The deaf blogosphere has been a rather busy place lately, with all the fuss over DBC, Deafhood, Barry Sewell, and flamers hurling insults and emotional garbage at people.

I’ve already said quite a bit, and I think there’s only so much I or anyone else can say. At some point, as Aidan Mack pointed out last week, people are going to have to just agree to disagree.

I’d like to move on: life (at least for me!) isn’t all about being deaf, or deaf issues; there’s a lot more to life than just ASL, deafness, etc. So I’m going to discuss a few final thoughts I have, then move on for now. Since humans (ALL humans) seem to have an unfortunate tendency to repeat their mistakes, I have no doubt we’ll be revisiting some of these issues again before long.

First, most of you have by now read J.J. Puorro’s post at his blog site, It Is What It Is. In “Rachel, Ella, Deafread, and Me…”, J.J. echoes some of what I’ve said, such as

Just take a look at the front page of Deafread and the number of hits for each v/blog…those numbers are VERY telling. A post entitled, “Deafread SUCKS” will always get more hits than, “Deafread is the greatest thing since sliced bread”.

He’s right. If you REALLY want to “elevate” the level of conversation, as several bloggers/vloggers like to say, then don’t frequent those bloggers/vloggers that do nothing to contribute anything of value. As J.J. put it,

If you really wanted to hurt a v/blogger…the best way to do it is to not visit their v/blog. I have seen some v/bloggers die a slow death after “shooting themselves in the foot” with their audience because their audience stopped coming back.

People have complained lately of “not feeling safe,” or express feelings that the deaf blogosphere has lost control. I disagree- the blogosphere at large, both deaf and hearing, has never been “safe.” Public forums in this country aren’t “safe.” The same freedoms that grant us the right to speak out are the same freedoms that allow peddlers of hate to speak out. There’s a reason why the ACLU defends both anarchists and the Ku Klux Klan; we all have the right to speak out and to be heard.

This isn’t to say that we should welcome or tolerate bullies or flamers. One solution, as J.J. said, is to avoid places where things are out of control. But this is just ignoring the problem. One of my readers, DT, came up with an interesting solution:

Starting yesterday and whenever I can, I ask bloggers and vloggers to remove comments at their sites when the comments are destructive and I shall keep doing this because I believe this is where it all begins and ends.

I think DT’s right. People claim that it’s not “safe,” that they don’t feel “welcome” and then insist Deaf Read fix the problems. As I pointed out, and Tayler has pointed out, Deaf Read has no control over the comments. Individual bloggers/vloggers have control over their domains. Some bloggers have very strict guidelines for their sites; others simply moderate each and every comment. Deaf DC has a filter for bad language. A few of us don’t moderate at all, such as myself, but that isn’t to say I haven’t considered it, or that I won’t ever begin moderation of comments. I’m just lucky my commenters are on the whole an educated, considerate group of people.

But that doesn’t mean that the citizens of Deaf Read don’t have any power at all; on the contrary, they can visit whichever blogs/vlogs they feel comfortable with. They can speak up. They can complain to the host/owner/moderator. So if you feel someone’s gone way out of bounds, talk to the blog/vlog owner, as DT suggests. Post your own comment, and point out the offender/offending comment. Don’t wring your hands; instead, call them on it.

In fact, this is where I think Deaf Read has actually been rather responsive to the community: it began as a simple aggregator, but now has evolved into so much more. There’s an “Extra” section, where blogs are rated by the community at large. There’s an option to edit which blogs the reader wishes to be exposed to. Hearing bloggers/vloggers are identified by a different color. Honestly, what more can one ask for? The editorial team has actually been supportive of the deaf blogosphere. As J.J. put it, “In short, Deafread has already bent over backwards to accommodate everyone’s needs and the tools are already there to make it all to work for each one of you.”

Additionally, Tayler has opened up not one, but two posts for a conversation between Deaf Read and its readers. The first post only has five comments total, which bothers me; if people are so demanding that a dialogue be established, then they need to take advantage of that (and yes, I’m aware it was heavily moderated and required registration). A second, follow-up post has garnered 26 comments, which actually is less when you realize some of the same people came back to follow up on their original comments/suggestions/questions. Considering the thousands who visit Deaf Read, I’d think more people would be concerned enough to speak out. Guess not…

Now, don’t think I’m an apologist for Deaf Read. I’ve told Tayler publicly and privately some changes are going to need to be made, and I think the compromise he’s come up with needs to be given time to work. But at the same time, all of us are going to need to take responsibility as well, which is where speaking up when people misbehave is important. I’m not calling for censorship, but self-policing.

