This week’s readings present a shift from our reading of disability as a social and medical model and instead grapple with cultural ideas of disability. Baynton provides the definition for deafness as “those who cannot understand speech through hearing alone” and Deafness as a cultural practice, which is not entirely dependent on “the audiological condition” (48). For this week’s discussion we will need to make a clear distinction between the two different terms as well as discuss the different implications of the terms.
The Edwards and Burch articles both to try to answer the question of how Deaf culture developed, focusing on educational institutions. Edwards argues that the development of educational settings for deaf children lead to the development of the Deaf culture for a few reasons. First, through sign language “the students would learn a common language” (Edwards 60). This language proved central to a new identity especially due to the fact that many children believed “that they were the only deaf person on earth” (53). This new language provided an effective method of communication for deaf populations instead of the almost individualized gesture systems used in towns where there were very few deaf people. Thus sign language both provided a standardized communication system, but also led to the development of “a sense of shared identity and distinct cultures” (Baynton 50).
Edwards and Burch also discuss the development of oralist and sign language focused curriculum. Edwards argues that in America, the sign language approach was superior in part because it helped to unify Deaf communities, but also because it was an effective gateway to learning English as “sign language, as the students described it, became the vehicle for learning English” (74). This system proved far more effective, considering how the twentieth century American oralist approach resulted in “the average deaf adult read[ing] on average at a fourth-grade level” (75). By learning both sign language as well as English, deaf students learned to read and write in English as well as communicate proficiently in both English and sign language.
Burch alternatively argues that the sign language approach, while successful in Europe and America, was not successful in Russia due to cultural and political reasons. In order for social integration into the larger society, “Deaf Russians not unreasonably looked to oralism as a solution to their tangible handicap” (Burch 396). In comparison to the US where most would argue that “deafness could not be corrected” but, “ignorance could” (Edwards 72), the oralist approach was seen as less effective for integrating deaf students into the larger society. These differing cultural conceptions of disability led to the development of different educational systems and later differences in Deaf culture. Burch also indicates that the dual adoption of oralism in public settings and sign language in private settings fostered a different image of Deaf culture in Russia that did not display its cultural values in public.
Lastly, I would like to address a more modern issue discussed in the Baynton article. Baynton argues that the development of new technologies like cochlear implants act “as ‘cultural genocide’” and can be classified as “’ethically offensive’” (51). Although the World Federation of the Deaf, one of the largest NGO’s promoting Human Rights of Deaf People in conjunction with the UN, argues “for a community defined by the use of sign language rather than deafness” (51), these medical treatments appear very problematic and could signal the end of a culture by eliminating the need for sign language.
Questions to Consider:
How does a cultural reading of disability and Deafness differ from other readings of disability history?
Is deafness a disability? Can it be classified as a disability in other cultures or countries?
What defines a culture? Can other disabilities classify themselves as a culture? Should other disabilities be classified as cultures?
Do medical treatments for deafness qualify as “cultural genocides?” What are the benefits and drawbacks to these procedures intended to cure deafness?
How do educational norms (such as those of oralism) benefit or harm Deafness and Deaf culture?
How does an intersectional lens change our reading of Deaf history?
Other interesting things:
This is one of the logos for Gallaudet University. Named after the founder of the American School for the Deaf discussed in the Edwards article, it is the only higher level institution specifically designed to accommodate deaf students in all programs. The school experienced a large controversy when students began to protest in 1988 demanding for the next president of the school to be Deaf. After a week of protests, the president stepped down and was replaced by a Deaf president.
Below is a picture of the protests from the Deaf President Now march in 1988. Many scholars argue that this protest helped lead to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
This is a link to an interesting Youtube video regarding etiquette in Deaf culture. I like this video because it highlights some very different cultural standards as well as provides some useful tips for interacting with Deaf people. Note, look at the top comment on the video. I think it’s pretty ironic.
Sorry it took me a bit to put this post up. Looking forward to our discussion this Wednesday!
-David
-David
Hello everybody. In this blog comment, I will expand on David’s question “How do educational norms (such as those of oralism) benefit or harm Deafness and Deaf culture?”
