We could do much to counteract the political paralysis in our community if we realized something once and for all: The “hearing world” in a very real sense does not exist.
Now before I get into this, I want to admit that I probably as much as anyone else am guilty of perpetuating the propaganda responsible for causing so many deaf people to believe that it does. When I talk about “Hearing America” being largely closed to deaf people, for example, I’m doing the same thing others are doing when they say that this world is “a hearing world.” I’m creating the image of overwhelming, crushing numbers, united against us in hostility.
For the sake of figures we can work with, let’s leave the 6.5 billion* people (yes, most of them hearing) currently vying for closet space on this smoggy globe of ours out of the argument and focus instead on just America. Because you can bet that when John Average from Somewhere, U.S.A. starts talking about “the hearing world,” he isn’t talking about illiterate Chinese peasants (illiterate in both printed English and Chinese, by the way) currently submerged up to their butt cracks in muddy rice paddies who have never owned or even seen a computer. He means people like himself: in possession of at least a high school diploma with a job, 2.5 kids, and a mortgage loan he probably now sincerely wishes he had never taken out. To him the world is “English-speaking” because that’s the language his paycheck is printed in.
All right, fair enough. Let’s pause here for a second to consider not only what “Hearing America” actually is, but also what it’s capable of doing at any given point in time. Say that the population of this country is currently 300 million, and of that number, 30 million are deaf or hard of hearing. That leaves 270 million hearing people for deaf people to contend with.
And you will contend with them. You will eventually someday have a job interview with a hearing employer, have your knee whacked by a hearing doctor, or try to order a cheeseburger without pickles from a hearing waiter who apparently equates deafness with mental retardation. These will be frustrating, maddening, oppressive, and humiliating experiences. They will collectively grind away at your soul, eroding you from within, increasing your sense of helplessness to improve your lot in life.
But you will speed that process along considerably by multiplying one isolated, hostile idiot by 270 million, because it is highly unlikely that you will face such a number at once. In fact it’s equally unlikely that you will ever face such a number at all.
Other writers have already made the point that, just as 30 million deaf people are not shaped by the same cosmic cookie cutter, hearing people are also probably quite different from one another. I agree with this argument, and don’t want to expand on it very much here. When we refer to deaf people, in many ways there is no “we.” There are Deaf people and deaf people; deaf people with cochlear implants and deaf people without them. There is widespread disagreement amongst D/deaf people regarding how deaf children should be educated, and so forth. We’re united only in our disunity. If any deaf person seriously believes that all deaf people want the same things, many of us would probably place him in the category we’ve assigned to airport accessibility personnel, since that group seems to be the final stronghold for those who believe all deaf fliers should be pushed to their connecting flights in wheelchairs.
But if there isn’t a “we,” then for the same reasons there also isn’t a “them.” Or at least not a “them” that’s 270 million hearing people strong. And that leads me to the topic I really want to discuss here: logistics. The gathering and transport of people to the place they’re needed at the time they’re needed.
Don’t you find it kind of ironic that when D/deaf people scrape together two hundred protesters to go and fight something, their critics will say, “See? This cause is so very important to all deaf people everywhere; only two hundred out of 30 million bothered to show up!” Or twenty. Or two. Well, out of 270 million hearing people, supposedly united in hostility (against that particular cause, anyway, if not against all deaf people everywhere), how many of them bothered to show up? If it sucks so much that a small group of D/deaf people could only organize two hundred active and visible supporters out of thirty million, shouldn’t it suck even worse if “the hearing world” can’t match their numbers at the site of a given conflict? If they’re so numerous and all-powerful and dead set against what’s happening, I mean? When we talk about how the reputation of the Deaf community has been trashed in the eyes of the hearing world (after all of the recent protests that have happened, for example), is it so unreasonable to ask whether or not the minds behind those 270 million sets of hearing eyes actually agree with this statement? I’ve never seen 270 million negative comments under even one negative online editorial in the Washington Post. I’ve seen maybe a hundred, tops, and many of them seem to consistently come from the same people.
I’m not just asking here for an accurate assessment of the actual physical numbers “the hearing world” can definitively align against any given group of D/deaf people who decide to stand up for something. I’m not even only questioning whether or not those opposing forces are going to be neatly divided between hearing and deaf people, because in reality there might end up being many hearing and deaf people who support a given cause, just as there could potentially be many hearing and deaf people who are against it.
I’m asking whether or not D/deaf people who currently feel oppressed and helpless need to keep feeling that way. Especially if they managed to whip up twenty people to join the picket line, while the other side (with 270 million “supporters” supposedly at their disposal) apparently couldn’t whip up anyone to counter them.
Don’t you think maybe that our sense of oppression doesn’t just stem from hearing peoples’ raw numbers? Maybe it’s more about the fear generated from false beliefs. Maybe more than a few of us (and I’m not talking about hearing or deaf people here anymore, I’m talking about anyone who happens to unite for a common cause) have been living our lives as if we expect the other’s side’s cavalry to come charging in at any moment and cut us to ribbons under a million swords. But exactly how is that supposed to happen if the place we’ve chosen to fight doesn’t have room for even one of these cavalrymen to draw his sword without poking the cavalryman seated up high next to him? In fact, how many horses can you actually fit into an area the size of a high school gym? If that’s the place where the conflict is occurring, what you’re going to see is maybe thirty horses inside and the rest of them outside doing little more than standing around creating steaming heaps of horse dung.
