A commenter on DeafDC.com named, “s f” recently expressed his or her opinion about DeafDC in Allison Kaftan’s Blog, “Presto Reducto! What Protest?“:

I tell myself this DeafDC blog is populated almost wholly by socially underdeveloped HoH nerds who are thus most susceptible to barbs like that elf cartoon. To everyone here who still go, “I worry about the protests for what their legacy might do to me,” I say to them: Toughen up. Especially in the face of satire; examination is necessary, and the more unforgiving the better. (Bold mine)

While s f’s latter part of his or her comment has some truth to it, I will examine the first part of his comment, which may be a perception held by many towards DeafDC.com. The observation held by s f, and probably many others, is that the entire list of DeafDC Bloggers, including Guest Bloggers and our countless deaf and hard of hearing commenters are, “socially underdeveloped HoH nerds.”

Some protesters and those who support the protest may view DeafDC and most, if not all of the DeafDC Bloggers, as “anti-protest”, “pro-Jane Fernandes”, “against deaf culture”, “not mentally deaf”, “audists”, and the list goes on and on. You get the idea and it’s unfortunate. While some may think that DeafDC Blogs during the protest were mostly critical of the protesters, it was not the intention of DeafDC to present one side more than the other. Our Bloggers are free to Blog about whatever they want, and we readily accepted many of the Guest Blogs submitted to us which met our criteria. At times, we even pursued Guest Blogs from all sides to help us understand the unique issues confronting Gallaudet and the deaf and hard of hearing community.

It’s possible that some of the protesters saw DeafDC’s attempts to openly discuss and examine issues, such as those that were raised during the protest, from both sides of the coin as “anti-protest”. The expectation, it appears, is that anyone deaf must fall in line with the group that has the “righteous” and “just” objective in an “us” versus “them” battle for the heart and soul of the community. And if anyone did not wholeheartedly agree with the protesters, they are “not deaf enough.”


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