SSA: Cultural Racism against the Deaf

Describe any changes in social activities since

 the illnesses, injuries, or conditions began.
How well do you follow written instructions?

 (for example, a recipe)
How well do you follow spoken instructions?
How well do you get along with authority figures?

 (for example, police, bosses, landlords or teachers)
How well do you handle stress?
When do you need to use these aids?

—items on a questionnaire from Social Security Administration,
(Adult Form SSA-3373-BK)

Social Security Administration (SSA) is an agency that is legendary in contemporary times for perpetuating a type of culturally based racism against the Deaf.  The questionnaire is part of a discourse of language and culture profiling that suggests the theme of the "self as Other."

The last few questions in the federally sponsored survey (Adult Form SSA-3373-BK), distributed by SSA, for example, suggests that we the Deaf are expected to adopt, share, and exhibit these cultural patterns: auditory activities and remedies. This is what is called an "institutional racism"--racism because it involves part of our bodies, i.e., our physical make-up. This keeps the Deaf on the outside of society's institutions by structurally limiting our access to our own developed forms of language and communication. The cultural ways of the larger American society are positioned by this method as being superior to those of our own, and thus our incentive to achieve is negatively affected if we become engulfed in a system built on culturally biased practices.

Herein lies the real insidiousness of cultural racism: we the Deaf who are culturally different must either give up our own ways, and thus, a part of ourselves, and take on the ways of majority culture or remain perpetual outsiders. Cultural, or ethnically based racism makes us uncomfortable if we do manage to gain entry. Hearing society's ways are foreign to us, and we know that our own cultural traits, namely ASL and various modes of communication, are judged harshly or tacitly disapproved of in that context.

It is not unusual that we, the Deaf, react negatively to any suggestion for amplification and cochlear implants.  These are symbols of the dominant culture, and we initially act out our frustrations with those who so systematically negate our cultural ways. Amplification and cochlear implants are about human do-ing, i.e., practice, not human be-ing. Deaf people are not objects to be shaped by human doing, by practice; we are ordinary people who happen to be deaf!


Carl N. Schroeder, M.Ed.

 

Is American Sign Language a Human Right?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings,

whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex,

national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or

any other status.  We are all equally entitled

to our human rights without discrimination.

These rights are all interrelated,

interdependent and indivisible.

—www.ohchr.org

When you lose your language,…

you exclude yourself from your past.

—Johan Van Hoorde, 1998,

Let Dutch Die?

Ignorance often leads to hate speech.  People who are ignorant of the language and culture of the deaf think we shouldn’t care about American Sign Language (ASL).  There is a widely held and popular—but nonetheless misconceived—belief that deaf children can be made “to listen and talk,” and that this anti-signing oppression is not a tragedy at all.  The following are discriminatory language statements quoted from various institutes.

Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center:

CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) is a school where children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to listen, talk and read without using sign language.

DePaul School for Hearing and Speech:

We teach children from birth to age 14 to listen, to speak and to learn without using sign language.

Memphis Oral School for the Deaf:

…NO SIGN LANGUAGE is used, instead using speech and language therapies and audiological services in conjunction with our preschool classes to help profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages birth to six years old.

St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf:

Individual sessions with deaf education therapists, who specialize in early intervention, help you understand the emotional and educational effects of your child’s hearing loss and teach you strategies to help your child develop spoken language without sign language through the auditory-oral method.

Tucker-Maxon School:

Students with hearing loss do not use sign language; instead, with the help of assistive technologies and trained professionals, they listen, talk and learn like their typical hearing peers.

These above illustrative examples are contemporary.  Deaf hate speech begins with language intimidation and intolerance, both of which are not considered distinct in any substantial way from other acts of prejudice and discrimination against the Deaf.  It is important to keep in mind that deaf hate speech has a long historical lineage.  The contemporary dynamics of sign-language-hate-motivated prejudice and discrimination have their origins in historical conditions.

About 2,400 years ago, in ancient Greece, Aristotle, in his attempt to refute Socrates’ question, in Plato’s Cratylus (Reeve, 1998: 67), whether signs by the mutes be equal with spoken words, asserted that an inability of deaf people to repeat the same sounds implies that they are senseless and worthless of human intelligence. As expressions of deaf hate, such acts of sign language intimidation, “involve the assertion of selves over others constituted as Other” (Goldberg, 1995: 270), where the self is thought to constitute an ability “to listen and talk.”  Even with a normal hearing listening is always probable and talking may be just babbling.

