I came across this article over the summer and was immediately struck by the obvious parallels: So let’s just go back to segregation, then. I thought many of the things she had to say about the issues black children face in schools is very much like what deaf children face in schools. In particular, this caught my eye:

My decision to stay in the gifted program branded me a sellout, because I didn’t do what the other kids had done. I was accused of “trying to be white” and worse. I had no black friends until late middle school. Some of the white kids were friendly, but it was a superficial kind of thing — there were certain things we just couldn’t talk about, and there was some inherent objectification that came with being “the black friend”. I got a lot of “Can I touch your hair?” and “Wow, I didn’t realize black people like to read!” Even for the handful who might’ve become true friends, their parents weren’t all that happy when they brought me home (to be fair, neither was my mother, when I brought white friends home). So while I did well in middle and high school, I often wonder how much better I could’ve done if I hadn’t been a treated like a freakish aberration.

Oh, boy. Can I ever relate. As can, I suspect, most oral deaf whether or not they’d admit it.

But the comment that really hit me, and I think it’s the crux of why I am so adamant that, whatever educational option is chosen for deaf children that they not be isolated from other deaf children and by extension from signing, is this one:

Kids in immersion have no real clue how to be black; they’ve been whacked with a societal interpretation of blackness as “bad”, but they’re not yet sure how to counter that interpretation. So they cobble together their own definition of blackness, drawing on what they know and what society tells them about themselves. If they’ve been exposed to positive knowledge about their culture, they embrace positive manifestations as the norm. But when they’re bombarded with stereotypes and negativity about their culture, they end up embracing that as their standard.

How often have we seen ourselves internalize these lowered expectations on the part of so many teachers of the deaf? How long have we struggled against this kind of thing from both within and without? I have seen incredibly smart and dynamic deaf people reveal complete insecurities with their English, for example. I’ve blamed myself over and over again for communication failures in my life. The list goes on.

I think there’s some very interesting parallels and I think the book she mentions here, Beverly Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? would have direct relevance and insights for many minority groups, including the deaf.