I know that lately I have written a few articles that is Deaf and Hard of Hearing related but the reason is the Deaf Awareness Month were to due in the month September which is the current month now. The purpose for Deaf Awareness Month in September is to educate the people about the culture of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, people who is audism are trying so hard to destroy for several decades now. Even though the Deaf community may be a little but it has a strength in holding their place when it comes to anyone that is trying all their best to make sure everybody is not aware that the Deaf and Hard of Hearing has their culture as they want to frame them with the label disability. As I am part in the Deaf community, the battles with audism daily is tiresome and frustrating because one of many reasons is that we never gave the permission to anybody to make any decision for us especially on state or nation’s level. So many of the people thinks that anyone who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing means that there is something wrong with them, hence the label disability but what they don’t realize it is not disability when it is a culture and there is some family who have every generations that happens to be Deaf or Hard of Hearing which is a beautiful thing. That is where the lack of education comes in, the lack of education is due to some organizations such as Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing or people who is audism. The label disability is for anyone who is paralyzed, limbs amputation, have limit or none in their movements.
Now what makes Deaf or Hard of Hearing to be labeled as disability when they have ears such? Even if their eardrum is damaged, they still have eardrum in their ears nonetheless so you get the draft.
I don’t know, sometimes it is difficult to explain to some of the people because the society makes the people to perceptive us as if we are disabled or if something horrible had been happened to us. That society is very old, cruel and we as Deaf community have fought to change that society for several decades so it is long-lasting battle. Thankfully I can recognize that the society have changed a bit, only a bit better than few decades ago but these organizations who is against us or the people who is audism are trying their best to bring that society back or prevent us to change the society to the true way of people’s perceptive on Deaf community. That society is nothing but lies, as the society have people thinking that we being Deaf or Hard of Hearing means that there is something wrong with us and that we need to be fixed when we don’t even ask for them. If we didn’t ask for them, to be fixed then why are they trying to fix something that is not broken? What if we love being Deaf or Hard of Hearing? What if we choose to be that way? All we want is that the society to be more truthful about the Deaf community so that the people can be more educated about who we are and that we are human beings too as they are. Can you change an Indian? No and that is the same concept with us Deaf community. They have their culture and we have ours.
Some of the people have no idea what we have fought and that it is a daily thing. We have tried to preserve our language, American Sign Language and preserve our culture as well because they have tried to deprive Deaf or Hard of Hearing people’s language, children in particular. How can they try to deprive American Sign Language which is the native language regardless they like it or not, from Deaf or Hard of Hearing child or newborn baby? What many doesn’t know is that any Deaf newborn child never will succeed in life using their method which is spoken language such as English or the country’s language that they were born from. No matter what and that is a problem with the people because organizations like Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing lied to them saying that they would which that also means false hope for them for their newborn child’s future. That is what we as Deaf community try to do, stop these organizations, audiologists and audism from giving them a false hope when we can give them a real hope by giving them our beautiful language which is American Sign Language because with that they are nearly guaranteed to succeed.
The people who isn’t allies to Deaf community, they oppress them and do everything they can to take something that is so valuable to the Deaf community which is their language. We have stood idle for too long, because we have given them several chances to redeem themselves for what they have done to us and after several decades they have not done anything to redeem themselves which is disappointing. It’s not just our language or our culture that they are trying to damage but also try to take their institute, that is overdoing it by them and wanting to convert the Deaf institute to oral institute which have proven failure multiple times but they continue doing so because they want to let the Deaf community know that they takes a pleasure in trying to erase us off the earth. National Association of the Deaf, an organization who is supposed to be the voice for the Deaf community have weakened and it is their own fault for weakening themselves due to favoritism. For many years we have tried to get the president or CEO of National Association of the Deaf that we like but instead they elected one of their friend over the one we need and the history repeats as the newly president of the National Association of the Deaf who is a friend with the current CEO of National Association of the Deaf hasn’t done anything since she was elected this year. We have been watching people do everything they can to harm the Deaf community, to weaken the Deaf community along with National Association of the Deaf and several states association. Just as not too long ago California School for the Deaf (CSD) started dwindling, teachers and staffs started leaving because of the behavior from their superintendent Dr. Sean Virnig. So California School for the Deaf protested with all students and employees to remove him from the school which they have succeed last week.
We cannot forget the Gallaudet’s famous protest, Deaf President Now back in the year of 1988 when they were fed up with having no Deaf president for the only Deaf university in the United States and they have succeed as they elected the first Deaf president for Gallaudet University, I. King Jordan. Then another protest at Gallaudet University in the year of 2006, which is very familiar situation at California School for the Deaf as they had a problem with the upcoming new president for Gallaudet University which they have succeed.
