I had overlooked this comment in another blog earlier this week and I was going through it recently to see if anything else was added. I don’t really see a need to specifically name this person but when this commenter stated “I am no militant” in a comment, the Coke that I was drinking at the time nearly came out my nose.

This commenter, as well as a few others, has called me an apologist, among a few other names simply because I spoke the truth and the reality of what is out there in this world.  They have also called me an AGB supporter, when I have not been to an AGB convention within this millenium, or in the last 20 years. I have had people tell me that oh AGB only provides interpreter because the ADA laws require them to do so, the last time I went was actually before the ADA became law and my recollection tells me that I had seen interpreters there, as well as many deaf attendees that were publicly signing there.

I have been accused of being an AGB lover, and AGB supporter, etc., but the reality is that I recognize the fact that they are very well within their rights to do what they are doing.  For people to accuse me for not being deaf enough or the like, simply because I acknowledge the fact that they have the right to do what they are doing. They also have no comprehension of the fact that I do not fully or wholly support them in their beliefs….I only acknowledge that they are within their right to do so.  For people to say that I am wrong for doing so, are in my opinion quite selfish people for their own reasons and allow me to tell you why.

Over the past two centuries, thousands and thousands of Americans, as well as non-Americans, have sacrificed their own lives just so we have have the freedom that we have today, we have the freedom to follow our beliefs, as long as they are legal. These people have lost their lives so that we can have this right.

Now if you are going to ask me which is more important, me being a selfish bastard and put my own deafness above all else and let all these people die in vain, or to honor these people that have sacrificed their lives and not allow them to die in vain? My answer is quite simple, I choose to honor these people that have sacrificed their lives, because it allows us to have the freedom that we all have today and for those that disagree with me, I have one simple gesture, I hold up three fingers with the palm side facing myself and tell you to read between the lines! I will not allow these people to sacrifice their lives in vain!!!!!!

As much as I love being deaf and I love the deaf culture, I will never put those that have sacrificed their own lives for my freedom before my deafness, as that would only make me selfish.  However, what I can do is to acknowledge the fact that other communication modes exists and I respect them, and I can still prefer ASL while doing that.  

In another blog, another commenter brought to my attention a link about a video of Veditz, as I had brought up his name in an earlier comment. Now I don’t normally want to name people in my postings, however, I will make an exception for this….Patti, thank you so much for telling me about that link!!!!! and here it is..

http://videocatalog.gallaudet.edu/player.cfm?video=2520

This is where Veditz talks about the preservation of sign language and while this is hard to see, as it was nearly 100 years ago. As I watched this man present himself in a very graceful manner and he did not specifically target individuals. He looked at the big picture and this is exactly what we need to do when it comes to audism, look at the big picture.  Then present ourselves and our propaganda gracefully. In this video Veditz acknowledges the power of the film, which is also propaganda.  What he referred to when he spoke of the pharoahs and joseph could also be perceived as the big picture of audism as well. He presented himself in a very graceful way and he was just so eloquent!!!!!!! I am now a bigger fan of his and would like to learn more about him. Now that doesn’t mean I’ve become anti-oral

If I had seen this type of behavior at recent protests, it would likely be a tactic that I would be wholeheartedly agreeing with, providing that it was in a general location.

I encourage you all to watch this video, we all could learn from Veditz, especially the leaders of you know who I am talking about and its hard core followers, including the commenter that says he is no deaf militant and calls me an apologist.  I am going to take a friendly jab here and call this deaf militant an anarchist Anarchy is not the way to elimination audism these days.

I actually was not intending to write this posting, but when I saw that there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black today, I actually left a comment calling upon the blogger on this earlier today. Naturally, that blog was moderated, but I could see that my comment was left ignored, because this blogger also frequents DVTV with comments and I could see that this v/blogger was at the computer. At the time I am writing this, my comment questioning this still has not appeared on this posting that I am referring to. So this leaves me no choice but to bring up a posting here. Like I mentioned in my previous posting about two sides in a chess match, again, I am not on either side in this posting. I only bring it up because I had a “WTF?” moment and felt it needed to be addressed.

I do not want to use names here, but unfortunately this situation is so obvious that you would figure out who I am referring to. However, I will still refrain from using names.  This blogger wrote a posting publicly calling upon one of the editors of DeafRead seeking out answers. This blogger was stating that the editors should not allow double standards and was ranting and raving about how a previous post was a personal vendetta and that the editors were allowing people to post vlogs and blogs that hurt other deaf people’s reputation and personal lives.

