That’s what you don’t see. How long have you been involved in the Deaf Community? I’m not being trying to be rude, but it helps considerably to listen to Deaf people before making unwarranted and unfair assumptions about them… This bigotry of AGBell has been a long-running issues. This is nothing new. What is new is that they are now trying to deny the accusations, while they still bear the bias. Also, for the first time Deaf people are now being openly vocal about this bias instead of absorbing its abuse quietly as it had in the past.

Hence the anger. To this day, AGBell is still slamming the doors at us, rebuffing our efforts to establish constructive dialogue. I am sure you didn’t mean to, but your efforts in explaining AGBell’s actions did come across as invalidating and somewhat patronizing to Deaf people especially in the light of your unfamiliarity with AGBell. Do take the time to study AGBell and its history with Deaf people who sign, up to this day, by listening to Deaf people who have first-hand experiences with AGBell.

That doesn’t mean I’m saying that the accusations against AG Bell’s policy are either well-founded or unfounded. Perhaps there isn’t any direct attack on ASL, but more of what Dianrez described very well as “covert audism.” That’s probably the more common form of discrimination anyway, but so hard to get your finger on, and harder to change. And sometimes the discrimination is in the eye of the beholder — not that it isn’t there, but that the person doing it has no clue they are offending.

What concerns me is that nobody is doing anything about changing this bias. Think about it as though this was a company you were working for (rather than a company that’s working for you, which is what AG Bell is supposed to be doing). If you were being discriminated against, you would need to make an effort to inform the person or the company that they were committing an offense, that you were perceiving specific actions as bias. Would you just leave the company, without trying to change he situation either for yourselves or for those who come along next?

We need to tell AG Bell very specifically what they are doing that makes us feel oppressed or attacked or not supported, and propose how that can be changed. They aren’t mind-readers, and not everyone or every organization is always sensitive to every need. Every day I’m on deafread my mind is opened a little bit more to perspectives I’d never been exposed to, or approaches I’d never considered. Let’s open their minds rather than slamming our doors and tell them what we want — just blanketing this corner of the web (rather than contacting them directly) with messages that they are bad (or AgBad ) and discriminating against the deaf comes across as unfounded and just plain wacky (they are an organization FOR the deaf, according to public perception and their mission) unless you explain HOW they discriminate.

And gruesome as it was, we can’t keep referring to Alexander Graham Bell’s links to eugenics — the US was founded by slave-owners, should we give up on it, too? Ooops, maybe not a good analogy, and I probably shouldn’t have asked that question on an international forum

If they refuse to cease their financial contributions, then this indicate prejudice and bias are acceptable and how little they value their Deaf customers. If so, they may have to face the consequences of their actions. There are other VRS companies who accept Deaf people and do not permit intolerance.

They sponsored many events. They sponsor blogs, they sponsor Deaf entertainment shows, they sponsor fundraisers, they sponsor golf charities that support causes, ALL in Deaf culture!

Now, if they did donate to AG Bell, any of those VRS companies, I am disappointed, granted..but if I have seen how much money they have poured into the Deaf community, then that far outweighs what they have donated to AGBell. I am sure those companies after seeing AGBell’s letter to Pepsi Co will cease to support AGBell any further.

I support ALL of the VRS companies because we need them and there is no need to punish them by boycotting. Maybe we should write letters to ask them to consider stopping to donate to AGBell. That’s all we need to do. Nice, polite, and friendly letters. The VRS companies are our friends and supporters.

NAD doesn’t encourage prejudice. AGBell Association does. Big difference.

or at the very least, do what agbell did; tell them to donate money to…. NAD. if they want to sponsor a balanced view of how to approach deafness and deal with it, they should sponsor both organizations becasue we all have the right to pick what methods we want.