Tag-Archive for » attitude barriers «

18
Mar

Challenging Audist Language (and Slurs)

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.

Category: Audism  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,  11 Comments
10
Jan

"Resistance is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated."

“…Our now global community, which the deaf cannot resist no matter how they try, they stand a real chance of being sidelined, and the cultural ID taken by other sectors.”

OK. Now I have visions of the Borg chasing me and mouthing collectively, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” No interpreters provided, though. Yikes!

Viewing this blog post, Discrimination-Central, reminded me so vividly of this old Star Trek: Next Generation TV series which had a race of cyborgs, the Borg, whose sole purpose was to assimilate people of different planets into their hives.
According to the Wikipedia, “”The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom “resistance is futile.”
At the 1880 Milan conference, the Deaf people faced their first Borg and lost. This Borg caused the displacement of Deaf teachers and administrators by Hearing individuals in the Deaf schools in North America and revamping Deaf education to adhere to the Oralist philosophy. We all know the history of audist and assimilationist practices inflicted on Deaf children in the quest to eradicate natural Signed Languages, so we won’t rehash that here.

The Borg we now face is now a more sophisticated apparatus that includes not only oralist organizations but also the medical and educational systems that are heavily invested in the pathological disability view of the Deaf. In the past twenty to thirty years, the cochlear implant and AVT industries have joined this colossal juggernaut in the quest to assimilate us into the mainstream society.

Resistance is futile, you say? I daresay not!

In almost 129 years, there have been Deaf people who have resisted the Borg’s oppressive attempts and preserved our Deaf Culture and ASL. We also have stories of Deaf people who grew up oral, but came to love ASL and identify themselves as Deaf. Our resistance to assimilation continues to this day.

“As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs. And as long as we have our films, we can preserve signs in their old purity. It is my hope that we will all love and guard our beautiful sign language as the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.”–George Veditz, 1913.
Category: Audism  Tags: , , ,  21 Comments
14
Jun

Perspective of a Child of Hearing Parents: A Response

Readers, this is my rebuttal to a comment made by the author of A Weeping ASL Deaf User on the Cochlear Implant Online blog.

Dear OpenMinded Deaf Observer,

This is in response to your comment (#59)

I’m sorry for your pain of feeling “subhuman” in your family of hearing people.

I am a Child Of Hearing Parents like you. However, you and I differ in our perspectives of the world. My parents decided to not go the oral route with me, but raise me normally (my mother’s words, not mine) with sign language from 6 months old, and “bathe” me in language through the visible, accessible ASL surrounded by Deaf adults, and the strong supportive Deaf community where I hail from.
I have never grown up feeling like a black sheep in my Hearing family. True, not many people in my extended family signed, but that did not mean I did not grow up bilingual. I was surrounded by BOOKS, and by relatives including my grandparents and many uncles, aunts, and cousins who were more than happy to chat with me through writing, or fingerspelling or signing. Throughout my childhood, I got to see a variety of written English, from primary levels up to Ph.D level, so my English skills flourished.
Never once did I feel subhuman. In fact, I grew up feeling loved, and involved in family games and activities. True, I wasn’t able to participate in conversations fully, but that didn’t really bother me as I preferred to READ. I never felt that I HAD to fit into my family or that I HAD to use my speech. I was ACCEPTED for the unique Deaf individual I am by my family. True, I was occasionally curious about how things sounded, but I never had the burning desire to HEAR. How could I miss something that I never had in the first place? Silence is golden especially when you have 40+ cousins in your grandparents’ house! ;-)

As a Deaf Canadian, I support the bilingual approach for Deaf Children. True, more children are implanted these days, but that does not mean they shouldn’t have the advantage of ASL as well as spoken English.

As for technology:
TTY or Videophone? I’ll take both!! I use TTY for conversing with Hearing people through relay service. I don’t mind that. Videophone are great for connecting me with other Deaf people across Canada, and yes, USA. It sure is easy on the gas budget and the phone bill!
DVD vs VHS? I’ll take both! VHS is good especially since you don’t have to search for that tiny subtitle button on your remote. DVD is great since you press MENU button and skip the previews, and find that favourite scene.
Small gas-saving cars vs horse? Neither. Small cars don’t fit my large brood of children… 5 kids. Horses? Sorry. I always lose arguments with gravity.
“Disliking non-walking people to use wheelchair who want to see the real world as you prefer them to look at pictures of the real world and disallow them to explore the real world.” HUH?? That doesn’t make sense to me. I HAVE used a wheelchair 24 hours just to see what it was like for my best friend who is wheel-chair-bound. It didn’t stop me from seeing the real world, nor did it stop her from seeing the real world. It helped me better see the world from her perspective. Those of you who have Deaf relatives or friends, try those white out noise earplugs… you’d be surprised at what it’s like to walk in your kids or Deaf friends’ shoes.
If you are trying to tell me I’m not seeing the real world because I don’t use CI, I most definitely object. A person’s perspective of the real world differs from that of another. You cannot tell me that the world I live in, which is full of ASL and Deaf culture is any less real than that of the hearing world. That is definitely hogwash, and doesn’t wash with me. *

To borrow and change YOUR words: “What do you see in these analogies? POSITIVE RESPONSES!

Moi, selfish for wanting to give the GIFT of ASL to CI babies? PUHLEEZ! It is a gift for a child to be bilingual. I’m not opposed to Deaf babies being exposed to both English AND ASL. My problem is that when Deaf children DON’T benefit from the CI or AVT therapy, and I know of quite a few, they end up getting ASL AFTER their window of opportunity for language acquisition has long closed. THEN, it’s too late for them to become fully fluent in ANY one language, be it spoken or signed.

“The REAL WORLD is run by people with spoken language.” Hmmmm. Define “REAL WORLD”. It’s all in the perspective, dear. My REAL WORLD is my family, the communities in which I live, both Deaf and Hearing, my country, which is officially bilingual, by the way, and obviously the Internet ;-)

Just because Deaf children have CI doesn’t always mean they have better choices than we do. It’s all values. We all make value judgements as to what constitutes better choices. I KNOW I have excellent choices in my life. I exercise my choices as a Deaf ASL individual. THAT is a gift I will ALWAYS thank my parents for!

Shelley

* I have since re-read my post and revised. This revision is in a different colour since I have given this more thought after trying to figure out OMDO’s logic.

Category: Audism, Bilingualism, Deaf, Family  Tags: , , , , , , ,  15 Comments
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