I was agreeing with this blogger on the fact that personal vendettas, as well as blogs and vlogs that were specifically and purposely hurting other deaf individuals should not be allowed or deleted. I was nodding my head in agreement as I continued to read this blog posting and felt that it was a well thought out blog. 

So when I finished reading the other blogs in DR, I then headed over to DVTV and what was the first thing I saw? I saw this same blogger posting a video on a different topic making statements that were completely going against every single word that this blog I had just finished reading and agreeing with it.

What was even more interesting, is that it had me having a double take experience so I went back and forth and what I found to be interesting was the fact that both the blog in DR and the vlog in DVTV were posted at around the same time.

Quite a WTF moment ain’t it?

We often see controversies that arise in the deaf blogosphere, as well as vlogosphere, and I did not notice this until now, but it has me thinking of chess when it comes to analogies. It appears that it is usually the same people (in general, I am not saying it applies to every single reader, but in general) that remain on the same side, regardless of what the controversy is. 

Now I am not pointing at any single one controversy here, as I could actually come up with a long list, but for the sake of a civil discussion, I am leaving names and topics out of the equation here.  Because of the fact that the majority of the people remain on the same side regardless of the controversial issue, these people seem to always agree with each other and defend each other.

The reason chess comes to mind, is because this appears to me a black and white issue (nothing to do with skin color or nationality here) and the reason that these controversies continuously come up is because this gets likened to a game of chess where one side is always trying to checkmate the other.

Now I am no chess fanatic, however, my father taught me the game of chess at a very young age, I think I was like 6 or 7, maybe even 8 when I learned the game of chess. I even learned how to checkmate my opponent in just 4 moves if they didn’t defend themselves properly. But that is not the point here, the point is that it appears that in this deaf blogo/vlogosphere is that we have two sides where the majority of the people always remain together on a particular side, so that is where the black and white king, queen, knights, bishops, rooks, and pawns come in. (I hope I am remembering my chess terminology here so feel free to correct me if I am not)

Chess is meant to be played over and over so there usually a different king when it comes to each controversy in the case of the blogo/vlogosphere and yet it the same people that play it every time, but the problem is that a checkmate seems to never happen here and it always comes to a draw so a new game gets played, which is where a new controversy comes in. The problem, the way I see it is that we are likely going to not ever see a checkmate in this sense and when most people watching the game of chess over and over, they get sick of it and stop watching, or even playing it, which is why I stopped playing years ago and I do play a game like once every five years or so, if even that much.  That being the case, don’t you think it is high time that the deaf blogo/vlogosphere stopped playing chess where they are always looking for checkmates that are likely not going to happen and just give up on the game of chess. Instead, do something more productive and is actually beneficial for everyone in the deaf population, such as promoting unity?

Now I am gonna get off this soapbox and get on a different one here.  First of all, let me clearly state that I am no lawyer, nor am I attempting to give out any legal advice here, but I want to address an issue that arose recently, and that is the area of copyrights.

It appears that most people think that once they write or video something on the internet, it automatically becomes the public domain and anyone can use it.  I am not so sure if that is true, I mean for example, when you register for Facebook, for example, you agree that everything you put in there is the property of Facebook.  Just cause Facebook has that right to that property, it does not mean that you have that right too the way I see it. Now some of you may think that DeafRead and DVTV is public domain, the way I see it, that isn’t true either, cuz if it were, we would not be required to follow guidelines that were imposed by the developers of these websites ya know? The way I see it DeafRead and DVTV is NOT public domain. If there are any lawyers, legal scholars or experts out there that dispute this, I wholeheartedly welcome it, just so that we all learn something together. But for the time being, its just my own opinion based on what I have learned and read over time.

Copyrights can be a confusing subject here, cuz I have seen people say that one does not need permission to obtain photographs and they often refer to National Enquirer as an example, where photographers obtain photographs of celebrities that do not want to have their photo taken. Granted, you have the right to take their picture yourself, but you do not have the right to use a photo that was put on the internet by another photographer other than yourself, unless you have that photographer’s consent. It is the same way with the comments on DeafRead and DVTV.

