Responses to Not Deaf Enough: Chronicle of Higher Education
Commentary: I find it very interesting that thus far there has been no publication of any letter from Gallaudet challenging the views of Leonard Davis in his essay “Deafness and the Riddle of Identity”. I would think that the Chronicle of Higher Education would have published one from Gallaudet if it had received any. So this brings up a question…. Did any Gallaudet faculty or staff member send one? MZ
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle Review
Letters to the Editor :::: From the issue dated March 9, 2007
‘Not Deaf Enough’
To the Editor:
Lennard J. Davis makes some valid points in his essay (”Deafness and the Riddle of Identity,” The Chronicle Review, January 12). He argues that using constructs such as “deaf identity” or “deaf community” implies a sociolinguistic delineation around the word “deaf” that is messy. …
He’s basically correct in saying that it raises the same questions as trying to define who is “white … black … Jewish … non-Jewish.” Setting up this kind of boundary does cause problems with defining who is “in” and who is “out.” It does cause divisions and arguments; it does recall a history of such things as discrimination, ridicule, and medical sterilizations and experiments upon powerless people.
Davis’s response to this hazy, indeterminate attempt at a sociolinguistic grouping … is to argue that people who use American Sign Language and people who are hearing impaired to any degree are “not an ethnic or minority group, but something new and different.”
That’s open to disagreement.
Deaf people have been seen as different long enough. Sometimes “different” isn’t the goal being sought. Sometimes the goal toward which one strives is just to be allowed to be the same. …
The measure that needs to be applied is not whether there is disagreement and squabbling within the group. The measure should not be someone from outside deciding that the boundary and its definition are too porous. … If a group defines itself as existing, it should be allowed the same freedom to do the same squabbling as all of the other sociolinguistic groups.
That freedom to be embarrassingly, publicly flawed, just like any other human group, is what Davis tries to deny deaf people and users of ASL. By wanting that community to be something “new and different,” he denies it the right to be the same and equal. He holds it to a higher standard than other groups. …
The fact that there is division within the community is not an argument for saying it does not exist, but one more characteristic that makes it similar to other sociolinguistic groups. … Isn’t one of the functions of language to be able to discuss and disagree about the language itself, and its role in a society?
It is admirable to set a goal for deaf people to strive to be better than other marginalized groups. But it is not admirable to skip a crucial previous step: to be able to be the same as other groups in strengths, weaknesses, incongruities, and flaws.
Robertta Thoryk
Coordinator
American Sign Language Program
Assistant Professor of American Sign Language
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio
***
To the Editor:
Lennard Davis is correct that ethnic identity is complex and can produce painful division, but he ignores how empowering it can be. With regard to deaf people who use sign language, their community serves as a safe harbor in an often hostile, discriminatory hearing society.
The signing-deaf community is one of the most welcoming places I have encountered (I am late-deafened): It is open to any person with a significant hearing loss who learns to sign and respects deaf values (which prominently include the preservation of sign language). It is heterogenous, and its boundaries are contested, but isn’t that true of all minority groups?
The hearing world is a harsher place. It consistently sends deaf people the subtle message that they are “not hearing enough,” that they are not qualified for equal employment or respect — see Rebecca Raphael’s eloquent article on barriers facing deaf academics, “Academe Is Silent About Deaf Professors” (The Chronicle Review, September 15, 2006). While linguists certify that American Sign Language is a rich, elegant language, it is routinely treated as inferior; and most deaf children in the United States are not offered access to ASL until well after the critical years of language acquisition have passed.
As long as there is such rampant discrimination, there will be a need for self-protective boundaries. Signing-deaf people do often acknowledge commonalities with nonsigning-deaf people, other disabled people, and gay people, but their situation as possessors of a unique language is different. Until they achieve equal respect and opportunity, they must continue to advocate for their linguistic interests, and notions of “post-identity” will remain quixotic.
Christopher Krentz
Assistant Professor of English
and American Sign Language
Director
American Sign Language Program
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va.
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=YS6SVvyz5vSSKT9kJp8FpbpsDGzNH68x
——————————————————————————–
http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 53, Issue 27, Page B14
hat tip to Jean
email contact: Mishkazena@aol.com
Commentary: I find it very interesting that thus far there has been no publication of any letter from Gallaudet challenging the views of Leonard Davis in his essay “Deafness and the Riddle of Identity”. I would think that the Chronicle of Higher Education would have published one from Gallaudet if it had received any. So this brings up a question…. Did any Gallaudet faculty or staff member send one? MZ
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle Review
Letters to the Editor :::: From the issue dated March 9, 2007
‘Not Deaf Enough’
To the Editor:
Lennard J. Davis makes some valid points in his essay (”Deafness and the Riddle of Identity,” The Chronicle Review, January 12). He argues that using constructs such as “deaf identity” or “deaf community” implies a sociolinguistic delineation around the word “deaf” that is messy. …
He’s basically correct in saying that it raises the same questions as trying to define who is “white … black … Jewish … non-Jewish.” Setting up this kind of boundary does cause problems with defining who is “in” and who is “out.” It does cause divisions and arguments; it does recall a history of such things as discrimination, ridicule, and medical sterilizations and experiments upon powerless people.
Davis’s response to this hazy, indeterminate attempt at a sociolinguistic grouping … is to argue that people who use American Sign Language and people who are hearing impaired to any degree are “not an ethnic or minority group, but something new and different.”
That’s open to disagreement.