Translation: If we need to fight “state governments,” what we’re probably going to actually end up doing is fighting certain individuals within state governments, and not the whole government. Making things seem bigger than they are doesn’t do anyone any good. In any given System, you can always find the terror-stricken and bitter (or both) who will oppose any type of change whatsoever, those who will passionately fight alongside of you for reforms, and the lethargic who don’t really care one way or another. Yes, those you end up fighting can be incredibly powerful. They can be well funded, and have at their fingertips a devastating Propaganda Machine.
But one function of that Machine, part of its way of keeping you down, part of its strategy for smothering every spark of external dissent before it can blaze into a fire, is the repitition of the message that if you take on that group, you’re actually taking on the whole world. That can’t possibly be true. You’re just taking on that group. And even if their group numbers thirty thousand to your two hundred, even if their group has $18 million to your $374.36, there is still an immense psychological victory to be found in cutting their group down to size. Thirty thousand isn’t God. And once it becomes apparent just how determined you are, their thirty thousand can be rendered just as helpless, bumbling, and as scared senseless as your two hundred probably feel right now. Or your twenty. Or two.
So take heart. And the next time you feel helpless and overwhelmed, step out once again into “Hearing America,” albeit this time with eyes that are open to the truth. Your neighbors, the people looking for Christmas bargains in Walmart; that’s Hearing America. The postman delivering your mail, the guy in the beat up Toyota driving up the street right now on his way to his factory job—are they going to oppose you? Do they even know you? Do they know anything about deafness? That’s Hearing America. Multiply them by 270 million. They aren’t organized. They haven’t made any detailed plans to genetically engineer you out of existence. In a determined fight they’re essentially non-combatants. In many ways they don’t matter very much at all, not even when false implications of solidarity are constantly being used to frighten you into submission.
If you want to be effective, narrow down your targets. If all you’ve trained yourself to see is “the hearing world,” everything that you can change blurs out of focus.
*I am grossly (and probably unforgivably) rounding off all of my numbers here. Please do correct me if you have precise figures.
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Chris,
I met you last January at Washington, DC during the conference and I truly enjoyed chatting with you.
This article is very thought-provoking and there is one nagging thought I have in my head while reading..
“I truly wish Chris made a vlog about this, then it’ll reach out a lot of people to help us to re-frame our thinking that not everyone in the “Hearing World” are bad people, and we need to target certain individuals, and educate them with as much information. Perhaps meet with them individually. We can truly make a big difference if we approach to these people who have pre-conceived ideas and assumptions about us. Chris, please vlog this article!”
Chris - vlog! Your ASL skills are just fine! I was fascinated by watching how you sign and expressing your thoughts with signs… and why cannot you create a video about this article?
Amy Cohen Efron
Comment »
Hi Amy,
Well, can you give me a couple of days? I just finished writing this thing an hour ago, and I’ve been working on it since three in the afternoon. Also too be warned that my laptop camera is very touchy. If you record short things, it’ll post, but if you try to record long things it’ll freeze up. I’m not sure why this should be so, but I’ll give it a shot sometime this week… or if that fails maybe we could work together? A lot of people think your videos are awesome… what do you think? Team up?
Of course, I’d be more than happy to help you! We can team up, and you gotta be at the front of camera…. smiles.
Email me: abcohende (at) aol dot com to discuss this idea further!
Amy,
If Chris is camera-shy, perhaps a Deaf volunteer would be willing to interpret his blog.
Chris,
Okay with you for someone else to interpret
for you?
Chris– This was a wonderful post! One thing the Deaf fail to do, in my humble opinion is education and outreach into the communities of hearing people. Most hearing just don’t know anything about Deafness. Those of us who are late-deafened feel so lost when it happens to us. No one is going to educate the hearing about Deafness except the Deaf. When the hearing public becomes more educated about Deafness, then they will be in a position to make better decisions regarding Deaf accommodations. Thanks so much for this message. I hope you vlog too. Some day I hope someone develops a Deaf outreach/ advocacy group for educating the public and helping newly late-deafened or parents of Deaf children to help them cope when they don’t know where to go for answers.
Kim, I’m sorry, but I disagree with you. Deaf people *DO* education and outreach to hearing people/communities OFTEN.
NAD does it, Gallaudet does it, NTID does it, CSUN does it and CSD does it, and the list goes on and on and on.
NAD, AGB, SHHH, etc have outreach/advocacy “group” specifically to educate the public and help newly late-deafened and parents of Deaf children (remember ALDA? and ASDC?). They have existed for quite a long time…and have been doing their work for years.
Plus the media frequently run stories about Deaf people.
No, the hearing society/world knows about Deaf people, knows about ASL, etc.
They’re not entirely ignorant.
I’m often amazed by how much hearing people know about Deaf people…and this is why I no longer believe in the so-called “ignorance” of the hearing society/world. It’s a convenient catch-all excuse used by the hearing society/world whenever they are caught discriminating against a deaf/Deaf person: “I didn’t know! This is new to me!”
Michele– I have been involved with both HLAA and ALDA. The people in those organizations are not Deaf. They are late-deafened like me. It’s not the same. Few, if any, use ASL. I’ve heard of people being turned away from HLAA meetings because they used ASL. This hasn’t happened in my area, but in a chapter south of me. I have a late-deaf friend who hears nothing because of NF2. Most people in HLAA or ALDA use implants or hearing aids, though they may have severe-profound deafness. They don’t see themselves as Deaf. My late-deaf friend with NF2 recently expressed frustration that people won’t even write to her. She sits along in a corner when her few friends who know ASL can’t attend. You’re SO WRONG about this, Michele. You haven’t lived it. How many HLAA meetings or ALDA meetings have you attended? Hmmm? How many people are signing there? Hmmmm? Where are the ASL classes and where’s the DEAF support offered? It’s HEARING support, Michele. Not Deaf support. And by the way? ALDA just started their first chapter in the Seattle area this summer 2007. My progressive hearing loss was diagnosed thirty years ago. Who is ASDC? Gallaudet? I’m middle-aged and on the west-coast. Are they offering classes in MY community? NAD? NTID? CSUN? CSD? Just do me a favor Michele. Do a google of ASL classes, deaf support and Seattle. What you’ll find will be a few community college courses geared toward students who want to be interpreters, and a couple 10 week courses offered at the Hearing Speech and Deafness Cntr. which I’ve already taken. I’m enrolled in the community college courses. No Deaf people there. This is what I’m talking about. ****Open your eyes.***
Kim, I know A LOT about what Deaf people have done and what’s out there A LOT more than you do, because I’ve been in the advocacy field for many years now.