Another example would be the little known story about a guy that everyone knows, Tiger Woods. Years ago, he tried to take an artist, Rick Rush, to court because he was painting pictures of Tiger and making lithographs out of it where he sold them and he did not even bother with permission from Tiger, nor paid him a commission out of his sales. Over a period of a couple years or so, Tiger kept taking him to court and the artist, Rick Rush, kept on winning the judgement every time where Tiger would keep on appealing to a higher court over and over to a point where he only had the Supreme Court remaining if I recall correctly, he realized he could not win and gave up.  This was a huge corporation against a little known artist that only serious sports painting collectors knew of, a David vs. Goliath type of battle, and David won this battle. Why, because he knew exactly what his rights were and actually followed the law where it was no copyright infringement, no trademark infringement, no exploitation. Every single one of his paintings and lithographs were done by his own hands, so therefore no infringement. If he had used a machine press instead of doing it by hand, then Tiger may have had a better chance of winning the lawsuit.

I see people on DVTV saying that they are copying people’s comments for their own protection, for blackmail, etc. The problem is that they do not have that right, why?  Because these people did not record these comments with their own cameras. The comments were recorded by a person using their own webcam, and that does not give another person the right to use it.  The only way another person would have that right would be if they actually did the videotaping of the comment themselves.  That being the case, you should not worry about anyone else copying your comments.

It isn’t their computers that automatically record a copy of your comments by itself, it has to be done by a human being for it to be copied and that is a violation of the copyright law. It’s the same where where people say, “Guns don’t kill people, people do” a person has to pull the trigger for the gun to kill someone else, its the same thing with computers the way I see this.

Again, I am not lawyer and this is in no way, shape or form of giving out legal advise, but explaining copyrights as I understand it and here is a great link that explains it further quite clearly and the website’s author also gives full permission as per his writing on the website.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html - copy and paste this into a browser for yourself and it will give you a huge reality check when you read the myths. I have seen people use different excuses for stating how they are not violating copyrights and this link proves a lot of them wrong. I highly encourage you to read it for yourself so you can start protecting yourself because you could be looking at civil lawsuits if you don’t do it right.

If you think a civil lawsuit is nothing because there is no criminal court involved, remember many people felt that OJ Simpson got away with murder in a criminal court, but he practically lost everything he had in a civil lawsuit regarding the same matter.

So bottom line is this, the way I see it, if you are going to copy people’s comments and use them without permission, or follow appropriate procedures when doing so,  I would imagine that it would be a wise move on your part to have a lawyer on retainer, in the event that you piss off the other person enough for them to hire their own lawyer.

While audism is the hot topic of the blogosphere these days, we have been more focused on who it applies to, whether or not reverse audism is a word, but what I have not read about in the blogosphere is where it actually happens so I wanted to bring this up so readers can read about it and share their experiences as well. We all know that audism doesn’t happen to only signers, but all communication modes and yes, it even happens to senior citizens that lose their hearing due to the aging process.  I am hoping that the possibility of discussing this further will actually bring us closer to unity, so that we can show that it happens to all forms of communication modes and whether they are deaf, hard of hearing, and late-deafened.  If everyone were to share their stories, we will see that we are more alike than we think we are, regardless of our communication mode preferences.

Allow me to start off with a few examples. One of the places that I encounter audism rather often is actually at airports. I have done a lot of travelling and have been to many different airports so I will share some scenarios that I have been through at airports.

Now this has happened more than once, but when I am sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane, all of a sudden, I see people getting up and moving around so I look around wondering what is going on.  Is the plane now ready to be boarded? But I then see them moving away from the gate, oh ok then I think that they have change gate numbers, so I head over to the TV that shows all the flight listings to see where it has been changed to, as that is usually easier than asking the airline clerk about it.  I then see it is cancelled and I then realize that all those people basically had rushed over to the service desk to get onto other flights. The problem I have is the fact that I am always the last person to get in line at that service desk and the next few flights do not always have enough room for everyone on cancelled flights, so I end up having to wait for the last available flight.  If I had known this information the same time as everyone else there, I certainly would have beat a lot of people to the service desk and been able to get on an earlier flight than the last available one ya know?  That is audism!!!!!

Another example, there have been occasions where I sit right next to the emergency exit inside the plane (which I love doing, simply because it has more legroom) the first time I sat there, the flight attendant was speaking too quickly so I asked to to slow down and that I was deaf, she immediately requested that I trade seats with another row. As if I am not capable of opening the door! So everytime I sit there, and flight attendant talks to me, I always reply with a “no problem” cuz I knew she was explaining instructions on opening the emergency door and I did not want to be moved to another seat.  That is audism as well.