ReplyDeleteThe central theme of identity development through a new culture prompts an exploration of the threats to Deaf culture. As mentioned in the Edwards article, the development of Deafness depends on the material taught at the schools for the deaf: “without deafness there would be no Deafness. The one gave birth to the other, in a residential school setting” (54). In my opinion, the progression of deaf culture revolves around the common language (ASL in America, RSL in Russia, etc.). Thus, when an entity threatens the common language, the entire culture becomes endangered. We can see this occur in the Burch article concerning the clash between Oralist teaching and signing during the Russian Revolution. “During the civil war… the absence of a clearly defined system of educational programs meant that some schools retained their special structure, while others fell under the aegis of different Soviet departments” (395). By threatening the cultural identifier (sign language), oralist education threatened to totally subvert Russian Deafness. In this case, the clash is both educational and cultural—with one culture attempting to subjugate another. There are many historical examples of this, and many of them have resulted with hatred on both sides.
Thus, in responding to David’s original question, educational norms can either strengthen Deaf culture through affirming a unique sign language or attempt to destroy it by forcing communication in a foreign language (the dominant culture’s oralist language).
ReplyDeleteDisabilities, regardless of its form, have become accepted individualized by society; however, Baynton, Burch, and Edwards all suggest the opposite: society made it an individual problem. Society created the disability category to rival the term “normal.” As Edwards puts it, “deafness had indeed separated an ‘us’ from a ‘them’” (62).
This societal belief, most likely stemming from the Capitalistic ideas essentializing work and labor as the means for economic independence, severely harms any person it deems irrelevant or incapable of self-sufficiency. Ironically, all three articles outline specific ways in which deaf people are perfectly suitable for society, yet society’s predetermined mindsets act as inhibitors and even preventative measures to suppress deaf people to an inferior state.
Starting with Baynton, he argues society has devalued deaf culture in order to strengthen and unify the dominant culture. He states that Harriet Martineau claims, “her suffering had arisen almost entirely from ‘false shame’” (49). Now this “ false shame” is an interesting point because it suggests that she originally felt shameful for being deaf. However, she later realized that this shame was a result of society’s repetitive claim that she was inferior some how simple because she was deaf. This idea, Baynton suggests, originated from the national movement of “pure oralism,” and its attempt to suppress minority languages as defective and not needed, including sign language. This simple movement tells all of society that deaf people are obsolete and unable to be productive contributors in society merely because they can’t communicate the “normal ” way.
Secondly, Burch offers the idea that American and European cultural values are the root cause of this oppression, for Russia successfully incorporated and enabled deaf people to thrive in Russian society. Enabling sing language as an acceptable form of communication, Russian society created cultural identity for those marginalized in Western culture. This acceptance led to “normal education,” for those America deemed deaf and dumb. By equaling the standard of equation across the board, Russian sparked the idea that the only difference between deaf and non-deaf people is way of communication. This ideology made economic standard the same for all people, which avoided the belief that deaf people were economically dependent like in the West. Lastly, “deaf values were the norm” in Russian culture; they were not seem as weaker like in America, but Russian cultlure actually “frowned upon deaf separatism” (397). Russia, unlike the Western countries, focused on the capabilities of deaf people instead of their inabilities like in the West.
Lastly, Edwards argues that in America, society is at fault for marginalizing and hindering the success of deaf people. He focuses in on the educational communicating system within American society. Looking at the educational system, Edwards points out that deaf people didn’t fit in to regular schools as “[peers] stares marked [them] as different” (55). Moreover, the teachers were not ready to teach to deaf kids because of their lack of knowledge for sign language. The combination of both made it so that deaf people were forced to go to separate schools to learn, which further ostracized them from being “normal.” “The true obstacle was [in the] community’s lack of familiarity with the sign language” (56). The only thing making deaf people inferior in society was society’s rejection of another language. Therefore, the idea that deaf kids could not attend the “normal schools” created the notion that they were indeed stupid and inferior when on the contrast, Burch clearly demonstrates that in Russia, deaf people were just as capable if not more capable that non-deaf people.
Society constructs the idea of “normal,” and if you are not normal, you are different and inferior. The common trend between all the readings this week and in the past is that people who fit the stereotypical norm hold the power to determine what is normal and what is not.
