Well not so much attack as protest...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/15/gallaudet.protest.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/15/gallaudet.protest.ap/index.html
What in the world?
When Deaf People Attack....
- Thread starter DRB
- Start date
My sister is completely deaf, but my parents busted their ass teaching here how to talk and read lips so she could live in normal society. From meeting some of her deaf friends it seems a portion of the deap population have formed their own exclusive society for some good reasons and for some bad ones. Pretty freaking stupid if you ask me.
Man, there is this deaf girl who goes to the same school I do. She cant hear anything and talks with her freaking hands. GROSS! What a loser.
I did just a little bit of googling after I read this and was surprised that there is a portion of the deaf community that is pretty agressive with what deaf folks should and should not do. I never imagined that it would be like that.
Good friend from college is hearing but both parents are deaf, so she's part of the community. It is a little freaky, and they look down on those that try to integrate with hearing society... it's viewed as a slap in the face or "too good" for deaf society.
Funny aside is that my friend and her sister (both hearing) learned not to cry as kids, but inside stomp their feet as hard as they could to get their parents' attention.
Funny aside is that my friend and her sister (both hearing) learned not to cry as kids, but inside stomp their feet as hard as they could to get their parents' attention.
I have a good friend who is completely deaf and you'd never know it. She reads lips and speaks almost perfectly. It's pretty amazing. If you met her you'd just think she was really into your conversation because she stares really intensely at you. She must have busted her ass as a kid to be as good as she is. She thinks the 'deaf culture' and sign language is pretty much a cop-out for the lazy.
My sister is the same way. My parents were so pissed when she basically decided to drop out of "hearing" society, they went through so much effort to get her through regular schools. The group of people she hangs with now are little more than a band of grifters.
Nah, I can walk up behind them and brain them so I don't much fear them. Those gays now are a little trickier.
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/courses/libr500/03-04-wt2/www/G_Bahnemann/DeafActivism.htm
Now apparently this as occurred before....
This happened in the spring of 1998.
King Jordan is the president that Jane K. Fernandes has or is replacing. Prior to that, according to the article, all the previous presidents were not deaf.
This is fascinating me.
Ah but apparently there are complaints because
But this is my favorite....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051400805.html
Ah but apparently there are complaints because
God forbid they include all deaf people?
But this is my favorite....
It must be like PCU when everyone was protesting about everything.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051400805.html
my father suffered from degenerative hearing loss, and got a Cochlear Ear Implant and now his hearing is almost 100%. however, the reception of some in the deaf community of the Implant is VERY touchy, and is seen almost as a betrayal to have it done. definitely not something that i expected...
Yup. Even my hearing friend that grew up in a deaf community (see above) couldn't help show disdain about the implant. To the deaf community deaf is a culture, more than a physical attribute, so my hearing friend whose first words were in sign is more accepted than someone who grew up hearing and lost their ability in an accident.
Totally bizarre.
I don't much understand this deaf culture either. I first heard about it years ago when someone sent me an article about a deaf woman looking for donar sperm from a deaf male to ensure a stronger likely hood of deafness in her child (I think she was a lesbian and her and hers wanted a child, but that's beside the point). At the time I was completely shocked, then I started hearing these same things about deaf culture and decided it was just another form of social radicalism.
I remember watching a show a while back about a deaf couple and their child. Their condition was genetic and they had passed it on to their child. It was the form of deafness that was able to be helped by a cochlear implant. Cochlear implants can only be done when the child is very young. The parents had decided against getting the implant put in as they had decided that being deaf wasn't a handicap therefore there wasn't anything wrong with their child. I wonder if that kid will think the same when he/she grows up.
Interesting, I always thought that implants could only be done to very young children. Obviously not. How does your old man describe the sensation of hearing now? I'd guess different than before.
I've been following this story with some interest and it just strikes me as odd... I've had more contact with the deaf community than most and have never really noticed and preudice or strict sense of inclusion/exclusion. I went to high school with a good number of deaf students (public school with a special program for deaf students; there was even a deaf student on my football team...we had interpreters at all practices and most team events), there was an active deaf ministry at my church (interpreters there every week, etc) and my mother is fluent in ASL and was a special education teacher. Maybe I just never noticed what was right there...
I think it's a (pardon this) vocal minority. My friend I keep mentioning was well integrated, as were her (deaf) parents who were two of the nicest people around. It was very clear however that they had a deaf community and a deaf culture, just like, say, people from a chinese community and culture. There are those that integrate and are open to new and different things, and there are those that self-segregate. The implant is different in that it's seen as a rejection of your roots or denial of who you really are.
DCist ran a little article on this....
one of the sentences in the article went something like this:
The Gallaudet protesters must have been listening to too much Rage Against the Machine.
And I know a guy who is training to be a DC cop, so he was setting up the information stations when they lock all the deaf kids up.
Also, I knew a kid who was deaf (due to menengitis. His parents got him the cochlear thing, but he wasn't a big fan of turning it on. He did however, like sticking refrigerator magnets to his head. .... Anyway. One day the parents took their son to a birthday party. There was a pinata. Dean wanted to try. So, they put a blindfold on him, and gave him a large stick. He started swinging away........... problem is nobody could get near him to get him to stop. It's not like he could hear.
one of the sentences in the article went something like this:
The Gallaudet protesters must have been listening to too much Rage Against the Machine.
And I know a guy who is training to be a DC cop, so he was setting up the information stations when they lock all the deaf kids up.
Also, I knew a kid who was deaf (due to menengitis. His parents got him the cochlear thing, but he wasn't a big fan of turning it on. He did however, like sticking refrigerator magnets to his head. .... Anyway. One day the parents took their son to a birthday party. There was a pinata. Dean wanted to try. So, they put a blindfold on him, and gave him a large stick. He started swinging away........... problem is nobody could get near him to get him to stop. It's not like he could hear.
The advantages of implanting young children is so that they can grow up with "hearing" from the beginning. That way they'll learn speech, communication, etc from birth instead of down the road.
My dad had his paid for by his health insurance, but he has said since that it would have been worth every penny he has to his name, including his entire retirement savings. Its been literally a life-altering change, one that has even caused him to look 10 or 15 years younger. We never realized how much he struggled to hear what was going on, meaning he would look exhausted by the end of a workday or family picnic.
He says that everybody sounds different from each other, but also different from what they used to sound like. It takes the brain a while to adjust, so now I think that it sounds like people are talking normally.