Another time, when I was not sitting next to the emergency door, I notified the flight attendent of my deafness and to let me know if there were updates or emergencies if they arose.  Well it turned out that the plane was late in arriving at an airport where I was changing planes from there. As we landed, she told me to follow everyone else because the plane arrived late (it was nearly midnight) and we all had to stay at a hotel overnight for the next available flights on the following morning and that they would pay for the accommodations. Now this was in Denver and I’ve been stuck there overnight due to this same airline so I knew that the hotel was actually a 40 minute drive away and I was not too keen on that. As we walked to the tram, I glanced upon the TV that had the flight listings and that the plane I was supposed to be on was actually delayed and was currently boarding. I took the other tram going in the other direction where that gate was and was barely able to get on the plane in time so I did not have to stay overnight, they closed the door right after I got on. Now why didn’t that flight attendant tell me that I had a chance to make it onto that plane? was she too afraid to try to explain because I was deaf? That is audism.

I could go on and on with more and more examples, but I would much rather allow you to tell your own stories in the comments section, so we can show that it happens to all types of deaf people. You are entitled to remain anonymous, I only ask that we all remain civil about it.

Many of you have heard my viewpoints on the rally at the Volta Bureau. I thought that the press release by the AFA on the PRWeb was actually a well written one. As I have said before, I support their mission of reducing audism but still had reservations about that rally, but allow me to put on my strategist hat and examine this press release, as it contained an importance peice of information that I would have preferred a different outcome.

But before I get into that, I want to make it clear that this is in no way an attempt to bash AFA, as I realize that they are a young and new organization, but more of bringing up a point or two that they could be aware of.

I really thought this was a well written press release, I really did, providing that all the facts in there were indeed accurate. Since the PRWeb is a great tool in getting press releases out, I know this because people that I work with have actually used it. I just wish that this release would have also included the fact that audism actually runs rampant all across the country, it happens in hospitals, it happens in courtrooms, it happens in police stations etc. and it could have been noted that the Volta Bureau was only the starting point. This would make hearing people that are not familar with the word audism realize that it is all over the country and not just in a building in Washington DC. That is pretty much the only thing that I would have added to that press release. Aside from that. I really thought it was well written. Good job to whoever wrote this!

Now there was a tidbit in there that I had not known about until it was mentioned in that press release that really peaked up the strategist in me and I feel compelled to at least share that as well. I will directly quote it from the release….

“During the April 2nd meeting, AFA asked for a retraction of the Pepsi letter. The AG Bell Association’s Director of Communications, Catherine Murphy, countered with a request that the AFA rally scheduled for the next day be cancelled if the AG Bell Association retracted the Pepsi letter. ”

That surprised me, because I never thought that AGB would ever consider doing that, that being the case, I would have absolutely jumped at that chance and told them that I would cancel it if they wrote out the letter while I was in the building and made sure it was put on the PRWeb before I would exit the building and the meeting would be over right there and cancel the rally.  My reasoning is several-fold.

1) AFA would have been able to accomplish what NAD, ASDC, DBC and deaf members of AG Bell all combined could not do, this would have been a HUGE coup on AFA’s part!!!!!!!!

2) that would have been a great “momentum builder” for AFA and create a significantly bigger fan or support base in a much shorter period of time. Heck, if this actually happened, you probably would have won me over as a full blown supporter right there on the spot.

3) the only condition was to cancel the rally on the following day, I didn’t see anywhere where it said it meant to cancel all future rallies too ya know? I’m sure ya get my drift here

4) You probably would have been able to convert the rally into a celebration party at Gallaudet University so it would still have rocked for everyone that flew there.

5) Read number 1) again! HUGE HUGE COUP!!!!!!!!!

I could say a few more things here but I gotta get back to finishing my taxes as the deadline is only slightly over 24 hours away. But all in all, I just wanted to say that I thought it was a well written release. oh one more thing, you may have wanted to double-check and saw that the link to the AFA blogsite was not a broken link, ya forgot .com at the end.  

Lastly, now this is my own opinion and all my own, no need for hissy fits out there

Audism and reverse audism have been a hot topic over the past week. Hopefully, this is the conclusion to my series of postings regarding audism/reverse audism. If we want to decrease that, then it requires a unified effort among all of us in the deaf population, regardless of our communication mode preferences. I recently researched into unity quotes that have been said by well known people and I would like to share them. Now keep in mind that these quotes have been said in the past, as far back as over 2000 years ago, which means that even people understood the concept of unity back then.

