September 12, 2007
What is Dignity?
From Wikpedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity
Dignity in humans involves the earning or the expectation of personal respect or esteem. To esteem persons or things is to give them a high value.
It is like pride, it is the name of an emotion which refers to a strong sense of self-respect, a refusal to be humiliated as well as joy in the accomplishment.s of oneself.
Since Milan 1880, AGBell Association for the Deaf have been telling all of our parents (as well as my parents) that their deaf babies and children should never learn sign language at all and even tell the parents to turn their deaf children away from any deaf people using sign language in public.
And since 20 some years ago when AVT (Auditory Verbal Therapy) was formed, they also tell parents of deaf babies and children that sign language(ASL) is forbidden at all costs.
We all know that many parents want to have some effort to have their deaf child to learn to verbally communicate but many realize that in about ten to fifteen years later, their deaf children failed to achieve to speak clearly and their deaf children eventually switched to ASL(American Sign Language). A majority of the deaf children that learned ASL wondered why sign language was forbidden in the first place after realizing that ASL is GREAT!! Many deaf children have asked their parents why didn’t they try sign language and most of the parents had the same answer, “AGBell (or its cronies) told them not to use sign language at all.
Most of you have asked, “What is wrong with sign language(ASL)?” Why is AGBell out to destroy American Sign Language?……Why?……WHY???
It is because AGBell and its associates are scared that Deaf Community will convince the newly parents of deaf babies about American Sign Language, the only cognitive language that a deaf baby(child) can learn before the age of 6 and have full potential to be ready for schools.
Why is it that Deaf children of Deaf parents out perform in every aspect in cognitive sense than Deaf children of most hearing parents that don’t use ASL for learning?
The logical reason AGBell and its associates such as AVT have been telling parents about forbidding sign language is to create an image of the Deaf Community in a negative perspective in implyin ASL is a non-intelligent language. And the ramification of telling parents of deaf children about the negative perspective of American Sign Language typically spreads to their neighbor, work place and eventually the whole language.
This is why the society knows nothing about the Deaf Community’s normal life because AGBell destroyed our dignity.
This is the reason why DBC (Deaf Bilingual Coalition) was formed. We now have many superb Deaf leaders involved with DBC but it takes a community to win our dignity back.
DBC is working hard and their leaders are getting a lot of emails across the country everyday working on setting up the website, Vlogs/Blogs, and other projects that we need to coordinate. which we like to tell you but we know
AGBell is reading this blog and watching Deafread.com everyday. AGBell is very, very proactive trying to be keeping one step ahead of us and they have tons of money to destroy our dignity in order to keep American Sign Language disrespected in the society.
Yes, we need help with your ideas and also your donations so to be on the same level playing field level as the empire of AGBell/AVT.
As a non-profit, political and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting Deaf human and linguistic rights, the California Association of the Deaf on behalf of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition has generously made it possible for you to make your donations tax-deductible. Visit http://www.cad1906.org and click on “support for Deaf Bilingual Coalition” on the left side of the home page.
Thank you for your support! Let’s win our dignity back into the society that AGBell destroyed in the last 100 years.
September 9, 2007
BUT WHAT IS NEW?……..
ABGell robbed the Deaf people’s ASL by banning sign language in schools in the last 100 years.
Is it a blessing disguise that Matt Hamill was robbed? Did the judge assume that the Deaf community is too weak to speak up?
Why some weak deaf people and hearing oppressors enjoy broadcasting that the deaf leaders are “Deaf Militants and whiners†for protecting our dignity?
Are we too passive to speak up for our rights that oppressive people can easily abuse our dignity?
Yes, I was very pissed off that Matt Hamill got robbed but it could be the karma for some of the Deaf bashers thinking that the Deaf leaders should not fight for our dignity.
Stand up and be part of Deaf Human Rights Coalition group.
September 4, 2007
What is the probability that CI implant would work for a child? CI is not 100% guaranteed that a child would hear just like a hearing person would.