ALDA *does* do outreach and support…even if it comes from “hearing” people. It depends on the quality of each chapter, obviously. Some are better than others. The point is, ALDA website & chapters have access to information.
ASDC is American Society for Deaf Children, and it is primarily an advocacy organization for parents with deaf children.
Seattle is known for its strong Deaf-Blind community, so if you find them, you’ll most likely gain access to a lot of resources and support.
Deaf people don’t generally attend interpreting courses or ASL classes, for obvious reasons. They’re not studying to become interpreters (if they want to become Deaf-Blind interpreters, then they need to take entirely different approach to their training, and usually community colleges don’t offer this type of training for prospective Deaf interpreters). And if Deaf people already know how to use ASL, there’s no real need for them to take ASL courses.
So of course you will not find them in such classes in your area.
You need to go where they go: Deaf clubs, Deaf-related organizations….and oh yeah, most culturally Deaf people usually stay away from anything called “Hearing Speech”. I am not at all surprised you haven’t seen them at that center.
And from the way you have talked to me, I am NOT going to help you from now on. You made a mistake in talking to me in this way, because I do know several Deaf people in Seattle and I can point you to them without needing to look in Google.
You’re on your own now. Lesson here: Do not insult culturally Deaf people who are in a position to help you. You just blew it with me.
It’s clear to me you never wanted to help anyway Michele. Thanks for nothing. I can find my own way, as I always have. And by the way? I met my first real DEAF non-oral friend at the Hearing, Speech and Deafness Cntr. She works there. I do not “need” you Michele.
Kim–I’m assuming you are the same Kim who recently went to Mexico and the same Kim, not too long ago, who I recommended that she get “For Hearing People Only” book by Matthew S. Moore.
If you are the same Kim, then you have very quickly forgotten that I have helped you in the past with a recommendation like that, plus my time in responding to your previous comments in other articles.
Also– I already know where the Deaf clubs are– but obviously I NEED to take ASL in order to be able to talk to Deaf people. That’s what I’m talking about. I never expected to find Deaf people taking ASL at the Community College. DUH! Though there are a few late-deaf like me taking ASL and really interested in meeting Deaf people, but finding people like you pretty scary (you’re not the first I’ve encountered) and not sure we want to be part of your community with all that latent anger you dish out at anyone who isn’t DEAF.
No, it’s your attitude that I’m responding to.
I’m human. I’m not a robot. If anyone talked to me the way you did, I’d respond the same way I did to you.
It’s not fair to expect Deaf people to be “angels” and *never* express normal feelings of anger, frustration, etc. That’s unrealistic.
I am treating you as I would treat anyone else. The difference is, YOU aren’t treating me like you would anyone else: you actually EXPECT me to smile and help you all the way regardless of your attitude and behavior.
Now that’s double standard!
Michele. Can we back up? I admit I sounded a bit feisty the other day– OK?
On the other hand– in my first post to Chris I complimented him and mentioned how I felt most Hearing didn’t know much about Deafness. I should have said they don’t know much about deaf/Deaf/HH, but I was trying to keep my response brief.
I strongly feel there needs to be more outreach by the DEAF. I am speaking from my own *personal* experience as a late-deafened individual living on the west coast in the Seattle area.
It is a well-known fact there are more opportunities for the Deaf on the east coast. Hearing people are more aware of Deaf issues on the east coast as well.
If all these organizations you listed were doing all this wonderful outreach, why are there so many, many lost and desparate late-deafened people out there who don’t know where to turn?
HLAA helps them up to a point–when the hearing loss is moderate. It’s also very political and not so social. Many of them are elderly. ALDA is small.
I have lived a late-deaf life over thirty years. HLAA was in its infancy when I was first diagnosed. As a twenty year old, I wasn’t thrilled about bowling with a bunch of sixty year old grandparents.
I wasn’t asking for your help. I was stating my opinion about a need in the deaf/Deaf community to reach out to other deaf. Then it seemed like you flew off the handle at me. So I reacted.
If deaf people aren’t being reached, how can you say there’s enough outreach?
I don’t expect you to be any different than anyone else Michele. Since this is email, I forget about your Deafness. Email is wonderful for leveling the playing field.
I displayed “attitude” because you seemed to be attacking me.
Amen to all of this!
As a late deafened person, it has been slow, confusing and frustrating to educate MYSELF about my problem, and then slowly I realized that I need to be a one-woman educator for the people in my life. I did not educate myself until I had a burning need. Why would anyone else educate themselves about Deaf/deafness without a burning need?
It’s on my shoulders to “train” others how to communicate with me effectively. And I just have to accept that some people just don’t want to do the work.
I did not educate myself until there was a need. That seems to be “the American way” (or perhaps the “human way”) to respond when there is a need - or a crisis!