Back to J.J. for a moment– he really came up with a very thoughtful post, and I want to highlight another issue he pointed out.

The great thing about the Internet is that anyone can express their opinion and it is also the worst thing. This is the reason many v/bloggers feel unprotected, but it is my opinion that you are solely responsible for everything you sign, say, or write on the Internet…

In the end, even if Deaf Read were to collapse, the deaf blogosphere would still have the same problems it does now. That’s because J.J.’s right– in the end, we are all individually responsible for what we say, both on-line and off. That’s why it’s important to speak up when something wrong is happening. It’s why I blog a lot about politics: it’s my way of speaking up when I see something that needs to be changed, or brought to people’s attention. It’s why a lot of us expressed displeasure with quite a few of Ridor’s comments and posts. It’s why there was such a ruckus over Ben Vess’ vlog on Ella Lentz.

When you think about it, we don’t need to be pointing fingers; we’re already self-policing. Ben Vess removed his vlog, and apologized. Ridor has vanished for the time being. What we’re doing is actually working, and trying to force Deaf Read to be something it’s not is not the answer: the answer is within ourselves.

Back to individual responsibility. It’s the main reason I don’t bother moderating. Moderating means I’m intentionally stopping the flow of a natural conversation. I can’t be here 24/7, and neither can most bloggers/vloggers (although I suspect quite a few do a lot more than they should be doing on their computers at work. It’s uncanny how certain bloggers always seem to have the time to respond immediately…). Additionally, if someone wants to say something on this blog and make a fool of themselves, I’m all for it. Its their words, not mine. That doesn’t mean I won’t yank a comment, it just means I don’t need to contribute rope when someone’s already doing a great job of hanging themselves.

One final thought for now: some people have been calling for Mishka Zena and Amy Cohen-Efron to step down, based on the fact that they have blogs/vlogs in addition to their roles as “Human Editors” at Deaf Read. I think Ben Vess put it best in his comment on Tayler’s post on the official Deaf Read blog:

Nobody seems to remember that MZ had her blog LONG before DR started.

Mishka Zena’s posts were attracting attention and comments way before Tayler and Jared conceived Deaf Read. All the editors had their own blogs/vlogs before they joined the Deaf Read team. Are they supposed to suddenly stop having opinions once they join the team? Are they to be silent, to forbid themselves from sharing their knowledge and expertise? I think it’s unfair to give them an either/or choice. This is a very small community of vloggers/bloggers. If new editors were to be chosen, they’d come from among us, those who are already vloggers/bloggers/commenters. I don’t think placing limits on people like that is healthy.

I do agree that when an “editor” writes an independent post, they shouldn’t be the ones to determine where it is placed on Deaf Read. I’m not sure how or if the Deaf Read team could make that transparent, but I hope that they have internal guidelines to prevent this.

I know this is as usual a rather long post. But I have thought about this long and carefully the last couple of days. Even now, with charges and countercharges, I still think a certain level of civility is possible. But it will require effort from all of you, and a willingness to speak up.

Drama! Drama! Drama! DeafDirt! Come read this post! NOW NOW NOW

There. Now I’ve done my part to convince people to come read this post. In reality, I don’t dish out drama or gossip, for the most part; I tend to take rather sober, sometimes dry, but mostly thoughtful takes on many topics.

Usually a post is composed of two parts: the post itself, and the comments. Our current drama revolves around Deaf Read and its role in our community. A number of people (including myself) are rightly bothered by the quality of blogs and comments of late, and how harmful and destructive some people’s behavior has been. Quite a few people have expressed disappointment with Deaf Read, to the point that some have left or are thinking about leaving.

My last post was about my take on the issue, and a plea of sorts for people to reconsider before they continue to split the community further. I received a dozen or so comments in response, with a near unanimous number being thoughtful remarks.

