REMOVE THOSE DEFICIT THINKERS
At the 2008 DeafRead Conference in San Francisco on February 2nd, I think that the Vloggers and Bloggers should have a discussion about removing the Deficit Thinkers and ban them from DeafRead.com.
Would you think NAACP allows articles or blogs that makes fun of African American people???????
And I am not the only one that have concerns about those deficit thinkers, many have complained about these sickos too.
DeafRead needs to step up and remove those Deficit Thinkers and those Deficit Thinking people can create a blogsite of their own, DeficitThinkers.com.
Should someone have a poll and see what the faithful DeafRead.com Blog/Vlog readers feel about the parasites deficit thinkers before 2008 DeafRead Conference?
Say what your opinion about this.
John Egbert
I second John !!
Comment by Lisa Covell — December 16, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
DeafRead.com doesn’t cut out blogs because they are written by people with different opinions than yours…do you mean to censor some blogs?
However annoying those bloggers are, they do not represent the majority of Deafread readers, judging from their responses.
Cranks, provocateurs, weirdos or just plain petty…they serve their purpose if only to keep people thinking and writing in. Don’t read or respond to them if they bother you.
Comment by Dianrez — December 16, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
I read Mike McConnell’s blog http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2007/12/gratitudeless-campaign.html
And you should read some of those people that writein the comments.
I understand now about deficit thinkers, it is scary about Paotie, Brain Mayes and their strange friends!
Who is Brian Mayes?
Barry
Comment by BarryH — December 16, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
I agree with Dianrez.
Comment by C — December 16, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
What you’re saying is tantamount to discrimination against oral deaf people because they have different opinions than others. So, are you for censorship of deaf people who think differently than you do? It sounds like it from what you’ve written here. Deafread.com is an amalgation of a wide variety of opinions, from deaf people, Deaf people, people with cochlear implants, and oral deaf people, and yes, even the deaf-blind.
Comment by Noelle — December 16, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Brian Mayes lives near Indianapolis, Indiana and his wife is Karen
Comment by no name — December 16, 2007 @ 7:44 pm
Noelle,
I am an oral deaf person. I communicate verbally everyday and have no biased ideology.
I support constructive dialogue.
I learned ASL later in life and understood the value of ASL for Deaf babies at the age of 6 months. Hearing parents are telling everybody that their hearing babies have shown great progress when they start learning sign language at the age of 6 months.
But AGBell and AVT are against that idea and subbornly stick with their biased ideology which is deficit thinking.
Some ignorant deaf and hearing people say that it is alright for some parents to make a mistake choosing oral only method and many have regretted making that decision but it was too late to make up in most cases. These are the deficit thinkers.
Learning two language should not be forbidden at all and bilingual method have proven to be successful.
I might would have not supported sign language if I haven’t learned ASL to realize this valuable visual language for deaf people.
Noelle, do you know ASL?
John
Comment by John F. Egbert — December 16, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
John,
Those deaf people have a right to say that parents should choose oral education as a way to teach their deaf children. You have to think about the next generation of deaf children, who are being implanted in their infancy and toddlerhood. Many of them already can speak and hear at the level of their hearing peers by the age of two with intensive parental involvement and education. I have personally observed these deaf children myself and their speech is far better than mine and so are their aural skills.
I am orally deaf, and I do not know ASL, aside from the alphabet. I support the right of parents to make the choices for their children, whether it be oralism, bilingualism, or ASL-only. If I were a parent of a deaf child, and upon the diagnosis of that child’s deafness, I would teach him or her ASL as a start to that child’s linguistic development, and once that child has received an implant, then I would work on oral speech with my deaf child while retaining some sign language, and exposing my child to other languages such as Spanish and French.
Comment by Noelle — December 16, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Naw, let’s not take that route. Whatever was said at Joey’s blog was deliberate and juvenile at best - whining about a $10 dinner. That nonsense is not worthy of consideration. I wouldn’t underestimate the intelligence of the readers. They can tell if the commenter’s content hold merit or not. There are bigger issues to go after, for example, how about DBC into DDLC?
Comment by drmzz — December 16, 2007 @ 8:52 pm
John, people who go on the internet seek as much information as possible on a certain topic. Deafread.com has made it very clear that its aim is to bring all the information pertaining to the Deaf community onto a single site. It does not claim to serve a small segment of the community that advocates one view. Instead, one of the reasons it presents different views is to allow the Deaf community to know what everyone is thinking. If it excludes a certain view, Deaf readers/viewers could be ignorant of this kind of view, and as a result this could make the so-called enemy stronger. John, you have very strong motivation and I know your intentions are honorable, but you can only win your fight if you know what your enemy is thinking.