The burning question then, when one tries to understand the dynamics of deaf hate speech, Why is it so easy for individuals and institutes to dismiss sign language?  Is ASL a human right?  Is being deaf also a human right?  Will ASL die?

A document prepared by the International PEN Club’s Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee and the Escarre International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations has presented and remarked:

The paradoxical situation is that languages will certainly die unless we do something; but, the reality is that they may also die even if we do something.  Therefore, what do we do? 

The top priority, it would appear, is to raise awareness to stop hate speech against the Deaf.  Although ASL is at risk of being described in another language, it is plain from the above “no sign language” statements that ASL remains in the state of endangerment.

Many people are unaware of a language bigotry that needs to be dispelled, in order to foster the right climate for sign language maintenance.  It has to do with teaching ASL to deaf children.  There is a widespread belief, even in colleges and universities, that being deaf is an automatic qualification for being a good instructor.  Another myth has to do with learning.  Because ASL can be learned naturally, people readily assume that they can acquire ASL from the Internet. 

All in all, it is by no means easy to help people see the consequences of negative attitudes towards ASL, or the consequence to eradicate ASL. To deny deaf children sign language is to exclude them from the history. Language denial and discrimination are therefore a social injustice.

 

 Carl N. Schroeder, M.Ed.

 

 

 

 

We Can Stop!

Hate Crimes and the Deaf

 

Feb. 5, 2010

Some forms of hate lead to war or murder, but hate can also lead to oppression and hegemony.

Carl N. Schroeder, president of the Oregon Association of the Deaf (OAD), gave a lecture last Wednesday called “Hate Crime and the Deaf.” Schroeder’s lecture examined how oppression impacts the Deaf community.

Schroeder moved from Holland to the United States at age 10, where he attended the Maryland School for the Deaf. Deafness has been common in his family since the 11th century.

“I grew up in a Deaf family, a vast Deaf family, and I never realized the world was full of people who hear through their ears until I was 5,” Schroeder said.

In the lecture, Schroeder said that public schools in California teach Deaf children orally—teaching speech and lip reading as opposed to sign language. Many members of the Deaf community, Schroeder said, oppose oralism, not only because they doubt its efficacy, but also because “the Deaf do have language and culture heritage” Schroeder says on the OAD Web site (www.Deaforegon.org).

In discussing the naturalness of signing, Schroeder referenced a study that revealed that many people find it difficult to speak without free movement of their hands. He also mentioned Italians as an example of notorious gesturers.

Schroeder suggested that many crimes against the Deaf begin at birth. According to Schroeder, after doctors diagnose a child as Deaf they tell parents about what is wrong with American Sign Language (ASL) and tend to encourage the use of cochlear implants, also a subject of contention in Deaf culture.

Schroeder recalled one child he taught who had a bad experience with a cochlear implant. He described the implant’s effect as “noise in his head” and, after becoming ill, had it removed.
Schroeder also noted that, while hearing mothers often embrace ASL when they learn that their child is Deaf, many fathers reject signing and consequently have limited interactions with their Deaf children.

Key to understanding Schroeder’s mission is a rejection of audism—a term he defines as “the belief that the ability to hear and speak is better than being Deaf”—and the belief that ASL is in any way less of a language than spoken languages.

Schroeder traces the suppression of sign languages to the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf held in Milan in 1880. The end result was government suppression of sign language. Deaf teachers of the Deaf were replaced with hearing teachers to instruct using oral methods.

To illustrate how the hearing have oppressed the Deaf through the suppression of ASL, Schroeder recounted how, at his first teaching job, a school official reported him for using sign language in the classroom. The school at which Schroeder taught was overtly oratory in its teaching and to get the job, Schroeder had portrayed himself as an oralist and supportive of the school’s goals.

According to Schroeder, another crime against the Deaf is the frequent placement of ASL in Special Education departments, which unfairly implies that the Deaf are learning disabled. PSU is in the process of moving ASL to the foreign languages and literatures department from the speech and hearing department.

“Denying the full status of ASL as a language inspires belittlement and hate crimes,” Schroeder wrote on the OAD Web site.

In an interview after the lecture, Schroeder said, “I want to empower people to discuss what hate crimes are and how they are generated.” He also wants people in the hearing community to recognize “that some of their actions are wrong and they have hurt Deaf people and Deaf children.”

http://psuvanguard.com/uncategorized/hate-crimes-and-the-deaf/

RUMORS Making or Breaking News 1/15/2013

Rumors are nearly as old as

human history, but with

the rise of the Internet,

they have become

ubiquitous.

