Comments on: When is Discrimination, Discrimination?

By: Mr. Sandman’s Sandbox » Employers: You Pay Either Way

Mr. Sandman’s Sandbox » Employers: You Pay Either Way — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:07:02 +0000

[…] run up against this attitude before. So have many of you. Richard Brklacich surely has– he wrote an entry on the occupational disparity between the deaf and hearing regardless of education for Deaf DC. He […]

By: Aquafina

Aquafina — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:46:44 +0000

What about a Deaf person who wears hearing aids but is oral and functions well in a hearing environment?

I’d really like to see a study be done by some PhD student who may be specializing in that area?

Yoo Hoo PhD candidates, here are some good ideas for you to parse!!!! Hope you can come up with some viable data for us to digest…

By: Noelle

Noelle — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:09:51 +0000

It’s hard to get statistics like that, because you’d have to have an oral deaf person with a CI in the same employ as a Deaf person with hearing aids. It’s very rare to have more than one deaf employee in a workplace.

By: Noelle

Noelle — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:08:24 +0000

I have a cochlear implant, and I know that I face an easier time of getting employment because I speak orally and function pretty well in a hearing environment compared to a Deaf person who wears hearing aids and only uses ASL to communicate, but there is still an enormous amount of discrimination and prejudice out there that we all have to face.

By: Jean Boutcher

Jean Boutcher — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:09:07 +0000

Aquafina,

You raise an interesting point. I wonder if any implanted employee has been promoted. I would like to see
statistics.

By: Aquafina

Aquafina — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:50:54 +0000

Its sad to see that many of us still experience discrimination while even being employed. Many firms often keep disabled employees at the same position for many years all the while promoting other people over them even though the disabled employee may be just as qualified (or even more so) as the non-disabled employee. It can be very demoralizing to the employee after many years of enduring non-promotions. Advancements are what drives many employees, whether they are disabled or not.

By: Aquafina

Aquafina — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:12:49 +0000

You know, there is still a glass ceiling in place for people with disabilities, deaf or not. Its very frustrating for many deaf people who aspire to succeed at any career they have. There is still a paternalistic attitude among many corporations today, if one doesn’t see it visibly. A lot of that attitude can be covert. I am not entirely sure if even having a CI (Cochlear Implant) will even SIGNIFICANTLY boost one’s career to the point of being promoted to a higher position.

Anyone want to comment?

By: Michele Ketcham

Michele Ketcham — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 22:40:14 +0000

Jean–

I didn’t know about the OSD part, but yes, I do know that AGB was afraid that if Deaf people married each other, they would produce nothing but Deaf children.

He also even visited Martha’s Vineyard, but he could not understand how genetics worked (of course, he was an idiot in that area) and he was very unhappy to see that it was entirely possible for hearing people to learn ASL and to live comfortably with Deaf people as equals.

He could not stomach that at all and despite the clear evidence of what he saw at Martha’s Vineyard, he refused to change his views. Sad, really.

(for other people who want to know more about this, read John Van Cleve’s “A Place of Their Own” and Nora Ellen Croce’s “Everybody Signed Here:…”
Both books are GREAT!)

By: Jean Boutcher

Jean Boutcher — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:22:39 +0000

Enumerators make a personal visit after picking up some families’ names at random while most families receive census forms via mail.

Digression:

In 1860 and 1870 census returns, an enumerator would talk with each family member and would put a check on the census form if a member was “Idiot”, “deaf-dumb,”
“Can’t read,” or “Can’t write.”

A.G. Bell suspectied that deafness was a gene because at Ohio School for the Deaf a student John Doe’s parents and paternal grandfather were deaf (three deaf generations). Bell went to the state archives to search for information on Doe’s grandfather in the 1860/70 census returns. Sure enough, he found that the grandfather was enumerated as “Deaf.” Upset about the grandfather’s being a deaf gene carrier, Bell did not want deaf students to attend a residential school together because it would lead to marriage.

By: Michele Ketcham

Michele Ketcham — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:07:49 +0000

I never had anyone come to visit me in order to take my census. I got census forms and filled them out.

In the language section, I wrote in “American Sign Language”.

I did this in 2000 and 1990 and will definitely do it again when 2010 comes around.