Comment by me — December 16, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
John, I like this idea. But phrasing it as a negative is only going to draw criticism and maybe cause misunderstanding, like what happened with Noelle, who automatically assumed that this meant a blanket rejection of all oral people, when this isn’t the case.
Dianrez has a point, and I’ll go further by calling Paotie, the Mayes couple, and company in serious need of help. They complain of feeling rejected (a favorite refrain of Karen Mayes) and of more, but the MINUTE anyone tries to say anything positive about being deaf, wow, they jump all over you, accusing you of elitist and militant behavior. Curious Eyes, who often acts like a groupie on McConnell’s blog, tried to point out that many of us have valid reason to object to the Gratitude Campaign’s mangling of “thank you,” and she was ripped to shreds by Brian Mayes, Paotie, and others. Deaf Pundit and several others tried to speak up too and they all got criticized and tossed aside, with insults, admonitions not to get their “snit level” up, and more. This group refuses to listen and to reflect. I’m glad that it appears to be a small group of (censored).
I’m pointing this out not to demean, but to illustrate what deficit thinking can make one do and say.
John, you’ve developed a reputation among the discerning as one who runs around with its head cut off, screeching, “Audist!” “Deficit thinker!” at the slightest provocation. This tactic is not going to win over the moderates. I love what you stand for, and I’m a huge fan of the DBC. But your phrasing needs work.
Instead of panning DeafRead, how about phrasing it more like this: “Responsible Blogging: How to Bring the Community Together?” Then you could discuss DeafRead and what its role could be in promoting responsible blogging. Provide examples of how some bloggers and commenters damage the community. A great example would be the recent DeafAudist, oops, I mean DeafDC fiasco about censorship in the DeafHope post, because the management does not understand how to discuss responsible leadership. Put a more positive spin on it, while taking the time to construct a stronger argument, providing concrete examples. This would help your point be taken by far many more people.
Comment by observer — December 16, 2007 @ 8:59 pm
me, I must disagree with one thing you said. I agree with everything you said. I do have mixed feelings about whether or not DeafRead should become more selective, I admit. But I object to your saying that it’s only one small segment of the community. That’s a myth.
Comment by observer — December 16, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
Me, #11
I agree with you 100% but when one sicko person that enjoys smearing and bashing people with no constructive dialogue, then that really should not be in a intelligent blogsite.
It’s just simple common sense.
John
Comment by agbellinfo — December 16, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
John- I understand what you are trying to say here. I can’t imagine Christians and Satanists can have dialogue to understand each other. Deficient thinkers are ones who are against babies and children using ASL for communication and education. They approve babies with CI to see audiologists for remapping frequently while babies have no way to let audiologists know if sounds are comfortable or not and deficient thinkers do not care for audiologists to play as scientist roles. How can babies communicate with audiologists? It is cruel and torture. NAD doesn’t even care. I have no idea how they can go to work everyday and not to be concerned about this serious and torture epidemic on deaf babies today. Oh maybe they are just concern about sharing monies with AGB. Those kind of people are deficient thinkers and no question ask! We all need to stop saying oh we are not against CI. We can say this as long new law says no more CI on babies!!! We gotta stand up for it.
Comment by Penny — December 16, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
I am opposed to that idea of removing the deficit thinker! I am very sorry it shows very anti-freedom of expression or opinion which can be poor taste or benefits. It is up to viewers who would take it or ignore!!! I make clear that Deafread is not making any money from blog or vlog then Deafread has no power to restrict anything! For those comments, they might be real deficit thinkers who restrict exchanging the idea then it might be a real act of violence!!!
Comment by Platonic's Eye — December 16, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
John, the truth is when blacks were going through their Civil Rights movement, there were many heated arguments about how to protest and what was the best way to go about getting what they wanted done. Yes– they DID criticize each other. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had different methods. One promoted peaceful demonstrations, the other felt they needed to be more forceful and some of this led to the rioting we had in the 60s.
So the deaf and Deaf have a little bit of a split here, but we’re still brothers and sisters of the same mold with the same goals. We want the best for ALL d/Deaf people. We only disagree on how to get there. You may feel offended by Paotie or Brian or even Me, but you might ignore when Michele jumps all over me or someone else for asking an innocent question. Truth is, I like Michele– but I get tired of being treated like an outsider because I AM deaf. I know what a silent world is like. We need to remember we’re ALL together in this even though we have different opinions. Let’s try to keep listening to each other.
Most the time I like what you have to say.
Comment by kim — December 16, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
This is not a free speech issue at all. Deaf Read is not a public utility. It is privately owned and the owner(s) should be able to do whatever they want with it.