Not only is this my favorite unity quote in my short research, but I absolutely love the history of the person that said this. This person was actually a slave in Italy, but by his wit and talent he won over his master who freed and educated him and he flourished in the first century BC. It was Publiliuis Syrus that said…..

“Where there is unity, there is always victory.”

Whooooooo…that statement alone just sends feel-good chills up your spine doesn’t it?  That is exactly what we all need in order to move ourselves up a few more notches as a deaf population. We need to unite, regardless of our communication mode preferences, so that we achieve this victory. A victory where we have eliminated audism and reverse audism. A victory where we all have convenient communication access and quickly, be it an interpreter, real time captioning, or any other auxiliary aid. This victory will also mean better education for all deaf and hard of hearing people. This victory will mean better jobs for all deaf and hard of hearing people. This victory will mean better lives for all deaf and hard of hearing people. Realize this, I am referring to a victory for all deaf and hard of hearing people, not just a selected few.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking.”

Now that is absolutely true when it comes to the deaf population, because if we do not accept or respect the communication modes of others that we do not use for ourselves, then that strain is broken and the unity is gone. This means we all need to stop bashing each other because of our own communication mode choices. The number one factor leading to us all being so divided is simply audism and reverse audism and that needs to be removed.

Dogen Zenji, a Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher that lived during the years of 1200-1253 said, “Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.”

I always have been under the impression that some deaf people have often been quick to jump aboard a bandwagon just because they see others jumping on the bandwagon too. Many people also often jump on bandwagons without even knowing the full story as well. If these people would listen to themselves and really listen to their hearts and souls with their deaf ears, they will realize that unity is needed in order to advance the deaf population as a whole up another notch, or two, or even three.

It was a famous British writer, Rudyard Kipling, that said this, “For the strength of a pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

These are words of wisdom that ring so true, what this is saying if we were to apply this to ourselves as deaf people, is this, “For the strength of the deaf population is the deaf person, and the strength of the deaf person is the deaf population. If we follow this, not only would we make ourselves as individuals stronger, but we also make the entire deaf population stronger too, in other words, the deaf population would become a much more powerful force in making the positives changes that we all desire.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity, or it will move apart.”

This is quite true when you apply this to the deaf population, we have this audism and reverse audism crap that stands in our way and it is dividing us further apart as time goes along, simply because we are not moving forward towards unity.  Wouldn’t you rather that we all, as a deaf population, share in prosperity? Then we need to unite!!!!!!

Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.”

Again, this rings so true in the deaf population, we cannot have a portion believe in listening and speaking while bashing ASL, a portion believing in ASL while bashing listening and speaking, the same also applies to the other communication modes such as cued speech, PSE, SEE, etc. However, the solution to this is seen in the next quote below.

John F. Kennedy said, “The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.”

What this means is that we all do not have to agree on which communication mode works best for everyone, we can choose whatever communication mode we prefer to support, providing that we respect the choices of others.

Lastly, but not least, and me being the sports fanatic that I am, I must include a quote from a well known sports figure.  This guy was the famous long-time football head coach at University of Alabama whose 25 years there led his team to six national championships. It was Paul “Bear” Bryant that said, “In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first, ahead of personal glory.”

What this means is that we need to stop looking for personal glory for ourselves as individuals or smaller groups and put the entire deaf population first, so that we all can become winners and share in the glory together. We are all different individuals, yet we all share in having some needs met, for example, when it comes to communication access, but in different ways. We all need to be able to understand them all to be able to unite, and fight for it all together, hence Understanding Needs Integrated Towards You.

The can of worms was indeed opened as I predicted when I brought up the issue of reverse audism, and for good reason.  While it is an extremely sensitive issue, but it needs to be addressed. When I first entered the “real deaf life” when I went to college, I learned of the crab theory and I had used that to somewhat explain the division that runs rampantly through the deaf population. Now I am using the word population instead of community because there are deaf people out there that do not feel that they’re a part of a deaf community. To be honest it did not really satisfy me as an explanation that was sufficient enough.  The epiphany was where the word reverse audism recently came up. It was like “Eureka, that’s it!!!”   Audism and reverse audism is what divides us as deaf people.