Deaf people have been seen as different long enough. Sometimes “different” isn’t the goal being sought. Sometimes the goal toward which one strives is just to be allowed to be the same. …
The measure that needs to be applied is not whether there is disagreement and squabbling within the group. The measure should not be someone from outside deciding that the boundary and its definition are too porous. … If a group defines itself as existing, it should be allowed the same freedom to do the same squabbling as all of the other sociolinguistic groups.
That freedom to be embarrassingly, publicly flawed, just like any other human group, is what Davis tries to deny deaf people and users of ASL. By wanting that community to be something “new and different,” he denies it the right to be the same and equal. He holds it to a higher standard than other groups. …
The fact that there is division within the community is not an argument for saying it does not exist, but one more characteristic that makes it similar to other sociolinguistic groups. … Isn’t one of the functions of language to be able to discuss and disagree about the language itself, and its role in a society?
It is admirable to set a goal for deaf people to strive to be better than other marginalized groups. But it is not admirable to skip a crucial previous step: to be able to be the same as other groups in strengths, weaknesses, incongruities, and flaws.
Robertta Thoryk
Coordinator
American Sign Language Program
Assistant Professor of American Sign Language
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio
***
To the Editor:
Lennard Davis is correct that ethnic identity is complex and can produce painful division, but he ignores how empowering it can be. With regard to deaf people who use sign language, their community serves as a safe harbor in an often hostile, discriminatory hearing society.
The signing-deaf community is one of the most welcoming places I have encountered (I am late-deafened): It is open to any person with a significant hearing loss who learns to sign and respects deaf values (which prominently include the preservation of sign language). It is heterogenous, and its boundaries are contested, but isn’t that true of all minority groups?
The hearing world is a harsher place. It consistently sends deaf people the subtle message that they are “not hearing enough,” that they are not qualified for equal employment or respect — see Rebecca Raphael’s eloquent article on barriers facing deaf academics, “Academe Is Silent About Deaf Professors” (The Chronicle Review, September 15, 2006). While linguists certify that American Sign Language is a rich, elegant language, it is routinely treated as inferior; and most deaf children in the United States are not offered access to ASL until well after the critical years of language acquisition have passed.
As long as there is such rampant discrimination, there will be a need for self-protective boundaries. Signing-deaf people do often acknowledge commonalities with nonsigning-deaf people, other disabled people, and gay people, but their situation as possessors of a unique language is different. Until they achieve equal respect and opportunity, they must continue to advocate for their linguistic interests, and notions of “post-identity” will remain quixotic.
Christopher Krentz
Assistant Professor of English
and American Sign Language
Director
American Sign Language Program
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va.
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=YS6SVvyz5vSSKT9kJp8FpbpsDGzNH68x
——————————————————————————–
http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 53, Issue 27, Page B14
hat tip to Jean
email contact: Mishkazena@aol.com
March 8th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Highly unlikely! Gallaudet University is unable to articulate the language and culture of the Deaf honestly. It has completely different priorities which focus on building the new and prominent SLCC so that all the Deaf, be they born Deaf or implanted with CI, could come and learn all about visual and auditory communication.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I may not reply unless I need to read full article of Leonard Davis’s “Deafness and the Riddle of Identity 
Can you provide us the full article?
March 8th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
the SLCC zeal represents the future of the deaf society whether the Old Deaf Guards like it or not.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Mookie:
I submitted a copy of Lennard Davis’s article on Gallynet-L
in January or earlier.
Mishkazena:
English Department’s Bruce White and Linguistics Department’s Bob E. Johnson,
Ceil Lucas, and late Clayton
are known to have been responsive in the media. They would write to the editor of
The Washington Post. However, several years after Jordan became president, things have changed. Jordan’s paranoid Jordanites kept an eye on Gallaudet employees who exposed their criticism about Gallaudet on VAX Notesconferences as well as on public listservers. I was one of the outspoken employees. What happened? I got in 1990s unbelievably nasty and ugly emails ever imaginable from three Jordanites. They even told the Dean in 1995. I cannot name a professor who told me that he was hurt from nasty emails. So I hope to see Jordanites retire now and see new ones who believe in the freedom of speech (see the quotes from two great thinkers below.
– “Dissenting is the highest form of patriotism.” Thomas Jefferson
–”"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” John Milton, ‘Areopagitica’, 1644.
Jean
March 8th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Here is a commentary on the Davis article, and then the entire Davis article is underneath the commentary:
http://groups.google.com/group/gallyprotest/msg/be7efa5405a6fd39?dmode=print
It was a horrible article, written by someone who doesn’t have the faintest idea of what he is talking about.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I’ve read the whole article, I am quite taken with Davis’ efforts and I agree that the sociological journey must go on - those who dont know Sociology have no position to assume what this means.
I, for one can appreciate what Davis is attempting to say, very brave to swim into the unexplored realm of this depth and understanding. The need to question the evolutability of Deaf Culture cannot be denied, as does the disability status will need a re-think, there is progressing need to consider how might deaf culture mature in this evolving global society
HE DOES knows what he is
talking about !!
Nothing here discounts the ‘Deaf culture’, it is inevitable that as society/culture interaction mutates and morphs into different ’shapes’ and in so doing, the way how we will think about what constitute Deaf culture changes too.
Give it a few more years or maybe decades, but we arent that far off now in this already frenzied information age.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Davis showed his woeful ignorance of the Deaf Culture. It’s best left to people who understands the dynamics of Deaf Culture, so they won’t do a botched job like Davis did.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Davis possibly wrote the absolute worse article related the the UFG protest. I’ve never seen such ignorance put on display before by a university professor.
The article was amazingly bad.