Ask yourself this. If you knew that the odds were that if you were asked to fly on a certain plane where there are 30% odds that the plane will crash at take off, en route during flight, or at your destination, will you get on that plane? At 30%, a substantial majority of people would say no thank you at the invitation to fly on that plane.
And yet there is a 30% probability that a CI implant would be successful and 70% of the time a failure?
How do you define a successful CI transplant?
Enough hearing to hear a jet?
Enough hearing to know that someone is talking?
Enough hearing that you can hear background noises?
Enough hearing to hear music?
Enough to understand speech?
That 30% probability needs to be defined further and terms of success needs to be spelled out.
I think that it is barbaric that parents would allow their child to have a CI transplant. It is a form of child abuse. Who speaks for the child? The child does not have enough life experience to tell you that a CI transplant works for them. Come on, a six month old baby?
Now who is more barbaric? A hearing person installing a CI transplant with a 30% or less chance of success and 70% or more chance of failure depending how a successful CI transplant is defined.
Or a deaf person who takes away their child’s hearing by surgery which has a 100% success rate and embraces the child to be included in their own community.
The truth is that most people - hearing or deaf - would agree that both approaches are destructive to the child, but who speaks for the child?
Barry Siebert
September 1, 2007
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The following translation of a speech given in ASL by David O. Reynolds has been authorized by him for immediate release. This inspirational speech on the topic of implementing bilingual programs in the field of deaf education was made near the conclusion of an educational workshop at a conference now taking place in downtown Los Angeles:
DAVID O. REYNOLDS:
I have to say, you all are doing good work. And yes, it’s sad that for so long we’ve been stuck in a rut with the same thing happening over and over again. It’s been going on this way my entire life, the same old story over and over again.
Allow me to add this observation: When you’re talking about the deaf education system and systemic standards, I say that the education system itself is oppressive. Other people keep telling us: “Be super-careful. Make sure that…”–We’ve been trying to approach it the hearing way–”…make sure that you analyze the issue and present all available choices and try to adapt yourselves…”–But we’ve already tried this and we’ve been doing it this way for 50, or even 100 years or more, and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. We’re still losing!
We’ve got to take a clear stand and say that for deaf children there really isn’t any other viable alternative. It’s got to be ASL as the only main language, as part of a bilingual, ASL-English approach. That’s the way it’s got to be! Just those two languages. That’s it!
Enough with the endless debate and talk about how we should try to carefully adapt everything we do and how we should continue to worry about how we can avoid every potential conflict. We’ve already tried that.
I’ve been involved for over 20 years in deaf education as a teacher at the Indiana School for the Deaf where we implemented a radical change over to a bilingual curriculum. In Indiana I’ve heard that song being sung many times about how we shouldn’t be too radical or too aggressive in making changes. We tried everything, from being totally radical in some situations to being totally compromising in others, until we thought we had something that we could move forward with. But still, since 1990–that’s 17, almost 20 years now–It’s been a struggle. The program is strong, but the state government acts as part of an oppressive system, continuing to require change after change, and continuing to haggle and demand more and more data–and then even more data on top of that.
Really, honestly, that’s enough. We’re overflowing with an abundance of data, as well as information gathered, including many documented “horror stories” collected from deaf people as well as hearing people. We’ve got all kinds of information and data that’s been collected and organized.
It’s time to take action! How? By being very bold.
It’s good to be radical. It’s been said that it’s wrong to be radical, but actually being radical is very right.
I married Alyce and moved here to California with my three sons eight months ago. We were excited about the move and we love it here. My twin deaf sons are attending college here. But the same situation exists in every state in the union. We must all speak out to our various state governments, but we’ve also got to go to the federal level. We’ve all got to all get behind and support the NAD [National Association of the Deaf] so that we can put pressure on the federal government. I think the time now is ripe for that.
Things have been happening throughout the country. People are becoming more empowered. Don’t keep telling us that we’ve got to be super-careful and that we need even more research. That’s enough of that talk. We’ve got plenty of research. We must move forward and act!
[Sustained visual applause]
[End speech]