminatory language and behaviours.

During his March 10, 2010 presentation, Removing Attitudinal Barriers and Audism in Policy and Practice, Malkowski calls on us Canadians to challenge the attitudes and discrimination using both the following pieces of legislation:

  • Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Policies and Guidelines: Policy and Guidelines on Racism and Racial Discrinination
  • Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act,

both significant Human Rights legislation pieces in Canada, made stronger by the fact that Canada just became the 82nd country to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in New York.