Some of you may not know this especially if you aren’t associated with the Deaf community and if you are indeed associated with the Deaf community or you are Deaf/Hard of Hearing yourself then there is a good possibility that you know this. If you aren’t associated with the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community or you are one of them then you already have a question in your mind wondering what or who am I referring to the public enemy of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community but if you are associated with the community or you are one among of us as I am Deaf myself then you should by now already know that I am referring to Alexander Graham Bell being the public enemy of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community. Now that I have mentioned that the name is Alexander Graham Bell, those who aren’t associated with or is Deaf/Hard of Hearing immediately recalls that Alexander Graham Bell is known for being a pioneer or an inventor as he invented landline telephone and some of you already know that he has been suspected of stealing the blueprint from Elisha Gray who came up with the mechanics in blueprint to build the first landline telephone that everybody today uses at home using dial-up connection. That wasn’t the only thing that Alexander Graham Bell is known for, he is also known for being a public enemy of the Deaf community for more than a century and even though he may not longer alive but he left something behind that would continue to keep himself as the public enemy even to this day. His organization with several agencies under it calls Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He has himself alone done harms to the Deaf community itself deeply to the point that it left an everlasting scar and his organization is here to always make sure that they find a way to open the wound scar in the Deaf community that he made when he was alive.
Public Enemy of the Deaf, Alexander Graham Bell
He made several impacts in the Deaf community, the worst of all were his idea of oralism in the Deaf education and deprives them from their native language which is American Sign Language. There are many studies that has shown that Bilingual-Bicultural education programs helps the students to progress better for their future by learning American Sign Language which is naturally belongs to the Deaf community since the day one (several centuries) and English separately which this allows them to be bilingual since American Sign Language and English both is recognized languages.
Alexander Graham Bell disliked the idea of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to identify themselves as Deaf or Hard of Hearing because Alexander Graham Bell selfishly believes that they have no place on this earth. Therefore, Alexander Graham Bell and its organization works very closely with biotechnology industry such as cochlear implants to hopefully achieve their goal is Deaf community genocide. In the Deaf community, whether they are Deaf or Hard of Hearing is a culture with its own language that has been recognized by the government and genetics as there are Deaf families with several generations. Their great-great-grandparents were Deaf, so was their great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, nephews/nieces and cousins who born Deaf. It is no different from the people of colors family, Deaf community is a minority as well and they take pride in that. Alexander Graham Bell tried so hard to convince the government that the Deaf/Hard of Hearing to not be allowed to have a child with another Deaf person because that can cause genetics and start a Deaf family from there. Even, Alexander Graham Bell tried so hard to take away their rights to marry one another and tried so hard to take as many rights as he could from the Deaf community. Alexander Graham Bell truly wants to see them to suffer, he takes a pleasure in doing so and he wants the Deaf community to suffer more than anything. Alexander Graham Bell doesn’t look at the Deaf/Hard of Hearing people as human beings, he looks at it as error and made generations of Deaf/Hard of Hearing family to suffer.
Irony thing is that he has a mother who happens to be Deaf, he also married to a Deaf wife named Mabel Gardiner Hubbard and had children with her while he had tried everything in his power to find a way to convince the government to ban marriage for the Deaf couples. Not only that, he has also tried his best to convince the government and everybody else to sterile Deaf children after they were born so that they cannot have a child in future when they become an adult. With that makes, him an hypocrisy for doing so, although he failed to do so and unfortunately, he succeeds in severely damaged the education system for the Deaf students for more than a century. He was also a teacher of the Deaf children, doing everything in his power to deprive the Deaf child from their natural and naïve language American Sign Language by forcing the Deaf/Hard of Hearing students to only speak instead of using the language that they know so well. What I mean by forcing, he would punish the Deaf students by slapping their hands while telling them that they cannot communicate using their language and by doing so it was influenced to several Deaf institutes especially oral institutes where the teachers or staffs would slap their students with rulers or paddles on their hands. Imagine if you were in school where the teacher force you to speak their preferred language such as, French, Spanish or something else instead of English and if you accidentally speak in English then the teachers would punish you by slapping you in the mouth? Same concept. If you tell me that you can send your parents to your school to have a talk with your teachers or principle to tell them that the teachers are required to teach you in English instead of speaking their preferred language and then all would be well? No, your parents would have no control in what language you must learn and what language to speak. That’s what happened with Deaf institutes, with influence from Alexander Graham Bell and there are a few pictures that you can find on Google where it will show you how Alexander Graham Bell or oral institutes treats Deaf students. Alexander Graham Bell is the father of Oralism.