I appreciate this article and the reminder that individuals are simply living their lives - most of them with little to no consideration for or about people outside of their own family or small social group. I don’t care or need to judge whether that’s wrong or selfish or whatever. It just seems to be what is. It seems human. I know that I have never had enough hours in the day to do EVERYthing I’ve wanted to do or thought I ’should’ do. We all end up, I think, doing the top items on our lists and often never get to the bottom of the list.
No conspiracies to ignore people in need. I had a Spanish boss yell at me a few years ago because I have never learned Spanish. Well, since I am going deaf I’d learn ASL before Spanish. But I have thought for years that it would be nice to know enough Spanish to chit-chat with some of the people I’ve met - yet I never had a “need”. Did I neglect Spanish as a personal affront to that boss or Spanish people in general? NOT. It simply was not high on my priority list.
The more Deaf/deaf people interact with community and become involved, the more likely it is that individuals here and there will develop desires to learn about Deafness and maybe ASL and move that issue higher on their priority lists.
It is difficult for me and it is work for me to “stay connected”. But articles like this help me remember that this challenge is not being done to me by anyone and maybe I can make one little corner of the country a little more enlightened about the issue, one person at a time.
Chris, I hear your point, but I’m not sure I entirely agree with you.
There IS a hearing world…just as there IS a Deaf world.
In hearing society, silence is taken as AGREEMENT.
In Deaf culture, silence is taken as DISAGREEMENT.
Now…with the hearing society in mind, every time they stay *silent* on topics such as captioning or interpreting, or police treatment of deaf people, etc etc…they are *contributing* to the Deaf world perception that the hearing society/world is largely responsible for problems experienced by Deaf world.
Let me put this another way:
When we look at captioning…we all know that the Deaf world/community isn’t the only one who needs captions. Hearing senior citizens benefit from captions.
Foreigners benefit from captions.
Not only that, hearing people have deaf relatives/spouses.
You’d think that all of these people at least would *support* captioning one way or another.
But that’s not the case. A huge bulk of work done on captioning issues have been led by Deaf people and deaf/Deaf organizations, not hearing people.
Hearing people could lend their support…if it was just ONE MILLION of them, it would carry considerable weight with FCC and Hollywood.
Yet…their silence is thunderous.
(I know, I know…some of you will tell me that there are some hearing supporters out there. But my point is, these hearing supporters are miniscule compared to the sheer numbers of hearing people who benefit from captions directly or indirectly and yet stay silent while they watch or listen to ongoing efforts made by Deaf people to maintain coverage and quality of captioning.
Chris, you may not believe in collective responsibility, but I do when it comes to hearing society/world. They definitely do carry collective responsibility for what they do or don’t do.
Michele, Ann, Kim,
What I precisely mean here is that over the years I’ve often been confronted by hearing people–usually parents and teachers–and even deaf people who… (how to say this..?) …came across as if they believed that the positions I had taken a stand on were fundamentally flawed and doomed to collapse because they didn’t fit in with the views of some so-called “majority” (read: “The Hearing World”). As if–if it ever came down to a fight–it’d be me against and the little band of delusional people who agreed with me AGAINST that entire world. And if we couldn’t accept that, we were living in denial.
And I’m sorry, you know? But I think that’s just arrogance on their part. I don’t think most of them have ever been IN a real fight. They don’t know what determined resistance looks like, what it can do. They seem to believe that any resistance that anyone would dare bring against them would be defeated in two seconds flat. Their arrogance is based on their flawed perception of the numbers, of how many REAL supporters they have out there.
But if things ever came down to a determined fight, 99.99999999 unto infinity % of “the world” that these people think is going to come flooding in with fists swinging… isn’t coming. Does anyone here really think that your average hearing shopper in Walmart gives any more of a damn about one side than they do about the other? I don’t. They’re going to stay home and eat pizza and watch the story on the news. They might shake their heads, they might comment anonymously on the internet…
…but they’re not coming to join the fight. And in THAT sense, “the hearing *world*” is nothing more than a bunch of wishful thinking. In the more sinister cases it’s nothing more than outright propaganda. So if you can scrape together even 100 supporters, and if you can focus the group’s efforts to maximum effect, you might be surprised.
That might just turn out to be an irresistable force.
My problem is, I remember many, many efforts taken by Deaf people on this or that over the years and seeing how hearing society reacted to these efforts.
I.e., I remember the wonderful day the caption decoder finally came on market in 1980. ABC and NBC both used the decoder and started captioning some of their shows, which made Deaf people happy.
But CBS was the only one who resisted the use of the decoder…they claimed they wanted to “invent” their own decoder and that would have forced Deaf people to buy a separate decoder JUST to watch the shows on CBS.
Needless to say, we protested and there was media coverage on that, blah blah. If I remember right, CBS actually held out for over 1-2 years before finally giving in and using the decoder.
(And even today, Hollywood studios still resist the idea of running *open* captions on first-run movies…preferring to deal with RCW technology which many Deaf people hate or forcing us to wait until second-run movies come out with open captions.)
I also remember the remarkable resistance to the IDEA of having a Deaf culture exhibit being set up at all at Smithsonian by AGB and their hearing supporters. They very *nearly* succeeded in convincing Smithsonian to drop that exhibit…it was only due to efforts of Jack Gannon and NAD that Smithsonian even kept the exhibit in at all. And even then, Smithsonian made some concessions to AGB/hearing people by adding stuff about cochlear implants to the exhibit (when it wasn’t in there originally) AND removing all mention of the infamous decision made in Milan in 1880 and its long term effects from the exhibit.
It goes on and on.
I can believe that the average hearing person/people may not care about Deaf issues, but every now and then, they do set up resistance one way or another when they really don’t need to (i.e., it couldn’t possibly hurt them).