Crab theory is also not enough, because what happens in the deaf community is more than just pulling others down. Crab basically pull the other crabs down and then they leave it alone, that does not happen in many places of the deaf population where deaf people are not only pulled down by other deaf people, but there is also a continuous pattern of some type that follows, for instance, bashing.  If you want to stick to theories that apply to ocean life, then the “crab and shrimp” theory would probably be more applicable.  

A while back, I was in the Gulf of Mexico and I was fishing off of a dock with some friends where one of them pulled out a small crab with a small net and put it in a bucket of water, and other caught a shrimp with the net and put it in the same bucket. They continued to fish off the docks as I stood there with a drink in hand. I looked at the bucket, I was astounded by what I saw and called upon the friends I was with to come look.  The crab and the shrimp were continuously fighting and the shrimp was losing so badly, altho it was twice the size of the crab, that it kept jumping around, even to a point where it actually jumped out of a five gallon bucket when there was only like two or three inches of water. We all chuckled and all of us agreed with the conclusion that it was way better than the crab theory when it comes to the division of the deaf population and termed it as the “crab and shrimp theory”.  But would the crab and shrimp theory be the best theory to publicly discuss and debate on when it comes to the division of the deaf population?  Not really.

I continued my journey, which some of you might term as the deafhood journey if you will, I sought out what was the best way to describe why we have such division of the deaf population. We have had oral against deaf, we have had deaf against oral, we have had ASL against PSE, etc., how can the reasoning for that be described appropriately in the theoretical sense?  Ok, so we have audism which explains one side, but how do we describe the other side? That’s was where it hit me recently…. reverse audism.  That being the case, audism and reverse audism, recently became the best explanation and theory to me why we have such division in the deaf population.

Now as for AGB, I realize that many of you do not agree with their beliefs. I’ve said this before and I will say it again, they are within their rights to have the belief in listening and speaking, whether you like it or not. If you do not like it, then you need to create propaganda to show why ASL is better, without attacking AGB.

Allow me to give an analogy, suppose you want to buy a car, you do your research, come across all types of propaganda, and you narrow your choices down to two brands, Chevrolet and Ford. You then do more research and decide on a Chevrolet. The reasons that led to your decision were likely a result of the propaganda that you came across, whether it its advertising, word of mouth, experience of other people that have Chevrolets, or that you currently own a Chevrolet and want to continue owning the same brand.  

Now picture this very carefully, you walk in a Chevrolet dealership, and start talking to a Chevrolet salesperson, would you see a Ford salesman running all the way over to the Chevrolet dealership and running to you telling you, “no no no don’t buy Chevrolet, Ford is better?” We all know that the answer is no. In this sense, listening/speaking and ASL is Chevy and Ford. You need to create propaganda to show why ASL is good, but without degrading listening and speaking skills, just the same way that Ford dealerships do not publicly degrade Chevrolet dealerships.

That is what I saw when it came to the rally/protest at AGB recently. It was a Ford dealership degrading a Chevrolet dealership hypothetically speaking.  Many of you complained about AGB’s letter to Pepsi. Let’s flip the coin here for a moment, shouldn’t you be jumping with joy instead because the letter is perceived as a threat to AGB because that was a time when you beat them at their own game?  You should be wanting AGB to send out even more letters like that, because it only shows that you are getting stronger and stronger with your propaganda and showing that you are capable of beating them at their own game, by showing that ASL is good!!!!!!

The point is that hearing parents of deaf children likely receive more propaganda from AGB than any other communication mode which is likely a major factor to what leads them to make their ultimate decisions.  If these same parents had the same type of propaganda, or better, to support ASL, I do not think that these hearing parents of deaf children would be so quick to make a decision as quickly as they would if they were getting propaganda from all types of communication modes equally. The fact that they see AGB being attacked like this probably terrifies them further and makes them think that they do not want their deaf children to become “attackers” like that.  Now if these parents saw deaf people that prefer ASL actually change laws to better support ASL users, if they see that they actually are capable of holding professional jobs, if they see that they can actually do anything except hear, rest assured, they will not be so quick to make their decision based on AGB propaganda alone.  That is exactly why the PSAs that Amy showed in her blog is a great example, that is just utterly terrific propaganda. We need more like those PSAs, lots more. We need to keep reminding ourselves that ultimately, its the parents that make the decision, not the people or organizations that give them the propaganda.

Since I wrote my last post, I have been attacked, I have been slandered, etc., the reverse audism still continues towards me. And that is ok, and here is why.  Because I strongly believe, wish, and desire that the deaf population should be united regardless of communication mode preference.  To be honest, the more you attack me, slander me, degrade me, the more you are motivating me to fight for unity among the deaf population.

