Q3 - Can Hearing People Be “D”eaf?
Can hearing people be “D”eaf?
In other signs, do hearing people experience some forms of deafhood? Sure. Let me give you an analogy.
I am a male. I have strong feminine traits in me. I experience some forms of Womanhood in me, but not womanhood. Simply because I am not a woman. It is the same as being hearing in a Deaf World. They have strong visuality traits in them. They, either born into it or learned the language, experience some forms of deafhood. Hearing people, those having pride being associated with Deaf people, could consider themselves “D”eaf yet do not experience Deafhood simply because they are not deaf.
Deafhood probably will always be plastic and gray - it depends on how it is defined. IT IS a culturally “D” deafhood process of being proud being Deaf. It IS a psychological process of coping with hearing loss. Both and in between lie under the the dDeafhood Sun. Maybe we could use the term, deafhood, to denote those psychologically coping with hearing loss and continue in life speaking. Maybe we could use Deafhood to denote those who psychologically celebrate being Deaf and continue in life signing. What about those who speak and sign, dD? Explorations need to be made in deafhood and spirituality, or being dDeaf, here.
The emergence of the concept of Deafhood comes with painful birth-pangs. The birth pangs are the conflicting feelings in the dDeaf community in reacting and accepting Deafhood as a political ideological tool for Deaf empowerment. The birth-pangs are those violent feelings in the dDeaf communities, and the hearing world, in reacting to Deafhood as cultish or religion-like. Yes, dDeafhood is about those birth-pangs . . . and more . . . .
Professionals working with dDeaf people MUST deal with dDeafhood. Psychologists will need to use the concept to dDeafhood within the Jungian psychology help them treat dDeaf patients or not being licensed. Educators will eventually realize that it is unethical to ignore dDeafhood education when teaching deaf children or not being accreditiated. Parents need to consider the deafhood, or psychological, development of their own deaf children or be charged of crimes in parental negilience.
The Secrets of Deafhood will be unveiled to the hearing world. Deaf people know it. If there is one, what would it be? . . . . . . . . silence . . . . One of the secrets comes from Kendall Green, the campus of Gallaudet University. It comes from every building at this university, especially through the rituals of its student organizations. The marvelous myraid connections among Gallaudet, the NAD, the YLC, and the state schools for the deaf (and MANY more) and how they feed deaf children to Gallaudet. This story has not been told to the general wide world. That’s the beauty of being Deaf knowing the secret joy being Deaf. We feel belonged.
Just like the North American Native Peoples are now giving up their hard-held rituals to the world in order to heal our home, the planet Earth. The world out there could be very audistic for us, Deaf peoples. Out of the morass of humanity on earth, glimmers of hope for the future come from us, the Deaf Peoples. We need to give to the world the beauty behind the visual-spatial natures of signed languages. With time and revolutions of our home, humanity on Earth will slowly broaden from mainly its aural existence to a more multimodal by slowly transforming their spoken languages to be more visual-based.
Who will help us, Deaf people, bring out our Secret, once tightly-held, to the world? Hearing people! Those using signed languages and embracing the cultures of the Deaf Peoples all over the world. They are our comrades solidering with us into the future, to help us bring out the beauty of the Secret the dDeaf people have to the wide world. I invoke you, hearing people who feel “D”, to come and embrace deafhood and assume your positions within the ranks of the dDeaf communities by using our language of signs and celebrating being “D”eaf.
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:30 pm
This is unexpected. I will be interested in the responses you get to this post.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I found your post interesting. I have written some of my own posts on the topic of Deafhood and my experience of the transition from my hearing self to my deaf self at age 17.
On the sidebar of my blog/vlog, I have a category called “My Story.” It has a little over 70 entries all about growing up hearing then becoming deaf.
In essence, though I struggled with grief in the early years, I ultimatley discovered myself as a deaf person and thus embraced my deaf self.
My journey into Deafhood has been rich and rewarding. Having went to Gallaudet shortly after becoming deaf, and then later working for 10 years at a deaf residential school (mostly swing shift 1pm - 9pm which put me in the dorms providing counseling for students in need), I feel like I sort of grew up in the deaf school environment along with most of the students I worked with. Deaf culture feels like a part of my skin.
~ LaRonda
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Interesting question you have. I think the HEARING people not those non-signing ones, are themselves not “D”eaf, but who value DEAF people, their languages, and their cultures. It doesn’t matter if he/she is hearing, but raised in the d/Deaf family and work with the d/Deaf. They will never experience the “deafhood” but living in the enivornment of sound that deaf person “never” experience, is it still called “deafhood”?
(edited by the blogauthor. Trying to answer this question is the hum of the engine of deafhoodism.)