I also was thinking about the casual/unthinking/almost-automatic resistance that is usually present in hearing society: if you were to ask the average hearing person what they thought about cochlear implants, they will almost always spout the information given to them by the media (which is always pro-cochlear implant). Rarely do you hear them say differently. *Keep in mind, I’m talking about the average hearing person with NO deaf relatives/spouses, no contact at all with the Deaf world, etc.*
And oh yeah, when I worked at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, it took me over a year *just* to convince them to allow Deaf performers have their performances at Kennedy. They were incredibly resistant: they all knew NOTHING about Deaf world, and yet they came up with this or that excuse as to why Deaf performers couldn’t be allowed to perform at Kennedy: “They won’t bring in audiences.” “They’re not good enough.” “They don’t respond to our advertising efforts.”
Blah blah blah blah.
I finally convinced them to allow Fred Beam and his Wild Zappers to perform on their Millennium Stage…and the house was FULL, sold out, etc. Overflowing. In other words, they were a hit.
It was only THEN that Kennedy Center was finally open to the idea of having DeafWay II performers perform there for the week. Needless to say, we had a full house everyday for that week.
Of course, I’m not saying that Deaf people should give up and not bother to fight at all. I’m just saying that I don’t take the hearing society lightly. They do resist when you least expect them to (or wouldn’t expect them to).
Hi Michele:
I’m not saying they are easily discounted. I’m just saying “they” isn’t as big as they’re being made out to be. Take your story about the Kennedy Center. Did you take on “hearing society” or did you take on the relatively few people who made decisions regarding who could perform there?
I DO know what you mean… people generally argue that the resistance of hearing people *in general* is so widespread, it might as WELL be “hearing society.” But even if it is, in any given conflict, while you might be fighting attitudes that arose from widespread ignorance and resistance to change, you’re still not taking on every hearing person on Earth. And that’s why you won. That’s why a lot more of us could be winning too, because as you start narrowing down your perception of who you’re actually going to end up fighting in a given conflict, “they” stop looking so huge and invincible.
Viewed from another angle: Suppose that resistance and ignorance remains widespread pretty much no matter what you do, no matter how many relatively tiny little victories you win. If you focus on that, what’s the result? Depression. Hopelessness. Apathy.
But if you focus on one victory after another, if you set up your whole life so that it’s one victory after another, is that a wasted life? No. Did you spend it doing something worthwhile? Yes. And did you spend it fighting “widespread resistance?” You certainly did your part. It’s better than not making a move because it all seems so hopelessly stuck.
Chris, although I talked to several key people within certain departments at Kennedy, the reason I “won” was simply because of my sheer persistence. Remember, it took me a YEAR…of being a pain in their ass, to be honest.
Many meetings, many discussions (really more like me pushing my case for why Deaf performers should be at Kennedy) had to be conducted…repeatedly.
Yes, it was a total of maybe 10 key people at Kennedy that I talked to in order to make it happen, but it might as well have been the “hearing society”, for all the hard work I did to make it happen. It literally was Me Vs. Kennedy Center.
Certainly I don’t view it as a waste of my time or even a wasted life. I feel good about what I did, even though I ultimately paid the price for it.
But it was a price I paid willingly and I would do so again in a heartbeat.
I agree that the hearing society isn’t as “big” as we make it out to be. You’re right…it is more like us fighting maybe anywhere from 1 person to 20 people at a time.
But the amount of resistance these *few* people throw in our path (often unnecessarily, in my opinion) and their stamina in keeping up that resistance is what makes so many of us feel as if they’re “huge” and “invincible”. They may only be one person to 20 people, but they also have media, money, support of hearing society (if they need it), etc behind them.
In the case of Kennedy Center…all I had was myself. I did it alone. Literally. What kept me going was simply my desire to push up Deaf people any way I could, and the knowledge that if I did nothing, nobody else would.
“n the case of Kennedy Center…all I had was myself. I did it alone. Literally. What kept me going was simply my desire to push up Deaf people any way I could, and the knowledge that if I did nothing, nobody else would”
what a martyr, get over yourself
Michele,
You ought to have received an award
from the Department of Drama or
the Laurent Clerc Fund Awards for
making it feasible! Never too late
for them to consider.
Haha, thanks, Jean.
I actually was thanked at a ceremony held by Fred Beam’s Invisible Hands company. That meant a lot to me and it’s all I needed.
Machinehead: Screw yourself. Your support of efforts of few Deaf people helping other Deaf people is truly…INSPIRING (said with heavy sarcasm).
Michele, I for one appreciate what you did. It was tough, it took hard work. And again, I know what you mean when you say it might as well have BEEN “hearing society.” And in a way it was, but in another, no. It was them and only them. I do concede though, yes, you also won through hard work. But I also think a lot of people don’t work as hard as you do because they’re thinking somewhere deep down: “Screw this. I’m fighting the whole friggin’ WORLD on this.” And they’re not (though it feels like it). I mean, it would’ve been much easier for you to win your fight if three hundred people had been backing you and approaching the Kennedy Center daily right along with you. If you could get it done in a year, 300 people outside on the sidewalk might’ve speeded that up a bit, I would guess.
So it’s weird, isn’t it, how 300 seems like such a little nothing number to many people in the face of overwhelming numbers of hearing people. But the Kennedy Center was a couple dozen. And that’ll more or less be the case in the vast majority of fights that we fight, if we choose to.
Thanks, Chris. As an employee of Kennedy Center (at that time), I couldn’t afford to make my fight public lest it ruined all the work I did.