Normally, I leave comments in the comments section. But while I was typing a response to Joey Baer, I realized what I wanted to say was perhaps too important (at least to me) to leave in the comments area, where only a handful of people will probably bother reading it. Additionally, a few others made good points that I think need to be shared. So I’m dragging up some comments to make a posted comment on Deaf Read and the current situation.

First, Joey– the man needs no introduction. He was kind enough to read my blog, and then to leave his own thoughts. Here’s what he had to say:

“I still believe that DeafRead is partially responsible. If b/vloggers kept on telling each other that we must raise our bars by doing better jobs, why can’t DeafRead raise their own bars as well? It is time for DeafRead to set higher expectations from Deaf v/bloggers to do better job in order to reach on their front page. If they really care about Deaf community, they would do it instantly and they haven’t.

Other than that, thank you for sharing your thoughts by outlining specific excellent examples on how people were pushed off DeafRead.

I simply closed my door but I didn’t lock it. I have other things to do that is more important than DeafRead at this moment but I will keep my eyes open (I have always done that). ”

In response, here’s what I replied:

“Joey, thanks for stopping by. I think you have made some good points on your vlogs, but I also think others have made good points as well, from moi on Random Thoughts and Musings, to Ben Vess on his most recent post. I think both of them are right.

I’d say I’m somewhere in the middle. I think Deaf Read has a responsibility to follow its own rules and standards; so where posts and inclusion of posts are concerned, yes, I think Deaf Read needs to reconsider its rules, and work on applying even standards all around. This appears to be what moi and you would like to see.

However, where comments are concerned, I’m in complete agreement with Tayler (and this seems to be what Ben Vess is driving at as well). There is absolutely no way the editors at Deaf Read can control the comments, or be expected to spend their time wading through comments and judging posts by them. That takes far more time than they have. All of the Deaf Read team have other responsibilities, including jobs. They are not paid full-time to babysit Deaf Read. They are largely volunteering their time in service to the community.

Each of us who owns a blog have ways to screen comments– I don’t moderate my comments, but I know moi does, and many others of you do. THAT is our responsibility, and we need to step up and be more proactive about maintaining a fair playing field for all.

I’m glad you’re keeping the door unlocked. Let’s hope in the future you’ll re-open it.

What I see as part of the problem as well is we all have our own version of what Deaf Read should be. This isn’t possible. As I said on Ben Vess’ blog in the comments, “…Deaf Read will never please anyone everyone, because if Deaf Read changes to satisfy one group of people, a different group will object. The key is finding a balance that meets the more crucial needs/concerns.”

We’re going to have find a balance here, people. Tayler’s offered to talk to us, via his recent posting on the official Deaf Read blog. Those of us who truly want to find a solution need to take him up on this, and start talking it out. Otherwise, nothing will be solved, and we’ll just be right back at square one again.

We’ll also end up going through this again if we don’t get to the root of the problem. Sheri Farinha Mutti stopped by to comment as well, and I think she hit the nail on the head, so to speak: we need to ask ourselves WHY this happened. It isn’t just a matter of venting our frustrations towards Deaf Read, or trying to start the healing overnight (something I’m guilty of as well). We need to first step back and really examine why this came about in the first place. Once we understand that, only then can we truly work towards a solution that will (hopefully) prevent this from happening again.

If we can’t do this, then there isn’t much of a community, is there? It won’t matter if people split off and start another organization; it’ll just happen again a few months from now, when people have drifted away from this current mess, things get calm again, then– blam. All over again.

My opening sentence indicates part of the problem: too many people come for the drama. Look at the posts on Deaf Read with the highest view counts: they’re the ones that offer sensationalism, drama, gossip. If we don’t want to encourage that, why do we feed the fire? Someone commented recently on another blog that they don’t pay attention to my blogs because I don’t write “sexy” titles. While writing a title and a post that grabs people’s attention is an important factor, I think the content is far more important than the glitz. Unfortunately, this is not a symptom limited to our community. All you have to do is look at the headlines on TV and in the newspapers these days. We were far more concerned with Paris Hilton than we were with much more serious matters. We’re being fed information about Christie Brinkley’s divorce trial while Congress essentially shreds the Fourth Amendment.