My point is that Deaf community have fought a lot of hard battles for several decades and is still fighting more battles to come. It is very tiring but we are best known for our stubbornness. We have fought the battles with audism, universities, institutions and state levels but we have never fought the nation’s level though. Not yet. There is one ongoing battle on the nation level by Deaf Grassroots Movement where they rallied all the fifty (50) states in May this year at each state’s capital and they have made a plan to do another rally in October at every corners in different cities of all fifty (50) states. It is aims at the nation’s level while at the same time it also aims at the states level too, some states succeed and some didn’t succeed. Then there are battles with the law enforcement, Daniel Harris who is Deaf was shot by a police in North Carolina last month and that police officer who shot the Deaf man happens to be a happy-triggering police. You think the racism is only problem with the law enforcement? No. Unfortunately the race is the biggest problem with the police but Deaf and Hard of Hearing people are definitely at the top of the list where the racism is. When will we ever finish fighting to preserve our language, to make sure that every Deaf and Hard of Hearing children don’t get their rights violated? Or when will ever we as Deaf community be equal and for once of all build a bridge with the hearing people? Some say that there is a bridge that has already started building, my opinion is that the bridge hasn’t even started building. Only the time I believe that we along with hearing people can build a bridge is when they accept that we are no lesser or higher than them; equal. Equal is very important and that is all we are asking for.
Career? We have to work as twice or three times to get hired than others. Education? It is extremely rare that any of us have ever be able to attend the top university such as Havard or others because no universities teaches in our native language American Sign Language. It is funny how many mainstream schools, many universities and others teaches different languages such as Spanish, French, English and few others but no American Sign Language? American Sign Language is a language and that is something they are having hard time to accept because they are being convinced by audism or organization like Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing that American Sign Language isn’t a language or that American Sign Language is what they calls “animal” or “mime”. American Sign Language passed every language criteria but they refuse to accept that which have been proven by professors. When professors did research on Deaf and Hard of Hearing they have proof, they immediately dismiss them. How can they do that? They have the degrees for a reason and that is to validate what they were looking for through a research. American Sign Language is a language is one of that research and the other one is that Deaf or Hard of Hearing child learns American Sign Language have higher chance to succeed than learning the spoken language which is English. They wouldn’t take that either.
Nonetheless we have fought a very long and many battles trying to educate the people that the society have their perceptive wrong on Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. Hence Deaf awareness month in September annually. We are to continue fights for not only our rights but also our next generation’s rights as well. We are hoping that we have won enough of the battles so that by then our new generations comes that they wouldn’t have to fight as hard as we have fought. We wouldn’t hope that on anyone especially our future Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. We asks that we are to be accepted that being Deaf and Hard of Hearing is culturally, not a disability. If anyone starts accepting that then that would be a good start in the direction for our child’s future. We want nothing but the best for them in their life in future and for them to grow freely without being oppressed or having their language deprived.
I forgot to mention that we don’t like disempower, taking our power away when it comes to communication and by that means we don’t want anyone to speak for us. If we order something from a restaurant, we don’t want anyone to order for us unless we asks them to do so and if we never asks for help in ordering our foods then let us order foods for ourselves. We will order in our native language, American Sign Language and if the waitress or the employee at restaurants doesn’t understand then they should know by now that they get a paper with a pen to communicate with us as their customers. Don’t go saying “He or She is Deaf or Hard of Hearing so I am ordering for him or her”. We can take care of ourselves. Don’t be embarrassed when we communicate in American Sign Language in public, why should you be embarrassed when American Sign Language is language nonetheless so it is no different from speaking English as English is a language too just as American Sign Language is. Does it embarrass you when you talk? No then why should American Sign Language? That is something to ponder on.
We welcome anyone to become our ally, we need ally because these battles may never cease or going away and we may be facing harder battles in our future which is something that we are hoping to solve before our next generation so that our next generation wouldn’t have to face them themselves. If you are an American Sign Language interpreter and do care about the Deaf community, also truly passionate in understanding our language and respect our language – We thank you.
Anyway I feel the need to get this off my chest here, as I just realized that it is Deaf Awareness month and its perfect timing for me to express my opinions or what I observe. Thank you very much for your time reading this article and I hope that all of you have a great night! Please feel free to leave a comment and feel free to contact me if you would like to. Please note that I did not intend to carefully write this article as I write while thinking at the same time so hence getting things off my chest. I am sure that there are some errors in my grammar and I don’t give a crap about that but I am sure that it is enough to understand what I am talking about.
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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