I encountered audism and reverse audism for the first time when I was in my own SVP program at NTID/RIT. It was where I first learned to sign and gained more knowledge about the deaf culture. I loved it so much that I even ended up staying in Rochester during the summers when I was in college.  That being the case, I also saw the experiences that other deaf people went through in the upcoming SVPs that followed over the next few years, I was even a resident advisor for one of them.  To be honest, I saw audism and reverse audism, altho I did not use these terms at the time, run rampantly through each and every single SVP. I’ve seen oral people leave NTID/RIT because they were continuously bashed by signers.  I have seen PSE signers leave because they were bashed by ASL signers. And yes, I have even seen ASL signers leave because they were bashed by oralists or other non-ASL signers. Quite frankly, it is sad that they all left as a result of audism and reverse audism. It’s somewhat ironic because once SVP ended and the fall quarter started when the rest of the deaf and hard of hearing students came back from their summer break, the visibility of these problems seemed to decrease, altho it was still visible, just less, seemed to be a lot less. the problem was that they left before SVP was over and they were not around to see that it was less.

While Abraham Lincoln, the one and same person that signed into law to establish Gallaudet University has also said, “United we stand, divided we fall”, Patrick Henry has used this quote as well and people say the credit for the quote should go to Aesop. But we also need to remember another quote of past history, it was Thomas Paine that said, “If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately”.

What that could interpreted as at that time this was said was if they did not unite, they will be hanging from a rope with a noose around their necks figuratively speaking and not advancing anywhere, and perhaps literally speaking in some cases. With that said, unless deaf people of all communication modes unite, we will hang, and this is not literally speaking, but that we pretty much won’t advance much further as a deaf population unless we all unite.

The comments of another blog has inspired me to write this post.  A commenter said that AGB is the Father of all Deaf Oppression. Now that really threw me for a loop, considering the fact that there are other oppressors or practitioners of audism that are far worse than AGB……FAR WORSE!!!!

But before I get into that we all need to realize that we live in a country where organizations are freely allowed to publicly expose their beliefs and preferences. (I know there are certain limits but you get the gist.) There are many organizations out there that people strongly disagree with out there but they cannot do a thing about it unless those organizations are actually breaking laws.  For example, the Ku Klux Klan and there are other neo-nazi groups out there that I personally think should be outlawed, but there is not a thing I can do about it, and neither could you.

Now AGB does acknowledge ASL, but they have a preference to listening and speaking skills, and they are very well within their rights to do that and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. They are very well within their rights to expose and promote that.  And there is nothing that anyone can do to try to change that either.  Trying to change that would be like beating on a dead horse, a completely worthless cause.

They have a far bigger reach on reaching out to hearing parents of deaf children and promoting the listening and speaking skills, simply because they have spent at least a century raising funds and marketing that approach.  Guess what? Deaf people have been around a lot longer than that and why didn’t they do the same thing when it comes to ASL?

I am not looking to blame anyone on this but we all need to think about that. Now we have some groups protesting and going after AGB hoping to promote their own cause when it comes to ASL. The problem is that when this is done, more media is actually brought to AGB at absolutely no cost to them. Deaf people rally and protest at the Volta Bureau accusing them of audism, if the purpose of that was to garner up media support, then they were practically making hearing people that have no idea what audism is think that AGB was the only organization that practices audism in the whole country.  During the comments, the blogger suggested the Lincoln Memorial, now that would have been a perfect place for this organization to hold their rally. First because it was Abe Lincoln that signed into law to create Gallaudet University. Second, it would give this organization the full media attention and not deflect any of it to AGB which they benefitted from. Thirdly and most importantly, to show that audism runs rampant across the entire nation.

When I saw a commenter say “AGB is the father of all deaf oppression”, now that really threw me for a loop, because I knew that there are far bigger and older establishments that practice oppression towards the deaf or audism. We have many deaf people that are denied interpreters at hospitals, police stations, doctors offices, courthouses, etc. and that is a very long list. AGB is not at fault for this. That is a form of audism.

Many deaf people are unemployed, underemployed, uneducated, undereducated, etc. That again, is not the fault of AGB, but more likely the fault of our government. That is also audism.