 

--Cass R. Sunstein,
On Rumors:
How Falsehoods Spread,
Why We Believe Them,
What Can Be Done
  

 

 

Michele Westfall Carl is always trying to stir something up.

 

Don Grushkin I seriously doubt that most of these statements as cited by Carl here are what Tommy Horejes actually said.

 

 

Hate crime can be understood

as a means of sustaining boundaries

between Us and Them, especially

when "they" step out of line,

cross sacred boundaries,

or forget their place.

 

--Barbara Perry,
Silent Victims:
Hate Crimes Against
Native Americans

 

 

Carl Schroeder I am deaf, born that way, born to deaf parents in The Netherlands, and, mostly importantly, born into gebarentaal (signed language, literally translated with a past perfect verb tense).  When I turned 10 years old, my parents made a new home in the United States where I underwent multiple language changes, from gebarentaal to American Sign Language (ASL) and from Dutch to English, which were no easy feat.  I shall never forget my line, sacred boundaries, and place.

 

 

Suddenly, we...became
uncomfortably conscious

of a divide between us.

 

--Ron Takaki,

A Different Mirror:

The Making of

Multicultural America



Hate Speech at Gallaudet University

Carl N. Schroeder

102 Tribbett Court

Dayton, Oregon 97114

cschroeder@clackamas.edu

 

January 14, 2013

 

The Honorable Senator Ron Wyden

221 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

 

                                                                   Re: Hate Speech at Gallaudet University

Dear Senator Wyden,

Deaf Hate Crime (DHC) is a grassroots watchdog group that identifies hate speech, whether that hate speech be directed directly against Deaf people, or designed to belittle the status of our language, which is American Sign Language (ASL)—our form of speech—here in the United States.  As a former Student Body Government President, Student Congress Speaker, SBG Academic Affairs Director, and 1983 Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Fellow, I am writing this letter with grave concerns about certain incidents of hate speech that are occurring at my alma mater, Gallaudet University, the nation’s only liberal arts university of, by, and for the Deaf in Washington, D.C.  As you know, most of Gallaudet’s budget is provided for by a line-item in the Federal budget, being annually appropriated by acts of Congress.  This letter also requests for a full investigation into the matter of the abusive and oppressive atmosphere at Gallaudet created by the hate-oriented speech.

“Sociology of Deafness and Deaf People” (SOC 225/255) is a course that was offered at Gallaudet University last fall that was taught by Professor Thomas Horejes. One of the clear effects of the course was the attempted inculcation and indoctrination of students toward a philosophy that promulgates hate speech against deaf people.  The course taught (1) that deaf people typically marry with each other without love, (2) that deafness can be best “cured” with cochlear implants, (3) that the statements “I-CANNOT-HEAR” and “I-CANNOT-TALK” imply the nonexistence of American Sign Language, (4) that deaf people are synonymously comparable to black people, and (5) that the students should be labeled gay, bisexual or heterosexual not for reasons of psychological and cultural identity, but instead due to students’ patterns of thought and thought processes.  The First Amendment rights to free speech and expression notwithstanding, these aspects of the class were so unconstitutional, nonacademic and inappropriate as to warrant an investigation: What do we, the Deaf, to quote Barbara Perry in a Native American question, “define as necessary to minimize the impact and the incidences of hate crime?”

Hate speech is a hideous injustice.  Hate speech at Gallaudet University starts with language, and its amelioration is always an uphill battle. The language battle continues there, being waged both in ASL, as well as spoken English and its counterpart, written English, the two-to-one prestige ratio of language infighting. I am copying this letter to various individuals and organizations, and it is our DHC group’s earnest hope that the investigation will result in measures taken to promote mutual respect, a bias-free environment, as well as academic integrity.

Thank you,

Carl N. Schroeder

Deaf Hate Crime Group

CC:      Alan Hurwitz, President, Gallaudet University

            Sharon Barnartt, Sociology Department Chair, Gallaudet University
            Thomas Horejes, Sociology Department Assistant Professor, Gallaudet University
            Angela McCaskill, Chief Diversity, Gallaudet University
            Jane Dillehay, University Faculty Chair, Gallaudet University
            American Civil Liberties Union
            American Sociological Association
            Coalition Against Hate Crime
            Congress Members
            Deaf Hate Crime Group
            Gallaudet University Alumni Association

Human Rights Campaign

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association of the Deaf

            National Black Deaf Advocates

            Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf

            Southern Poverty Law Center

Student Body Government

            The Buff & Blue Newspaper

            The Chronicle of Higher Education

            The Washington Post