I wanted to say something about your message here Michele. The captioning issues annoys me more than any other Deaf issue I think. And it’s not hearing people who are bothered by it for the most part. It’s the Hollywood industry. I work in a library and we have DVDs there. Alot of middle-aged people have told me they only rent DVD’s or videos with captioning or English subtitles because of a mild hearing loss. There are Vietnam vets my age who can’t hear movies very well and now with the war in Iraq, some people are coming home with hearing loss from there too. Then you’ve got many who have worked in noisy industries over the years who have damaged their hearing. Many of them have told me they don’t go to movies anymore because they need the captioning so they have to wait for them to come out on DVD. They are surprised when I tell them there is a theater in our community that captions some first-run movies. They don’t know. Of course the theater doesn’t advertise it and when you buy your ticket, they warn you that it’s captioned. It’s as if the theaters is sure when you find out it’s captioned you’ll change your mind and not go to that showing.
There’s another segment of the hearing population who LOVES captioned movies…This is the English as a Second Language group. ESL. These are people who are learning English. Sometimes they can read English better than understand it when it’s spoken, so they prefer captions.
The problem with most hearing people is they aren’t aware that the movie industry is keeping this option from them. Many would use it if they knew they could have it more often. But those few theaters that offer captioned movies offer it at odd hours, like at 11 pm on a Monday night or Tuesday at noon. Since most adults work, of course the attendance isn’t very high. And then the theaters justify not offering more times by claiming that their captioned movies aren’t well attending. It’s SO unfair! Of course no one goes! Deaf/HH/deaf people work too!
It’s true what you say about hearing people and what they think about cochlear implants. They watch Oprah, see the Deaf woman who has never heard her daughter’s voice HEAR for the very first time in her life and Oh MY! It’s a MIRACLE! Consequently every hearing person in the world thinks Cochlear Implants cure deafness, which it doesn’t. CI’s are nothing more than super-duper hearing aids. They don’t offer perfect correction, they can’t help everyone. I know you know this, but it’s real frustrating for CI wearers, because people often expect so much more of them after they get their CI. And of course when you’re late-deafened, there can be a lot of pressure on you to get a CI from well-meaning friends and family.
Chris–The reason I turned it around on you, is because that while most hearing people do not know any “deaf” people per se, many DO know a few “hard-of-hearing” people. If hearing people can begin to see that “hard-of-hearing” and Deaf, deaf are all the same group– which (believe it or not many hearies are confused on this point), then the Deaf,deaf,HOH would have so much more clout! As I have pointed out so many, many, many times. We ALL want the same things. I want captioning on my TV’s. I want captioned movies. I want captioned movies on airplanes. I wanted captioned plays. YOU want interpreted plays and video phones. I’ll fight with you for your video phones, if you fight with me for my right to public Captels. I have progressive hearing loss and I’m going DEAF. I need ASL. I don’t want to be in a class with hearing people who are going to become INTERPRETERS. I want to meet DEAF people. GET IT? I would love to work with DEAF people, if you would work with me. We’ll change the public TOGETHER!
For the record, Deaf, deaf, HOH *do* work together on certain issues (such as captioning).
I would tell you what that organization is, but like I said above, your attitude has turned me off.
Kim, why would you think that I don’t get it? I said earlier to Aaron (below), depending on what you want to do, the fact that any given group isn’t united can be a powerful disadvantage or an advantage. The “disadvantage” part of it of course applies to what you just said. Yes, we as a “group” of deaf people (who COULD be united on some fronts) suffer much more than we have to because we won’t unite.
How are we disagreeing here?
Actually I think you DO get it, Chris. I was just feeling pissed off at those who don’t get it. :-)
Oh, believe me, Michele, despite all the deaf/hh advocacy groups and organizations out there, there is still a lot of ignorance, and maybe denial, out there in the hearing world. Many hearing people rarely have an encounter with deaf people or the issue of deafness, let alone know how to deal with it, or where to go for resources, when they DO encounter it. Don’t misconstrue a hearing person’s silence as disagreement, they’re probably clueless.
My point was that Kim was talking as if deaf/Deaf people did NO outreach at all, when that is far from the case.
I was giving credit where it was due.
(It’s also clear in some cases that despite all outreach efforts, some hearing people just don’t listen and actually ignore the information given to them. So it’s not just being “clueless” or “ignorant”…sometimes they just don’t want the information!)
Chris,
Upon reading your article, I decided to google the term “hearing world” in quotations. The first hit that came up was a presentation on “DEAF CULTURE and the hearing world”
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/course...../Index.htm
After further research, I couldn’t ascertain whether the creator of the website was hearing or deaf, but considering the content of the website my guess would be that she’s hearing.
The other hits were a mix of various websites with different content with no specific pattern of raising awareness about deafness.
Now on the other side of the coin, the first hit that came up for “deaf culture” was an article on Wikipedia (Note that NAD has a sponsored link at the top).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture
I searched for the phrase “hearing world” within this article and only found one match within the “Further Reading” section.
The other hits seemed to have a pattern of raising awareness about the various aspects of deaf culture, not just ASL.
One thing I did note was that the term “hearing world” was not necessarily used only by deaf/hoh individuals, but also parents blogging about their children’s deafness.
What I seem to be drawing from your article is that this concept of a “hearing world” is typically used as an illusion of oppression, yet should we go so far to say there’s no such thing as a “deaf world?” Perhaps instead of saying “deaf world” we should be saying “deaf community.”
I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a “deaf community,” yet should we go so far to say there is a “hearing community?” After all there are deaf children who do not grow up immersed in Deaf culture, instead they’re being raised to be like hearing individuals.
I’ve used the phrase “hearing world” myself, yet I’ve used it in a way to describe myself as growing up and living in this “world” and not within the “deaf community” itself. I can’t recall ever using the phrase to signify oppression by hearing individuals.
