Kudos to joseph!

Shane: Agreed - we still have long way to go.

VERY few students knew ASL while I was the student. The majority was taught to learn how to work in the work environment (NTID is a technical school, not a liberal arts college like Gallaudet.) People who graduated from NTID and decided to make Rochester home… are often not “deaf cultured” (I can’t think of a better term.) Instead, they have hearing children, work at hearing companies, etc., which might influence their participation in the deaf community.

RIT is run by hearing people. NTID just happens to be one of nine colleges under the RIT system. NTID has no ties with Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cosgwell saga.

And the reason the first protest at Gallaudet (DPN) succeeded was because the entire community had support of the rest of the world.

The second protest didn’t have the support of the rest of the world…and the goals behind the second protest were fragmented due to various agendas held by different groups involved with the protest. Pretty hard to make a protest “successful” if you have to worry about pushing several agendas at the same time.

Lastly, you may not care about Gallaudet, but it is undeniable that Gallaudet *does* hold an important place in the Deaf community by the virtue of its place in Deaf history and culture, and by the virtue of its leadership and symbol of hope to other Deaf people all over the world.

Technology doesn’t always work smoothly! And, yet, they say it will improve our lives! HA!

How come this message keeps appearing when someone wants to “edit” their comments:

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A good friend of mine and I got talking about protests by deaf people…We both felt that it was pretty sad and pathetic that only protests would happen if the topic was about Gallaudet. We have never heard of any such protests happening at RIT/NTID ever. We wonder why people will protest only if Gallaudet is involved but when the issues involving deaf rights outside of Gallaudet are impacting their lives, no one wants to protest???!? We fail to see how Gallaudet issues can impact people OUTSIDE Gallaudet because many of us 1) have never gone to Gallaudet, 2) graduated from there already; or 3) have no interests with Gallaudet.

The deaf community is MUCH larger than Gallaudet and we have MANY issues that are impacting our own lives outside of Gallaudet such as captioning, on the job discrimination, lack of jobs, SSDI, SSI, and so on. Why we never collectively fight for our rights as a community eludes us. We both wonder if we all had collectively protested for our rights that affects our post-college lives would result in better lives all around???

Food for thought here….

Wow….your blog here really has stirred up the hornet’s nest, so to speak.

You know, I got to thinking that when the Deaf community had their FIRST major DPN protest that extended all the way to Capitol Hill, that it did result in a successful conclusion that resulted in REAL change.

Although Gallaudet had another protest, it wasn’t really that effective in my opinion because it didn’t affect the LARGER Deaf community as a whole.

I think with captioning in the media, particularly online (internet), we definitely need to galvanize as a whole and demonstrate for our rights. I just am stumped why the Deaf community ONLY will galvanize and demonstrate on the street for a UNIVERSITY that does NOT affect the ENTIRE Deaf communitty???? To me, its a huge waste of human power and potential. We really need to ORGANIZE a huge protest and march up to Capitol Hill and demand that our communication rights be protected, whether it be on TV, Internet, videos, ad nauseum!

I, like you, Shane, am not too happy that I am NOT able to be afforded the same rights as a hearing person who is able to ENJOY and PARTAKE in the political discourse, whether it be online or offline.

Its time that we, the Deaf community, stand up, galvanize, organize, and execute a public march to demand that captioning be a mandatory requirement. We can either do this in the Nation’s capitol or in our own states’ capitols!

Its time that we quit being complacent and TAKE ACTION! Writing letters isn’t going to spur our congressmen to action. Its the ever present protest march that will make them sit up and take notice just like they did back during DPN protest on Capital Hill.

Lets collectively get off our asses and take REAL action to fight for what is our right.