Alexander Graham Bell made impacts not just in education for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing people but also made an impact in lifestyle for the Deaf community. And another worst impact that he made were in medical. Every Deaf child were born, the doctors and audiologists who were paid by Alexander Graham Bell, its organization or associations to only tell the Deaf/Hard of Hearing newborn parents that the only option they have is to force their children to have cochlear implants without any warnings or education about what exactly cochlear implants is. Alexander Graham Bell or Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing heavily advertise that the cochlear implants would make the Deaf or Hard of Hearing people to become normal equally to the people who can hear. That isn’t even close to being true, not often but some cochlear implants can only give them a sound where they can be aware of their surroundings such as alerts, farts and whatnot they hardly can help anyone to understand what words were voiced. Alexander Graham Bell truly does not care about helping you or anyone as all he or the organization cares about is the money that they have conned the parents of Deaf newborn with misinformation that they spread to the concerned parents. Therefore, there are several organizations including National Association of the Deaf fights everyday to make sure that every parent of Deaf newborn to have accurate information and options instead of only saying that the cochlear implants is the only option that their child can get.
American Sign Language have already been recognized as a language by the United States and by many universities while Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing doesn’t as they said that American Sign Language is like a monkey language. That’s an insult to all Deaf and Hard of Hearing people no matter what if they have cochlear implants or don’t have cochlear implants because when they take the cochlear implants off they are Deaf again so they always will be Deaf or Hard of Hearing regardless. Alexander Graham Bell works so hard to make sure that the perception of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is abnormal when they are hence they have their culture and language.
Alexander Graham Bell was the one who divides the Deaf community in many ways, such as with labels such as D/deaf, Hard of Hearing, Hearing-Loss, Hearing Impaired, Cochlear Implants, Oralism, Bilingual-Bicultural, choppy methods of communications such as cued speech, Signing Exact English (SEE)/Pidgin Signed English (PSE), Simulation Communication (Sim-Comm) or total communication and the list could go on when from the beginning it should be only under one word to describe what we all are – Deaf.
Common reading and writing grade levels for the Deaf people is three (3) is due to Alexander Graham Bell himself and as well the Milan 1880 by International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED). If Alexander Graham Bell and International Congress on the Education of the Deaf didn’t happen then I am sure that it would be a whole different story. However, if it wasn’t for that then we might not have come up with Bilingual-Bicultural Education program but we did because we needed that to improve our future generations so that they could have better future than we all did.
Alexander Graham Bell isn’t what you think he is. If you are associated with Deaf people by having a Deaf member in your family, Deaf friend or whatnot and you appreciate Alexander Graham Bell then that would mean you support all the evil things that he had done to the Deaf children at his time. Even though he isn’t around here anymore, his legacy is still being carried around and still doing what Alexander Graham Bell himself did to the Deaf children back then with his organization Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. There is a lot of articles that you can read to learn the true colors of Alexander Graham Bell himself especially for what he has done to the Deaf community and not only that I am certain that he didn’t invent the telephone as there are recent news that have discovered that he didn’t. In other way, Alexander Graham Bell is just a nobody who happens to do the evil things to the Deaf children and as well Deaf adults.
Here are few articles that I think you should read if you want to know more information about Alexander Graham Bell’s history with the Deaf community. If you have written an article about Alexander Graham Bell and the Deaf community than you are more than welcome to leave a trackback to this article so that I can approve them. After approving them, your articles will be shown here in this article for others to read if they wish to and if you don’t have one but want to share something about Alexander Graham Bell then please do so by leaving a comment below! If you would like to share your story of your horrible experience with Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing then I would love for you to leave a comment below or post a trackback of your article to this article using this article’s link which can be copied via address bar on your internet browser.
Signing, Alexander Graham Bell and NAD; Through Deaf Eyes by PBS
Alexander Graham Bell and the Deaf community: A troubled history by Shandra Benito at Rooted In Rights
Alexander Graham Bell – Friend or Foe? by Start ASL
Understanding Deafness: Not Everyone Wants to Be Fixed by Allegra Ringo at The Atlantic
Milan 1880 – An Event Has a Major Impact on Deaf Education by Jamie Berke at Very Well
This article is just pretty much a summary of who Alexander Graham Bell was and to get to know more what he did or who he was by reading some articles above.
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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