Sifting through a pile of unopened mail after an out-of-town trip, I serendipitously came across Joel Achenbach’s Rough Draft column in the December 24, 2006 issue of the Washington Post Magazine entitled “He’d Better Watch Out! (In the fierce competition for global holiday preeminence, not even Santa is Safe).” It’s a cute little satire in the form of a letter written to Santa — oops, I mean Mr. Kringle — from CEO E. Scrooge, in which said CEO makes Santa a buyout offer, complete with benefits and glib gratitude.

This buyout offer is a result of holiday globalization and “quality-control issues,” among which are reindeer continuously failing drug tests or having unconfirmed homosexual relationships (#4 on the list of grievances) or rising chimney destruction rates — a direct effect of Santa falling victim to the obesity eidemic (#7).

I was having fun, shaking with jolly ‘ol laughter at Achenbach’s take on current issues through a lens of Christmas-tinged humor, until I read #10:

It is becoming impossible to keep a lid on news coverage of the ongoing protests outside your workshop by elves who want you removed from your position because, as they put it, “He’s not elf enough.”

There’s even a cartoon of elves picketing Santa’s workshop, and an angry Santa peering out through his window.

Oooh. Burn. Theriouth, first-degree burn.

On one hand, it’s kinda neat that a political movement that transformed the Deaf community even registered on the mainstream radar without taking advantage of tired cliches or invoking the “overcoming obstacles” gimmick.

But on the other… ouch. The butt of a joke? And of course, within the context of a one-liner, there’s no room for political or social nuance, so the boiled down essence is a joke about stupid people being petty.

And to boot: that isn’t even Scrooge’s beef. His problem with Santa is not that there’s a labor dispute down at the workshop, but that the bad press is hurting business.

That in itself says a lot, though. You rock the boat, you’re a joke.

Having lunch with my mom recently, she said something that struck me as interesting. We were talking about the task the new president would undertake while courting Congress when she said, “Well, the protest certainly didn’t endear deaf people to the hearing people.” Right there at the table with her, I acquiesced.

Later, I realized that was a loaded statement. The protest wasn’t necessarily about how hearing people view Deaf people. But certainly, the effect of it has a lot to do with hearing people and their opinion. Or, at least, Gallaudet’s — and by extension, Deaf people at large — public persona.

My (hearing) mother, a former Gallaudet employee, who raised me telling me I was different than “those deaf people” and that Gallaudet was the last resort (though her opinion changed slightly later when I received my degree), has inadvertently fallen victim to that relationship. Gallaudet IS, by perception, the bulk of Deaf people’s collective image. And no matter how well my mother understood that different people and opinions were involved on all sides of the protest, it still boiled down to one thing: you’re gonna make hearing people think you Deaf people are petty.

I guess she was right. “Not Deaf Enough,” a common motif no matter how we deny it, has translated into “not elf enough.”

Gallaudet’s public relations office is quite aware of this reduction of issues. An article in the PR-produced Fall 2006 issue of glossy Gallaudet Today covers the protest, complete with pictures of Tent City. The article is called, artfully, “a time of transition.” One picture is captioned “An upbeat group gathers at the front gate on October 29.” Carefully chosen words outline the beginnings of “turmoil” and the “difficult experience.”

Dr. Jordan is quoted saying, “I know our community will get through this challenging period, but it will require hard work from all of us… [W]e share a common love and concern for Gallaudet University. May that shared love give us the desire and strength to rebuild relationships, and work together for Gallaudet’s future” (p. 15).

In what had to be a painstaking effort on the PR office’s behalf, the protest and its effects become a “challenge” for a community, attempting to touch on the diversity of views and opinions while presenting Gallaudet as still a solid touchstone for the Deaf community. While clearly it looks like a protest, it also (to me anyway) looks like an honest attempt to regain respect (or, barring that, to lay the groundwork for it).

While Gallaudet needs to maintain a modicum of respect in order to continue operating as an accredited academic institution, the Deaf community’s pursuit of such respect through both Gallaudet and discourse surrounding the protest conflates its issues with those of Gallaudet. That, in my opinion,

1. belies a pervasive pandering to a mainstream perspective,
2. makes Gallaudet’s PR job harder, and
3. sets us up to become even more joke fodder.

Regardless of whether or not you think Gallaudet and Deaf issues go hand in hand, it’s undeniable that the reception of each has an effect on the other in terms of public perspective. And right now, if Achenbach’s little funny-ha-ha at is any indication, that perspective right now is small and simplified.