As always, there’s more I want to say, but I think I’ve offered enough for us all to ponder for now.

“Witch hunt” is the term I’m hearing more and more over the last couple of days. At first, I discounted that– but the last few hours that I’ve spent catching up on DeafRead and the deaf blogosphere, the more convinced I am that certain people who have axes to grind have inflicted their grievances on an entire community for no really good reason.

At this point, it’s not just about DBC or Deafhood anymore: it’s about some central, core issues. The first is communication. The second is community. The third is ethics.

The first is communication. For that, I want to start by referring you to Deaf Cinematic Blog, where Aidan Mack discusses Ella Lentz. Now, what struck me was not her commentary on Ella, but on Aidan’s use of the sign “respect.” She uses both hands, and signs in reference to opposing sides. Her point? Mutual respect is a necessary foundation. I agree with Aidan; in any kind of relationship, mutual respect must exist for the relationship to flourish. Right now, I’m not seeing certain parties practicing that.

Communication is at the heart of any forum, whether it’s a convention such as NAD, a rap session in a college dorm, a conversation at a party, a board meeting, or a group of bloggers engaging in online dialogue. For most such forums, there are unspoken rules central to whatever communication takes place. Respect is one of these rules. When respect is absent, communication breaks down. Right now, the communication in the deaf blogosphere is breaking down in certain areas, on certain blogs and vlogs.

Good communication is when people can feel safe to discuss various topics, try out new ideas, and be able to agree to disagree, yet leave whatever conversation they’ve had and feel they’ve given and received respect.

Bad communication is when the opposite happens: people are afraid to speak out, people are afraid to be themselves. That’s when a handful of bullies have “won.”

Most of us have experienced both kinds of situations, and I’d venture to guess that for 85-90% of us, we’ll take good communication anytime over bad.

Let’s set aside communication for a minute. Community is important too. Community is analogous to “society,” and in any society, there are diverse peoples with individual opinions, beliefs, and practices. Not all are the same, nor should they be. Our deaf world (and I’m intentionally using small “d” here, yes) is a smaller society within a larger hearing society. No matter our background, our education, our current life situations, we all have one thing in common: we don’t hear, whether it’s a mild or profound loss. That commonality binds us together more than it divides us, because even the most “successful” among us (and how do we measure “success,” anyway?) has experienced discrimination, no matter how subtle. To borrow a cliché, we are all children of a lesser god. What we had before, in DeafRead’s early days, was a community that worked. Oh, it wasn’t perfect, to be sure, but it was still a place where we could all see what the other had to say. It replicated the forums of old: the campus dorms, VAX Notes, the clubs, the summer camps, the local and state conventions. It also added new dimensions: a population that didn’t use signs joined us, and even though it was an uneasy co-existence, some of us ventured to the other side to see differing perspectives. In the process, some of us were able to develop a new understanding and a new respect, even if we still ultimately stayed on our own side of the fence.

Let’s also set aside community. Last on my list today is ethics. Ethics is at the heart of this current firestorm. The cracks first formed when the DeafRead team tossed a pro-cochlear implant blog for violating DeafRead rules. Rather than take the opportunity to step back and examine what had happened, an entire segment of our community halted the communication that should have been taking place, and instead retaliated. They broke off and formed their own community, Deaf Village. Instead of one large city, we ended up with two villages. Whether you agree DeafRead was justified or not, it centered around the rules, or ethics, that held us in place.

No sooner did this happen than another conflict erupted. In the wake of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition’s meeting in Milwaukee, a number of former DBC members spoke up about concerns they had. One of them, unfortunately, went far beyond merely sharing their own stories and thoughts. That ex-member, Barry Sewell, posted an entire IM conversation with actual screenames, highlighted certain comments, then sat back with a bag of popcorn. Sewell later followed up by threatening to send letters to the workplaces of two DBC members, then just as abruptly took down much of the material on his website.

The initial fracture at DeafRead widened as more and more people, in the heat of passion, spoke up. A number of them made highly emotional arguments, while other, cooler heads used logic. But in the midst of the fray, an ugly thing happened.