If the owners choose to allow dishonest provocateurs to participate with meaningless and time-wasting trash talk, then that is totally their prerogative. They risk the reputation and survival of the meta-blog thereby, but that is their judgment to make.
It’s also John’s prerogative to try to convince the owner(s) to kick out the trash talkers.
My opinion is that the best way to solve the problem is to completely ignore the trash talkers until they get tired and give up. What they are doing is mocking the participants of Deaf Read with dishonest and meaningless tripe. They evidently view this activity as some form of fun entertainment. If we respond to them in any way, we are giving them what they want, which is attention and laughs at our expense.
Comment by Brian Riley — December 16, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
What about Jewish people’s Anti-Defamation League (ADA)? Mel Gibson was ostracized?
What about NAACP? Don Imus was ostracized?
Should we condemn ADL and NAACP? Or what?
Comment by ADL and NAACP — December 17, 2007 @ 12:09 am
Ouch! let’s fix our bridge.. so we all can get along and look for better future.
Happy Holidays all of you!
Gary
Comment by Gary Brooks — December 17, 2007 @ 8:17 am
John and everyone else,
This is Brian and how you know me amazes me. I don’t even know anyone in Indiana, so how you get this info is mute at best.
John, you can do your best, but you can’t remove deficit thinkers. It is these people that keeps everyone on their toes and to explore other avenues of thinking. Imagine if there were no deficit thinkers, you would run out of things to say. Think about it.
As for trash talking and bashing, I’m sorry, you all see it that way, but that was never, ever my intension. I was just making points and expressing what I thought, if you see it differently, well, what can I say?
I agree with #16, we are all in this together weather we like it or not. Even the people at AGB. They help in their own ways and have done more good than bad. So, you don’t agree with their methodology, cool, no problem, but don’t trash them for doing what they think is a good cause.
“And I am not the only one that have concerns about those deficit thinkers, many have complained about these sickos too.” Ummm, who are you calling sickos? Do we kill or mime? Do we destroy lives? I don’t think so. The former leader of Iraq was a sicko. How do we compare to that? Now, talk about trash talking… Painting a good picture of yourself? You wanna know something? I like what you have to say for the most part and have great ideas. You can be a little one-sided, but that is you and how can we, deficit thinkers, ever change how you think? We can’t and guess what, we are not even going to try! So, don’t try to change our way of thinking. Educate us, yea maybe, change us, ha, good luck.
Like John always asks, #6, who are you? You have the gall to publish our names in front of everyone, but have no guts to mention who you are? Sounds yellow to me? BTW, keep my kids out of this, ok? They have no right to be looked down on cuz of what their parents think. Cool?
Maybe, I’m wasting my breathe here cuz I don’t even think this will get published, none of my other comments in the past has.
Comment by Brian L. Mayes — December 17, 2007 @ 9:31 am
Personally, I prefer to stay here in America where we have freedom of speech. I don’t believe in censoring people just because you don’t agree with their ideas.
Comment by Tom Willard — December 17, 2007 @ 11:25 am
I’m disappointed with this line of thinking: that deficit thinkers must go out because we don’t agree with their philosophies.
This is not the answer, John. We live in America where free exchanges of ideas and thoughts are permitted, regardless of how we feel about their ideologies
Comment by Mishkazena — December 17, 2007 @ 7:15 pm
Mishkazena,
I understand that we should have constructive dialogue with deficit thinkers and I welcome them.
But it is those certain deficit thinkers that are not really interesting learning anything and prefer poke fun our desire to improve what has been denied for over 100 years.
I am sorry that you are disappoint in me but thousands and thousands of deaf people are disappointed that these deficit thinkers’ ideology are getting a free pass. And must we continue to be passive?
John
Comment by agbellinfo — December 17, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
John
You are not telling me anything new.
However, censorship and banning only create more problems. We do not have a monopoly on people’s thoughts. This is America where people are entitled to exercise their rights of expression, whether we agree with them or not.
We can have constructive dialogue with them. However,if they refuse, that’s their prerogative. Don’t bother reading their blogs if you don’t care for their messages. Don’t waste your time with them. Controversy only draws attention to their blogs. In other words, you are encouraging other people to read their blogs.
Continue to educate people who are receptive in learning about deficit thinking and reframing. Keep the big picture.
