I especially loved how you talked about this protest shouldn’t be about winning. I wholeheartedly agree. Like you said, when we get caught up in that winning mentality, someone must lose, and usually even when there is a victory, everyone ends up losing. That’s the whole problem with “Power-Over”…even when you win, are the benefits of winning really worth all the “violence” that had to go into achieving the victory?

This wasn’t a football game here, folks. The losing team doesn’t get to head back to the practice field and work on their passes for the next game. There’s no “better luck next year!”

This was a protest about changing a system. And as this video demonstrated, doing so required that we not stoop to similar “Power-Over” principles in order to “defeat” it.

Change isn’t about defeat. Change is about looking at the system and seeing where we need to remove the damage it causes, and encourage the benefits that it promotes.

Yes and No, WAD.

I think an Ombudsperson could serve in a guiding way to help people utilize that “Power-From-Within” to help people learn to communicate the issues, to be honest with themselves and each other, to keep their commitments, etc. etc. So from the standpoint of “assisting the community” then yes, I would definitely agree with you.

But we must also remember that “Power-From-Within” cannot be appointed or conferred upon an individual. If the community looks to that Omsbudperson to basically resolve the problems for them, then they are simply giving that individual the right to “Power-Over”…perhaps not necessarily in a violent or negative way, but the people are refusing to take responsibility themselves for utilizing the power to resolve their own issues.

That’s the other thing we have to remember about these two different types of power - “Power-From-Within” assumes that everyone will work together - that “unity” that we keep hearing so much about - to identify the issues and work towards a resolution.

“Power-From-Within” is about equalizing that system and maintaining a level of balance where everyone’s opinion counts, and everyone’s voice is heard, and everyone takes responsibility for being part of the solution.

If we hand the mess over to one person and say “Okay…you fix the problem” or at the very least “you figure out what the problem is and then come back and tell us how to fix it” then we are basically giving up our own power.

Thanks for sharing and nice job! It’s a good idea to stay focused on a certain topic.

I have a few questions. Is there any chance we will ever learn exact what happened inside the process they used to reach the decision they made? I doubt as I believe it will remain confidential forever — to prevent from possible lawsuits and to protect the individuals. How about having the staff from the Human Resource Department to educate us how the selection process should be done. How about posting a new blog focusing on this specific Human Resource related matter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vae1-ninEE0

Blurb:”This video was made two weeks ago, but an unexpected circumstances prevented it from being uploaded. Even through this is dated, we felt it was still important to share our perspective as it was two weeks ago. This is a result of a teamwork composed of four deaf individuals with differing perspectives of the protest- we still hold tremendoud respect for each other to listen and have an ongoing dialogue, and we hope the same will happen at Gallaudet and beyond. “

I’m not sure how we can equalize that system. I do think that a good start is to teach Ethics. By taking responsibility for our own actions, we acknowledge that we do hold some power. But I don’t think it’s possible for the students to just arrive at Gallaudet, then understand that. I think that has to happen on all levels, from locally to nationally. It happens over time, from various learning experiences, and from different individuals teaching us that.

Hope that made sense… :p

~ Deaf Pundit

As for us expressing anger in a way so we can move forward in a positive way - that’s an extremely good question. I think it remains to be seen. There’s ways to express anger appropriately, and to be perfectly blunt, like I’ve said previously, I don’t think what happened at the protests were appropriate. I’m a social activist, and I’ve done protests. I’ve been mad as hell at people who’ve denied me and others services, but the sheer amount of RAGE just confounded me.

To me it seemed that people were generally angry about a variety of things - legitimately by the way - then JK came along, and quite frankly, in my eyes, she was the perfect target for the protestors to take their rage out on.

I think it’s normal for people to be angry, considering our history of oppression. But I don’t think this level of rage is normal. I think there were several individuals who exploited people’s legimate anger at the wrongs committed, and fanned their anger into vitrolic rage, and the whole thing spun out of control. That’s my take on it, anyway.

~ Deaf Pundit

“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.” Arnold Bennett

For me, I think it’s painfully obvious that we’ve reached a crucial point, where we’re educated enough to realize the terrible oppression committed to us, our language and culture, but we as a whole aren’t educated enough to start dealing with that in a healthy manner.

I do not think the Gallaudet protests were emotionally healthy. I think it was emotionally violent. People on all sides committed emotional violence. So, for that perception shift to really take root, I think we all have to acknowledge that the entire thing could’ve been handled better. And that we need to understand our rights better, and be more committed to ourselves, our culture and language, while still recognizing the right for all of us to be an individual, even if some of the person’s personal beliefs is at odds with the culture itself.

I’m seeing a huge ditchomony right now in Deaf culture, because like I’ve said before, we do not exist in a vacuum. We’re also part of the larger society, and they emphasize individuality, among other things. The Deaf culture does not emphasize individuality, but emphasizes groupthink. It’s totally understandable why the culture emphasizes groupthink - it’s how we’ve survived over 150 years of Oralism.

But now, I think the problem’s compounded by the fact that there’s a large number of us who are becoming more and more assimilated in the ‘hearing world’ for a lack of better description. So I think that’s part of why there’s such an intense clash occuring, because nobody wants to truly acknowledge that and start fixing that problem of how do we recognize the person’s right to be an individual, but still retain their Deaf identity.

~ Deaf Pundit

1.) It was the temporary policy set up over the summer for Gallaudet University concerning guidelines for Freedom of Expression. I simply disagreed with the guidelines. It’s crucial for people to have the right to express their opinions. The battle for freedom of speech was likely to strain the relations further with the University. I thought the Administration made a bad move.

2.) In October, I started to see several poor decisions and slow responses to the University and public - for instance, how I. King Jordan’s Administration and especially its Public Relations Department handled information. I became disappointed with many of Gallaudet University’s management strategies and responses.

Both shifts were for the worse. The policy and type of responses were the part of the process of change.

Move on to the next topic — suppose the Ombudsperson was there and able to assist the community by finding the right person to resolve the recurring issues such as DPS’s ability to communicate, then the protest probably would be minimized. I think Ombudsperson is linked to the “power-from-within”.

Please feel free to correct me if you think I misunderstand “power” and “power-from-within”. Thanks!