September | 2010 | Shel: A Deaf Canadian's Thoughts

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Sep

It’s a Hearing World, After All…

It’s a Hearing world, did you know that? Yessireebob! Sure enough! This came up at Patti’s blog where the debate continues to rage on the issue of cochlear implants. A commenter there just reminded us that it’s a hearing world that we live in. Yet another politically incorrect statement if I ever saw one!

It’s a man’s world, after all. This has been said to women who dared challenge male-dominated bastions of business, government, and elsewhere.. Women were told to remember their place in society. Today, women are in positions of power in different areas of society.

It’s a White man’s world. Said to Aboriginals, African-American and other non-WASP upstarts who were reminded to stay in their place. Civil Rights Movement happened in USA. Canadian aboriginals got an apology from our Prime Minister. We got First Nations people in government. We have Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq (First Inuk from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to obtain such an august position). Oh, and let’s not forget Barack Obama, President of the USA.

It’s a Straight world. Said to the Gay people who were once told they suffered from mental deviancy. We got gay politicians in both USA and Canadian governments.

Once, members from each minority group had to “pass” in order to succeed.

For the African Americans, it was the “high yellow” folk who made it in the White man’s world.

For the Native Americans, they had to conform to white values (at the expense of their own cultural values) to make it in the White Man’s world. .

Women once had to submerge their feminity to make it in the man’s world.

Gay people have had to remain in the closet to make it in the Straight world, though more and more are coming out.

NOW you tell us Deaf that it’s a Hearing world, and we have to conform, and lose our Deaf nature and be surgically altered so we can hear to make it? It’d make our lives easier?

Has conforming to WASP man’s world make the lives of women, nonwhite folk, Gays easier ? At what cost to their identities, souls? Has history shown that it is better to adhere to the values imposed upon others by the group in power? Nope.

Quite the opposite, in fact. ALL the aforementioned groups REBELLED.

Women’s suffrage movements were born in both USA and Canada. “Extremists” like Susan B. Anthony and Nellie McClung respectively led those movements.

Martin Luther King Jr. (arguably an extremist) led the Civil Rights Movement, along with the more “extremist” Malcolm X.

First Nations people also revolted. Lawsuits ensued. MPP Elijah Harper singlehandedly killed the Meech Lake Accord in Canada and damaged the image of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney with a single eagle’s feather. The First Nations People also won an apology from our Prime Minister.

The Gay people in Canada won legal protection against discrimination in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Ontario Human Rights Code. Bill C-250 accorded Gays the same legal rights as straight people.

NOW you’re telling us, the Deaf, that it’s a Hearing world and we MUST conform? We must hear in order to make our lives better?

Right now, we are rebelling against that. Where’s the proof of that rebellion?

Deaf President Now Movement in the USA, 1988.
Deaf Ontario Now movement 1988 led by Gary Malkowski, who went on to become the first Deaf (federal) MP (Member of Parliament) in Canada. He was one of the key people who got Ontario gov’t to recognize ASL as a language of instruction that may be taught in schools in Ontario (google Bill 4 that was passed in Ontario Provincial Parliament in July 2007) today.
Gallaudet Unity protests (2006)
Vancouver ICED 2010′s repudiation of the Milan 1880 Resolution and the authoring of the New Era Document by the BC Deaf community committee and ICED 2010 Committee… which had Deaf members! The New Era Document calls upon all nations and educational systems to respect all sign languages of the world and to involve the Deaf in every level of decision making especially when it affects the Deaf.
Most recently: CDNIAS’ opposition of AB2072 as pushed by Mendoza in California the last few months.

And we are still being told to remain in our place and accept modifications because it’s a Hearing world lest our self-esteem suffer?

Sep

ASL-Only Myth Debunking Time!

Shel

After reading the heated debate over at Patti Durr’s blog on the cochlear implant issue, I saw red (well… more of pink since I’m normally a calm individual) and typed out two comments, which I will show in two different posts. One has to do with the myth of damaging a Deaf child’s esteem if parents chose the “ASL only” road with their child. That is one myth I will proceed to dismantle here in this very post.

I’m taking an excerpt from one commenter’s long comment here:

“I felt it would be more damaging for her self esteem to grow up ASL only, than to have the implant and the ability to communicate verbally. I also felt that since the majority of the world is hearing, that things would be easier for her, as an adult if she also had the ability to hear.”

I’m focusing on the first sentence here. (I will dissect the second sentence in the next post.) Before I continue, I want to make clear that I know that commenter did not say the above with the intention of offending anyone. The individual doesn’t realize just how politically incorrect her statements are.

Here’s my response to her… edited for this post since I spotted some sections that needed editing for further clarity:

No Deaf child has grown up with ASL only. That is a myth!

Each Deaf child, regardless of the decibel level as measured on audiograms, is required by law to learn English…at least in North America (both USA and Anglophone Canada). ALL Deaf children have had to learn English through whatever strategies, methods, or modes foisted upon them by the educational system which is heavily dependent on the prescriptive model rather than the cultural model.

You see before you… a Deaf adult who grew up with “ASL only”. Oops. I meant bilingual. Last I checked, my self esteem is pretty intact, thank you very much. I know of MANY Deaf children and adults who grew up BILINGUAL ( again, there’s no such a thing as ASL ONLY). So far, self esteem has not been an issue.

My mother (bless her sturdy soul!) told me that she had to buck the audist system… yes, audist… who repeatedly told her that I had to fit in with society. She could easily have caved in and gone the oral method, but she didn’t! In fact, she told the professionals that THEY had to change to fit ME when I was small. I remember her telling me when I was 20 years old that when she was at that old crossroads (oral VS manual)… “I decided to raise you normal and sign”. THAT was a profound statement, which still resonates with me even now.

Another thing, when the CI prototype came up in the 80’s, Mom faced enormous pressure to implant me. She was told by professionals that I was smart and therefore would benefit from the CI. She resisted and told them that the decision was mine solely, and not hers, and that she’d support it whatever it may be. I recall her asking me only ONCE when I was approximately 11 or so if I wanted a CI. I had no idea what that was. Once that was explained to me, I said (according to Mom), “Why? I am fine the way I am. I don’t need to hear.” That was the end of that. Never again did she raise that subject. I completely forgot about that conversation until last year when Mom came to visit me and told me. It’s still a vague memory, though.

As for God being wrong… No. I agree that He doesn’t make mistakes.

I was born Deaf and Mom told me that God made me that way for a reason. She saw that as a gift from God.

DEAF…A gift horse that Hearing society incessantly look in the mouth and curse. A gift horse that they try to modify into what they want. In that, one COULD argue that the CI industry, the audiologist and surgeons are all playing God and second-guessing Him.

Small wonder the world is so screwed up… what with tinkering with what God has wondrously and fearfully created in so many ways, INCLUDING the Deaf people! All in the name of progress. Progress towards what? The fully normal HUMAN ideal being? What’s that anyway? More importantly, according to whom?

See you in the next post. I’m in a debunking mood!