Supposedly “mature” adults made snide comments, posted inflammatory remarks and blog/vlog entries, hurled insults, and generally behaved like five year olds. An example of an extremely snide, insensitive comment that did absolutely nothing to add to the dialogue was posted on Der Sankt Speaks:

Jenny ..

I apologize: your words looked and sounded like English, but they did not make sense, especially with the contradiction Ben pointed out.

Aww, I am sorry - I forgot your “native tongue” is busy eating your contradictions.

Want a napkin? You appear to be drooling ..

:o)

The author of this inappropriate remark was a thirty-something year old man who calls himself “Paotie”; funny, I could have sworn most people in their 30’s had more sensitivity and maturity than that. It’s something you might expect from a surly, immature teenager, not a grown man, highly educated, and supposedly in his prime.

Speaking of Der Sankt Speaks, its owner, Ben Vess, posted a highly inappropriate ad hominem attack against Ella Lentz. The posting made it past the DeafRead editors and was on DeafRead for quite some time. This vlog post was the final straw for many people, including Patti Durr and Joey Baer, both of whom announced they were leaving DeafRead. I’ll discuss this more in a moment, because this is a pivotal moment, and deserves its own examination.

To his credit, Vess realized he’d made an error, and is at the moment doing some much needed self-examination. Quite a few community members have commented, trying to bring a peace pipe to the aftermath of Vess’ regrettable action. However, even in the middle of this attempted healing, someone took a large brush and tarred the California School for the Deaf as “the Fremont bullies.” Boy, I’m sure everyone there is surprised, from Dr. Hank Klopping down to the custodians. Regardless of who they are, where they came from, what they believe, each of them, from such diverse personages as Patty Albee to David Eberwein, are now slandered as “The Fremont Bullies.”

These are the real bullies– the people who don’t really want to practice respect, who don’t really want to participate in a community, who don’t really want to uphold ethics. They’d rather do hit-and-runs, flaming indiscriminately without a thought as to who they hurt, and certainly without any real purpose other than to be as inflammatory as possible.

In a perfect world, we would shun them. But unfortunately, some of us in our community supposedly admire these people, encouraging them by telling them they speak “truth.”

Quite a few of us have shared our outrage at these individuals, and at the breakdown of what was formerly a thriving community. There are quite a few who spoke up, but I think Saunière says it best:

…I will say something to the people who started this whole thing against DBC and who are fanning the flames: Congratulations. You’re damaging DBC, the Deaf community, the Deaf Blogosphere, and DeafRead.

Now, back to DeafRead. A number of people are leaving or considering leaving DeafRead. A smaller number of these people are even considering setting up a third aggregator. My feeling is, “bad move.” Don Grushkin at Deafhood Discourses posted a vlog that pretty much summed this all up. I agree with him, although I think he could’ve saved the shirt he was wearing for another day and another message.

My thoughts? Patti, Joey, and others: you’ll be contributing to the destruction of what we have now if you leave. Rather than abandon DeafRead, the opposite should be happening. We need to support DeafRead, and the best way to do that is to help DeafRead reform from within. Tayler Mayer started something wonderful, but along the way, several serious stumbles occurred.

Here’s what needs to happen, and here’s what we need to consider.

1) Despite the DeafRead team’s admirable efforts to provide a neutral ground, that’s not ever going to be possible. I discussed this whole mess earlier today with a colleague at work. My colleague reminded me that nothing is ever neutral. Everyone brings some sort of bias to the table from the start. The Deaf Village folks left because of their bias. The rest of us stayed because of our biases. Some people actively avoid DeafRead because of their own biases.

Just as MSCHE told Gallaudet’s administration that Gallaudet could not “be everything to everyone,” so DeafRead cannot possibly be “everything to everyone.” DeafRead was never a place where we could all meet as just deaf people: DeafRead was established for the signing community, even if its founders never consciously admitted that. What its founders did do that was admirable was welcome anyone, regardless of who they were, to participate. I think that is a goal that we should still hold out as an ideal. Just because it doesn’t work now doesn’t mean it can’t eventually become that. The Deaf Village people proved they were not capable of that ideal by splitting off; they would prefer, for the time being, to build their own echo chamber. But that doesn’t mean those of us who are left should do the same, because if that happens, we all lose. We all go back to our little kingdoms, we all huddle in our own corners with only people who think the same as we do. Groupthink isn’t healthy, people. My advice is don’t do it.