Comment by Mishkazena — December 17, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
john
i want to thank u for raising this topic
i think it would be very worthwhile to have a discussion during the DeafRead conference re: Deficit thinking and blog/vlog positings
i thank u because ur first comment was a SUGGESTION for a DISCUSSION
as a result alot of dialogue and yes debating has been happening which has prompted an indepth analysis of what deficit thinking is
at the same time i want to share with u from my heart that i am not comfortable endorsing a ban
banning and book burning is for the fascists
if u desire to have an aggregator that fosters like minded discussions and can screen out trolls and sabators (sp?) i think there are systems out there that could be tapped into
i am also uncomfortable with ur use of pretty sweeping and heavy labels of “sickos” and deficit thinkERS - this shifts the conversation from dialogue and discourse to hostile rhetoric and name calling
i have refrained from posting any comment here because i did not want my words to be misunderstood; however, i feel it is important to share my thoughts and feelings with u
i care for u
i care for all u have done and do for the Deaf-world
i want u to continue being a great advocate that u r
i only ask u consider amending ur initial blog entry above so it reflects the need for dialogue on how to respond to blogs / vlogs that may be damaging to D/deaf people vs. banning and labeling individuals
thank u for considering this
i commend u for taking a stand for that which u believe in - i only ask that u come from love and understanding first and foremost
“we must be the change we want to see”
i wish u all the best
peace
patti durr
Comment by pdurr — December 18, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
[...] Dave IrvineAGBell.info » REMOVE THOSE DEFICIT THINKERS [...]
Pingback by Mishka Zena » Blog Archive » Should We Silence the “Deficit Thinkers”? — December 18, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
Patti Durr just said it best; better than I did. Now if that doesn’t move John to do the right thing, then the “hard-sell/soft-sell will be very telling, won’t it? The ball’s in John’s court to mull over the abhorrence that censorship is.
Comment by DT — December 19, 2007 @ 2:18 pm
Listen, yall!
Let’s stop and think about our country and divert our attention to other countries which is what? Middle East countries; let’s say Iran, which underwent extreme changes, prior to 1979’s Islamic Revolution with Shah running the country, he allowed Western influence meaning women had rights to many things they wanted. But after Shah was overthrown, Khomeini took over and he drastically changed Iran to the point where NO one had a freedom of speech and women lost many rights: they are no longer equal to men; marriage age was dropped from 18 to 9 year old girls!; men were allowed to have “temporary” wives; women had to wear scarves and body cover or chador to cover everything but eyes; if a hair strand showed, women were flogged, jailed/or fined; etc. I could go on and on with what was happening in Iran during the 1980s and 1990s but my utmost point of all is: this country, our country, the United States of America gives us many rights: hearing, deaf, African American, etc. So PLEASE do not minimize the issue of freedom of speech, etc. MZ has every right to express her opinions just as others do. MZ has every respect for anyone’s point-of-view. She is only a journalist who has best of interest wanting to do the best for our deaf society. The issue of CI/ASL/ORAL/BIBI… you-name-it will always exist rest of our lives, even before we were born.
I was born late 1959 and was raised as an oralist but I paid a price for this kind of background i grew up. I envy Deaf children growing up in a deaf family. I also envy hearing parents using ASL with their deaf babies. I even got involved with AGB but during that time I started learning ASL and AGB looked down on me to the point where I was very uncomfortable. They were trying to oppress me but I wouldn’t allow that stop me from learning ASL. Slowly, my deaf identity began to bud like a blooming flower; especially when I started my education at Gallaudet. I did not appreciate AGB group who “oppressed” me, but that is who they are and they truly think they have valid points. What can we do about that? Forget them and focus on how we can “teach” hearing people how important it is for little deaf kids to maintain their rights of freedom of speech! Our little deaf kids have their rights as well! If they are deprived from ASL I believe it is a cruel form of oppression. I think it is our job to teach hearing people. Don’t you think so?
When Gallaudet issues arose thus a protest began, it was about how worried many students/staff/faculty were that new technology would take over and we all will lose deaf culture, blah blah… Please! Gallaudet has always had deaf students entering deaf culture for the first time in their lives and rediscover themselves as a deaf person with deaf identity. That is the most important thing! Oral deaf students learning ASL for the first time… that will happen to deaf students with CI entering Gallaudet’s deaf culture for the first time in their lives.
anyway i dont want to go off the point of deficit thinkers/deficit thinking; again, we do have a right to express our opinions. Think about it, Iran or other Middle East countries do not have freedom of speech. We should be proud of our country who gives us freedom of speech. Let’s not be so cruel and quick to put down other people. Life is too short. We do need to listen to other opinions, perhaps we will learn something new, eh? Life is all about learning experiences.
How about setting up a way to make a law out of this: allow deaf babies, deaf children have their rights to ASL whether they have CI or not. It’s important to be loud and clear with this subject. Create a group and approach our Congress or our lawmakers and try to pass a law allowing deaf babies their rights to communication which is ASL. Deaf babies should have their freedom of speech.
gotta stop now…but i wish you happy holidays!
Comment by VickieLou — December 22, 2007 @ 1:21 pm