Deaf culture? What?

"Deaf culture
should be viewed in the same sense as other world cultures; that is, sharing a defined language, heritage and norms. Sign language discourse and shared experiences are vitally important to those who ascribe to deaf culture. Such persons also function equally as successfully in the mainstream hearing culture — contrary to popular belief that the deaf and hearing worlds are totally separate."



The radical fringe of the Deaf Culture movement believes that technological cures for deafness, such as cochlear implants, should be discouraged (or even banned) because the end of deafness would mean the end of deaf culture.

I don't watch this show, but I remember the outrage from the deaf community when Rush Limbaugh got his cochlear implant. It seemed to me that it was outrageous for them to be coddemning a man who makes his living as a talk show host from simply wanting to hear.

Mr. Cohen;



One might also consider the eugenics efforts by radical members of the deaf community, such as breeding for a genetic predisposition to deafness.

Allow me to put my own 2 cents in. I am severely/profoundly hearing-impaired in both ears, and have been so since birth; indeed, when I'm not wearing my hearing aids, I'm, for all practical purposes, just as deaf as anyone else in the deaf community.



And I'm one of those who've been educated and trained to speak - that is, in the cant phrase, to use "oral" language, to speechread (which is more involved than just reading lips) and to communicate vocally. It was an exceptionally difficult process; whereas I was already fairly well-skilled in reading by the age of 6, I was just getting my tongue wrapped around spoken language, if you will, and I was still having regular sessions with speech therapists as late as high school. My own mother is a speech/language pathologist/therapist (though she works most frequently with stroke patients).



My own ASL (American Sign Language) skills are rather rudimentary at best, and I've never actually mixed that much with other deaf people even though I live fairly close to Gallaudet. It's not that I wouldn't have liked to so much as that my entire socialization has led me to associate more with "hearing" people; I don't doubt that Christy Smith is in the same situation. Indeed, I don't even know what Miss Smith's ASL skills are like, though, if she graduated from Gallaudet, they're probably a lot better than mine (I matriculated at East Carolina University, which, while it has a very active and well-regarded program for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, is of course not primarily a "deaf" university). I own that I have a hard time seeing how Miss Smith is supposed to handicap herself, if you will excuse the term, by speaking in a language that is not known to most or all of the members of her tribe, if she's concentrating on winning the game. Let's reiterate that last point; her focus is on winning the game, not on making some kind of political point.



One last point; my mother wanted me to be integrated into the mainstream as much as possible because, in my childhood, the opportunities for deaf people without oral-language skills were _extremely_ limited. Basically, if you didn't know printing (which was the main vocational skill taught at schools for the deaf in those days), you were up the proverbial creek. She wanted me to have more of a choice than that.

David, one further point, which I didn't address in my previous post: the radical fringe of the deaf community speaks as it does because they believe that deafness is NOT a handicap or a disability. The logic of that position is admittedly difficult to parse, but it's what they think.

Our 6 year old has a kid in his Kindergarten class who's rather disabled and he's learning ASL along with the rest of the class, which is great. ASL is certainly more useful than French at this point in world history. But the thought that the deaf are obligated to live there lives so as to make political points seems to judge them by their handicap while demanding that the rest of the world not do so--that just seems bizarre.

A lighter note:



I used to live in D.C. on a one-way street that, eventually, ran right into the Gaulludet area. Occassionally a carful of madly signing kids would go by with a Gaulludet sticker & rap music playing at just poundingly loud volumes. At first it puzzled me, but then I figured it out -- they may not have been able to hear
the music, but they could certainly feel
it!!

This -- not OJ's commentary, nor the postings, but the story itself -- may be the silliest, most inane bit of drivel I've read in weeks. It's so... 9/10/01. Gracious; does this mean Zoolander II
is coming soon to a theater near you?

oj --



The fringe Liberal Left has a difficult time coping with reality in the real world. Why would they see Television (even if we are dealing with "Reality" genre) as a more formidable obstacle to their looneyness...?

CB: I hope so. Zoolander was a great movie. Well worth watching.

Ali:



You trouble us.