2) DeafRead is going to have to revisit its rules and establish ethics. For that matter, we all are going to have to do the same. Unwritten rules don’t seem to be working, so maybe we need to decide what does work. Allowing personal attacks and ad hominem arguments such as Ben Vess’ outburst about Ella Lentz is unacceptable. But this isn’t the first time there’s been inconsistency at DeafRead. The DeafRead conference in February, as Joey Baer pointed out, presented an opportunity for people to bring up this issue, and to start to discuss how to institute better safeguards. I don’t think we can wait for another conference to remedy the situation. This doesn’t mean that it’s time to turn on Tayler, Jared, and the rest of the team. It does mean we need to ask them, POLITELY, how we can all work together.

3) DeafRead has obligations to its participants and the community, but we also have obligations to each other. Those of us who have condemned the events of the last few days are going to have to help police the community. By this, I don’t mean censorship, or muzzling anyone we don’t agree with. It does mean we need to speak out anytime anyone gets out of line. Only by acting together to censure inappropriate comments and actions can we aid the entire community, not just DeafRead. However, if people continue to be “afraid to post,” “afraid to comment,” or willing to leave completely, then they’ve allowed a few bad apples to “win.” The solution isn’t to hide or flee, but to speak up, to be willing to do some hard work, to push back when needed.

There’s more I’d like to add, and I haven’t even scratched the surface on other controversies or aspects of events, but I’m going to pause for now. If you’re interested in reading and watching some thoughtful comments about what’s happening, go over to You Are You & Your Circumstances, where *ist has made a few good points. It’s worth checking out.

I do want to leave you all with this final thought, though.

When you blog, when you vlog, who is your audience? My suggestion is each time you sit down to write or sign, think about what you’re saying. Is it the kind of conversation or comment you’d make to your mother? If so, go right ahead. If it isn’t, then it probably isn’t something you want to post. When I rant and rave about politics, when I discuss issues, these are exactly the kinds of conversations I have and have had with my mother. I have used bad language with my mother; she’s okay with that (especially when we discuss our current gummint). I do not attack my mother with insults, I do not conduct ad hominem arguments with her about her or other family members. I do not call my mother names.

Blogs and vlogs are NOT private, people. Even though my hearing readers and people who stumble on this blog don’t know who I am, most of you in the deaf community know exactly who’s typing this right now. It’s an open secret, and I’m okay with that. However, over the years, I’ve discovered that a couple of relatives have found this site. One or two even comment from time to time. Of course, that means I’m never going to reveal the skeletons in my closet, or in my family’s closet. But it does mean that I have to think when I blog about topics: is this something my mother would be okay with?

You don’t have to use your mother as your barometer. You can use someone you admire, or someone you’re close to. But each time you write, each time you have the urge to say something, stop and think: is this something that person would approve of? If the answer is “No,” then turn off the camera. Stop typing.

Because at its heart, ethics is about your good name, about the community’s good name. Once your reputation is ruined, it’s hard to clean up.

Yesterday, while relaxing and reading the Sunday paper, I read an interesting Op-Ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. “Who listens to blogging heads?” by John Sides and Eric Lawrence is an interesting read, and addresses an issue that’s been bouncing around my head for some time now.

While computer ownership has increased over the years, and most people these days have e-mail, whether via work or home (My family’s a great example– my grandparents have an account, my parents, me, even the youngest grandkids…), not everyone uses the internet the same way. The blogosphere in general attracts and holds the attention of a fraction of computer users.

Now when you examine the blogosphere, it’s fractured into different areas, based on people’s interests. One of the blogs in my blogroll, Bellamoden, is primarily a knitting blog; occasionally, Bellamoden herself has written about tangential issues, including deafness, but 99.9% of her focus is on knitting, yarn, knitting, patterns, knitting… oh, there’s cats too. But it’s mostly about knitting (and did I say yarn? She’s building up a thriving hand-dyed yarn business).  She’s linked to tons of other knitting blogs, and her readers have their own knitting blogs. But I’ll bet you 90% of her readers don’t read deaf blogs, aren’t aware there’s a deaf blogosphere, and probably couldn’t care less.