Now that the phrase in question should be phased out, what do you think I should say when elaborating on my childhood experience as a deaf person from the “hearing” perspective?
Hi Aaron:
Excellent questions. Let me think about this for a day or so. I’ll get back to you.
Hi Aaron:
“What do you think I should say when elaborating on my childhood experience as a deaf person from the ‘hearing’ perspective?”
I don’t know, but I guess I’d challenge you to clarify WHICH hearing perspective you’re talking about. Because if all hearing people had the same perspective on deafness there would be no variation among those perspectives whatsoever, which we already know isn’t true (for example, some see deafness as a cultural and linguistic state of being, others see it as a disability, etc).
So which hearing people are you talking about, and what criteria must the individuals that compromise a particular group of hearing people meet in order to officially share the same perspective on deafness?
Now as for the “deaf world” vs. “deaf community” issue, I’m not sure what to say about that, either, unless we adjust our definition of “world” to accomodate the fact that, although people might share that world, they by no means have to agree on everything in order to do so.
And that, you see, brings us right back to the argument that got heated up during the “Oral Deaf Culture” discussion a few blogs back. I know “Deaf” people who don’t care one way or another if deaf children are implanted, for example (based on what they’ve told me, anyway), and I know Deaf people who remain vehemently opposed to the practice. So are both of those Deaf people part of the same “Deaf world?”
We don’t have to get into that again here again if you don’t want to. If anything, though, I think that argument underscores my point above that there might be some unity, or limited unity, but there will rarely be total unity.
And depending on what it is that you want to do, that fact can be either a disadvantage… or a very powerful ADVANTAGE.
I think we’re viewing this question a bit differently, as I’m asking as a profoundly deaf CI user who often is mistaken for a hearing person in the vast majority of my social interactions (that is when my hair’s long enough to hide my transmitter). A deaf person’s perspective rather instead of a hearing person.
In a way, I’m asking this question on behalf of all these children who are being implanted at such an early age and treated just like a hearing child (which I’ve observed as being the norm for the majority of children implantees). The concept of a “deaf community” might seem foreign to them, just as it did for me growing up. At the same time they may meet peers who are in similar circumstances, yet will they truly compose a “deaf community” of their own? I don’t think so.
This point may put a hole in the idea that there is such a thing as “oral deaf culture.” If oral deaf adults end up mainstreaming into their own communities, one would expect them to absorb the values and ideas of those communities (which typically would be composed of hearing people and others with various “disabilities.”) and rather not the values and ideas of “D/deaf culture.”
Perhaps we’re looking at the term “world” the wrong way, as it has been used in different ways to convey ideas, such as “violent world,” “capitalist world,” and so on. The context in which one uses a word dictates how people define the meaning of that word.
It’s interesting how you used the word “unity” to describe your point of “total unity” being an improbability. It has quite many meanings, such as the number 1.
Well, Aaron, you have to remember that through DeafDC.com alone, I’ve already met a great many people who are deaf (albeit from a wide variety of backgrounds that are quite different from my own) and have formed a community of sorts with them that has little or nothing to do with the norms of Deaf Culture. So yeah, it’s possible to meet peers and form a “deaf community” of your own. It’s a question of having the opportunity to meet and then set your own rules.
But while there’s specific types of “unity” among us (for example, many of the commenters here might agree on some issues at a given time or think each other cool enough to hook up with for coffee or something to discuss issues further or just generally hang out), there’s also enough disunity to cause conflicts, distrust, and even anger. And sometimes these polar opposite feelings can manifest in the same person. For example, I have often read comments by the same person on different topics and have swung back and forth between thinking that person was someone I could easily get along with …to thinking we wouldn’t get along very well because I disagreed with specific views so much. I wonder if that’s true for other readers in here as well?
So here we have this “community” known as DeafDC.com. Are we unified? Eh. Some of us, some of the time. And that’s about as good as it gets. If you wanted to explore the DeafDC.com “world,” you’d really have to be able enter it without expecting everyone there to be the same, because if you did, you’d have a hell of a time defining the people of that world, or nailing down a long list of criteria they all met in the exact same way.
Now I don’t know if that answers your questions, but again, the same thing applies to the hearing “world” (and to the Deaf one, and the deaf one, and so forth). Stand far enough away, and it looks solid. but get closer and it’s not quite so solid anymore.
(I get a sinking feeling that I’ve somehow missed addressing your questions. If I haven’t I need a bit more clarification, okay? Ha, so you have to be patient with me…)
I understand your point about the vast diversity that is present in this “deaf world” of ours. It’s quite apparent in the comments section on DeafDC.
That diversity is what creates a community, and not a specific culture. Perhaps I was wrong to imply that there’s no such thing as a “oral deaf community,” but I still believe that “oral” deaf culture is still a bit of a reach.
Maybe my questions are the kind that would be difficult to answer without some kind of context, or they were designed to get across a point about meanings and context. Either way it is not the answer to these questions I seek, but the dialogue that leads us to ask ourselves more questions.
It is all about perspective indeed, as the vantage point where you stand makes a difference in how you perceive things.
Nice blog entry, Chris.
I agree that *THEY* aren’t 270 million strong.
All one has to do is look at the presidential election every four years, not many people even make it out to the polls.
I agree that if we can concentrate our protests/grievances onto small issues one by one, we will not find much opposition.
As a deaf person who lives mostly in the hearing world…one thing I have noticed about hearing people in GENERAL is that they are very INDIFFERENT to issues in the deaf community.