In my state, we have had state departments jump a hurdle over our state commission for the deaf and hard of hearing to get legislation passed to allow for the lowering of interpreting standards when it comes to educational interpreting.  They chose to lower the standards as opposed to addressing and trying to fix the problem.  That is a form of audism.

I could go on and on, but for someone to say that AGB is the father of all deaf oppression, is also theoretically saying that it was AGB that caused all of this and anyone that actually has a brain between their deaf ears would know that isn’t the case. What caused all this is the fact that these governmental departments, businesses, organizations, and hearing people simply do not have the knowledge or the know-how when it comes to communication access needs and we need to educate them on that.

Sure, we have the ADA, while it does help, but it does not do enough. We all need to work together in educating the government, businesses, organizations, and hearing people about our communication access needs. ASL users need interpreters, the oral deaf that do not sign may in many cases need real time captioning, etc.  There are different communication modes among the deaf and hard of hearing population which means the need for different communication access needs.

That being the case, I will present two scenarios here and you tell me which you think would work better and be much more effective in increasing the awareness for communication access needs.

Scenario 1 - Now if the government, business, organizations, and hearing people are going to see us deaf and hard of hearing people and organizations bickering with each other saying, “oralism sucks”, “ASL sucks”, etc, and continue to send them mixed messages.

Scenario 2 - We all band together in unity, while respecting each others communication mode preferences, and explain all of our needs together, say we need interpreters, we need real time captioning, we need other auxiliary aids, etc. 

Which scenario do you think would be more effective in accomplishing the goal of communication access for all deaf and hard of hearing people?

“No matter how you spin it, this young man cannot communicate for himself in the world at large without another individual by his side.” That was from a different commenter on the same blog that I was referring to earlier. I have to admit, reading that statement this morning woke me up quicker than a couple cans of Red Bull would have.  This statement left me quite speechless at first (pun intended here).

A portion of my response to that comment was, “Certainly you cant be that naive to believe that. That being the case, the way I see it, you have a one track mind that isn’t open to anything else when you say that. You actually remind me of some well known people in history that had a mindset comparable to yours and it ended up grossly backfiring on them, which is what gave them their place in history, such as Hitler for example.”

Now, this commenter was a firm supporter of AVT, which I have no problem with whatsoever, as that does work for some people and not for others. But for her to shoot down anything else like that and quip that this man could not communicate for himself without another person” was a statement that caused whatever respect I had for her to be tossed out the door.  I think its ok to promote whatever communication mode that you think works best for you, but you should not shoot down any other communication mode that works for other people.

This commenter then went on to say, “His parents made that irrevocable choice for him many years ago. I don’t see this TV show as a celebration of anything but, rather, as an accurate depiction of the limitations of not being able to hear and communicate with spoken language.”  When I saw that mother on the Amazing Race with her son, she seemed to be quite content with that decision that she made for her child many years ago. My thought to this towards the commenter is…how dare you question a decision that this parent made that she felt was best for her own child?  This mom is very proud of her decisions and that is quite obvious, otherwise she would not have put herself in the spotlight by going on national TV ya know?

The problem is that this commenter went ahead and made many assumptions without even knowing this mother and son.  What if she actually tried placing him in a school to try to learn speaking and listening but that didn’t work so she went ahead with the signing route?  Even if she didn’t, and he has always gone through the signing route, then that is ok too. This commenter in the past has probably griped about people commenting on her choices regarding her daughter and now she comments about decisions that other parents make?  Boy, talk about the pot calling the kettle black!!

Unfortunately, there are a lot of quite naive people out there in this world. There are those that aren’t so naive, but they have one track minds. There are those that are clueless about deaf people and there are those that just simply and blatantly ignore the rights of deaf people.  These people, such as this commenter, are among the reasons are among many reasons why I have been working with a group of deaf people over the past year to form a non-profit organization, Deaf Empowerment Awareness Foundation, Inc., or Deaf Inc. for short. This organization’s primary purpose is to improve communication access for deaf and hard of hearing people in the Greater St. Louis area.  This organization does not and will not discriminate against any communication modes whatsoever.  I will explain more about this organization on another blog posting another time, in fact, I will likely create a different blog name for this organization down the road so that it can share information and stories with those that are in and outside of the St. Louis area.

But back to the main point here, I have a question for you readers.  What do you think is a good way to get people to open up there one track mind and start being open to all communication modes?  Its ok to have a preferred communication mode, but without shooting down anything else outside of that preferred mode. because, like I said in my previous posting, there is no “one size fits all concept”.