The same is true for political blogs. As the piece points out, there’s tons of them, from Little Green Footballs to Daily Kos to Firedoglake to Instapundit. But as Sides and Lawrence point out, they’re pretty much little fiefdoms of their own. Here in the deaf blogosphere, I can count the number of political blogs on two hands: mine, Micah Brown’s, Michael McConnell’s (although these days, he’s morphed into something else completely… a champion of the decidedly tiny minority of oralist/oralist-leaning blogosphere), Rob over at Roblog, and a couple others. Joseph Rainmound used to discuss politics at Deaf in the City, but now he’s discussing English, education, bilingual issues, and ASL over at Many Tribes. Not so much politics these days…

Our readers/commenters aren’t that many; McConnell probably garnered the most, and even then, that number was miniscule compared to those that come to hear him hold court about his take on deafness, the deaf community, the deaf blogosphere, cochlear implants, and the like. Our corner of the deaf blogosphere is very small, indeed.

Now, going back to Sides and Lawrence: their overall premise is that the political blogosphere as a whole is balkanized; their major premise is based on partisanship. I agree to an extent. Where the best politically focused blogs are effective is when they do journalistic work. As Sides and Lawrence put it,

 If political blogs change opinions, they will more likely do so indirectly — by uncovering new information that is then amplified and discussed in media that reach a broader, and less partisan, cross section of the public.

Before he signed up with Salon, Glenn Greenwald was doing this kind of blogging– logical, thoughtful, well-researched and well-thought out pieces. Other bloggers and blog groups have done this as well. Firedoglake’s work on the Plame case comes to mind.

But one line of this article I found interesting. It’s this:

Indeed, some blogs put mobilization over persuasion.

Developing a political infrastructure will be one of the two-pronged legacies of the political blogosphere. The other is the previously mentioned dissemination of new facts to the Corporate Media and the public at large.

Other than that, a lot of these blogs, even the best ones, preach to the choir. As much as I want things to change, I’m only seeing that sentiment shared among a small, highly literate, highly politicized group of people. How do we effect change out in the real world?

I’ve often sometimes felt that way about this blog. It’s a way for me to share my thoughts, my frustrations, my concerns– but by and large, I think most of my readers are sympathetic to my views from the start. The same is true for the others. McConnell even has one reader who called herself his “groupie number one” on his last blog post (since then, he’s come out of hiatus).

Now, how does this relate to the deaf blogosphere? Simple: go back to that one-liner: “Indeed, some blogs put mobilization over persuasion.”

The deaf blogosphere is an echo chamber, a place where most of us are preaching to the choir. Thus far, I haven’t seen any evidence that outsiders are changing their minds, or that people’s opinions are being swayed. Most people have come with their own preconceived notions of how things are. All most of us are doing is maintaining the status quo.

Where we CAN motivate change is through mobilization. It may be time for those of us who blog to assess what we’re doing. Some of us blog because we want to share our lives and our thoughts with friends and family. Others are venting and speaking out (I fall into this category). Another group of bloggers are trying to educate people about their perspective on a variety of issues. Yet another set of bloggers actually want to instigate change. For those bloggers, mobilization needs to be the name of the game.

Now, a final thought: part of political blogging concerns the definition of political identity. That’s also what many deaf bloggers are doing online, whether deliberately or not: they’re defining a deaf communal identity. The recent firestorm surrounding DBC bothers me for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is how we appear to others. We’re willing to use questionable ethics (posting an entire IM conversation with real screennames, etc.), craft weak arguments (I think there’s a degree of truth to the charges of a “witch hunt” that some people contend is happening), and generally hurl nasty comments at each other. This isn’t our best moment, people. If you want to educate, persuade, and mobilize, then we’re going to have to be better than that. Right now, we’re preaching to the choir, listening only to other partisans, and generally not willing to conduct a thoughtful debate on the issues.

I hope that changes. While “Who listens to blogging heads?” is about online politics, the elements Sides and Lawrence raise are equally applicable to any aspect of the blogosphere. It’s an article we all should read, analyze, and learn from.

[Happy Bastille Day, by the way. If we want a revolution, whether it’s against our political system or against the medical model or what have you, mobilization is the key.]