It is not that they are anti-deaf…or misinformed…they just don’t really care..very much like deaf people (who can walk) don’t really care if there are handicapped ramps outside of all buildings..or if the water fountains are set low (taller deaf folks)..and so forth. Do we hate handicapped people or little people? No..we don’t. We just are indifferent.
It does not occur to many hearing people that the deaf cannot go to the local movie theather and see every movie or that they cannot understand every video clip on youtube.com..and etc… When they find out..they just say, “That sucks” and go on with their lives. I don’t blame them. The issues in the deaf community do not concern them. Those issues are for us and only for us to fight.
Just the way it is.
Hi JJ:
EXACTLY.
And the real shame is that this is so often viewed as a negative. “Oh, hearing people are indifferent, we’ll never make any headway…”
If the bulk of them are indifferent, how are they going to get in the way or join any kind of oppositional force?
Gotcha! Yours is a good comparison with politics. As having lived in the hearing world for many years, I have observed that most hearing Americans are indifferent, apathetic, oblivious, unaware, unappreciative, inconsiderate. Few Americans really
do care.
Yes Jean!! The reason the ramps exist everywhere is because those who need ramps SUE! They are more powerful because they are more united. We deaf/Deaf/HH need to unite too, so that we’re all on the same page with our demands of equal access and equal treatment. Right now the Deaf are in this specialized category of people who speak a mysterious language and have a mysterious culture. When hearing people start equating “Deaf” with Aunt Martha who wears a hearing aid, or the little boy up the street who got a cochlear implant, they’ll start paying attention. It’s really that simple. :-)
It’s not that people with wheelchairs are more “powerful because they’re more united”…the reality is, they had certain people in wheelchairs who were RICH and POWERFUL, like Justin Dart.
Justin Dart was the one who really pushed hard for the accessibility of people with wheelchairs…he had lots of MONEY, and right contacts.
Kim, respectfully I disagree. My brother is a non-signing deaf man. He has an implant now and I have no idea how people perceive him now, but prior to his getting the implant they had no problem whatsoever seeing him as deaf. Now you said “Deaf” (with cultural implications) and I don’t know if you meant it that way or what, but I think people in general already DO just see Deaf or deaf people as “deaf.” You might have to explain this a bit more. Do you mean that when your average deaf person (no capital D and therefore I guess no cultural connection?) is seen as being just as ___________ (you fill this in) as a culturally Deaf person, THEN hearing people will start paying attention? Is the word that would go on that line “the opposite of mysterious?”
Sorry just a bit confused…
I probably should have dropped the d Chris. But that’s another point all together, because hearing people don’t get this d-deaf, D-deaf thing. I have to explain it constantly. Then they just nod blankly, because they REALLY do NOT get it. Also, telling someone you’re hard-of-hearing is misleading when you are as deaf as me because to most people that connotes just a little mild hearing loss. If a person wears a CI, they are deaf. As you probably know there’s a lot of variable how well CI users can hear. Additionally, an individual wearer will hear better in some environments than in others. Some environments we find challenging don’t pose a problem to a hearing person, so it confuses them that Nancy can hear on the phone with her CI, but Tim can’t or that Susan could hear just fine at the breakfast table, but is having trouble now that there’s company for dinner. And then of course it comes off at the end of the day or when you go water-skiing and when you’re in bed and on and on. . .So you are basically still a deaf person.
Now I have a question. If you use ASL and you have a CI, but half your family is Deaf so that you’re fluent in ASL, would you be Deaf or deaf? And does it really matter?
Well, just as there are blind people (I have met a FEW ones… mostly deaf ones with Usher’s Syndrome) and yes I am ignorant about blind people, same as I am ignorant about any disabled people’s plight. So we are often preoccupied in our own worlds (or communities, for the matter.) So we hardly see outside of our communities to see what is beyond our imagined boundaries… just as what JJ and Chris H. said. We care only about our own communities’ problems, being self-centered in a way or two.
It’s just Deafspeak of person’s phenomenon. As JJ stated, the general population does not give a **** hence the worldview. It goes the same way that hearing people think Deaf people are mute, dumb, disabled, and trying to make them broke.
Maybe there is only one world, and we are all a part of it? And perhaps we all make generalizations to order our personal perceptions based on our limited knowledge and personal experience?
–Bill, from the from the Un-United States of Hearing.
Hahaha! I LOVE that… “the Un-United States of Hearing.”
Perfect!
Chris,
I watch Jay Leno and can’t believe how naive hearing people can be when Jay asks questions on JayWalking segment.
Even college students are so stupid, or should I say naive?
Then I asked myself this, Suppose one of those people have a deaf baby? What will they do? Can they be educated?…..
“It takes all kinds of people to make the world round”
That’s life!
But every problem got a solution.
I will not give up finding a way to have parents of deaf babies to realize that bilingual is the answer to success in life.
John
John, may I ask you some questions? Have you (or has the DBC) narrowed down a list of specific names of people within A.G. Bell who have the power to make the changes you want? I’m asking in complete ignorance–I have no idea how either the DBC or A.G. Bell conducts its business. For example, say that you want A.G. Bell to promote the use of ASL to help deaf children–even implanted ones–make greater language gains. How would they go about making this change if they could be convinced to make it? Who decides? Does it depend upon a vote by some kind of committee? Who is on that committee? If there are obstacles to making that change, what are they? Is it a question of bylaws or something? Who wrote them? Who or what set of conditions maintain them?
What I’m getting at here is “The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing” is a big cloud of fog. You can touch it, kind of, yet you can’t (pretty much just like “the hearing world”). To do any business whatsoever, including eventual negotiation, you need something or someone more solid than a cloud.
And that “someone” is..?
(You probably already have this info and may just not want to discuss it here. But I hope you will. There