Many of the ways in which people characterize Deafness falls in line with their characterization of other disabilities. It carries complexities and multiple layers as its classification necessitates a combination of both a physical/medical component and a process of self-identification (Baynton 48). Like many other disabilities, many view it as a curse and use terms to denote lack of hearing as metaphors to insult people, which turn the experience of Deafness into an inherently negative disease. Many people who became deaf later in life related that the shame almost crushed them, but they realized later that shame relied on false conceptions of inferiority and emphasis on communication as a hearing and speaking act (Baynton 49). Defines creates a culture based around shared experience within a society that excludes deaf individuals. Though developing medical technology serves to attempt to cure Deafness and erase its positive cultural aspects, many have come to accept it as part of modern times but warn the real progress needs to come from continued respect towards people with disabilities (Baynton 51).
ReplyDeleteAll three articles talk about how Deaf culture and coalitions extended beyond a survival strategy to serve as a method of countering negative social stigma and finding community. Burch argues that to understand Deaf experiences, one must understand the political, social, and economic situation taking place in a specific geographic location. For example, she argues that the relationship towards Deafness in Russia seemed complex because tsars rejected deviancy yet communist leaders often advocated for equality (398-399). She explains that these conditions gave rise to support of oralism because many Russians saw it as an opportunity for material advancement in jobs, housing, and overall accessibility (396).
In other places, people responded negatively to oralism because it challenged sign language and seemed to steal agency and language from deaf people. Residential schools provided cultural leaders who emphasized the potential of sign language for communication. The process of teaching sign language at these schools bonded both abled-bodied teachers with deaf students and deaf students with each other (Edwards 62-63). Oralism entrenched views of deafness as deviant and needing to adapt to a hearing-based society rather than as that which is unique and not other. Stories from deaf people at these schools counter narratives from solely abled-bodied perspectives and provide positive accounts of disability.
I want to respond to David's question of "How do educational norms (such as those of oralism) benefit or harm Deafness and Deaf culture?" because the article I did my chapter review on actually is another Baynton essay about the interaction between manualism and oralism.
ReplyDeleteFor Edwards (and Baynton), manualism was a social approach to disability, as "Deaf people increasingly grew to view the handicap of deafness as a social construction...their misfortune is not that they are deaf and dumb, but that others hear and speak" (84). This depiction is particularly important because this sort of "flipping the script" allows the Deaf to relate their struggles in terms of a privilege that others have instead of a disadvantage that they have, which was a way to resist "victim blaming" that characterized these individuals as "deaf and dumb." Edwards continues, "Education gave deaf people the tools to reflect on their social position," which demonstrates the necessity of education in developing this understanding of disability (84).
However, education was a double-edged sword, because while certain types of education provided the tools necessary to examine the social position of these individuals, the dominant mode of education was oralism, which "exerted a firm and increasing control over deaf education" (88). The entirety of the Edwards article presents a conflict between oralism, which most non-deaf people wanted, and manualism, which was the widely preferred mode of communication by deaf people. This tension is fundamentally one that stresses the conflict between integration and difference. Oralism sought to integrate deaf people into the nation by stressing that only lip-reading was sufficient. Baynton elucidates, "The movement for 'pure oralism' was rooted in a burgeoning nationalism that led many nations to suppress minority languages" (50). Sign language was seen as a foreign language that threatened American nationalism. Edwards elaborates, “Students need English, not ASL, the argument goes; if they are exposed to ASL, they won’t learn English because ASL interferes with English acquisition” (75). Thus, the oralists believe in a zero-sum educational path that ASL would trade off with the ability to learn English.
Edwards, however, explains, “If anything, these student writing samples…would indicate that precisely the opposite was the case…students seem to have achieved greater success in learning English, by using the sign language to learn English” (75). Here, one can see how the method of manualism actually contributed to better understanding of English. Edwards explains how this trend was most likely a result of better communication practices between teacher and student, thus making the education easier. In addition, the use of ASL created a culture where the Deaf could communicate with each other and could socialize with each other along this sense of shared experiences, as opposed to manualism which sought to erase these communities of difference and instead integrate the deaf into society through lip-reading.
It is important to understand that the benefits and drawbacks of education depend on the model of education used: oralism or manualism. While manualism was more broadly accepted by the deaf community, oralism was implemented across various educational institutions, which shows a hero-complex non-deaf people possessed by attempting to determine what was the best course of action for those individuals, despite not having the same experiences as those people.
I would like to respond to two of David’s questions, because I liked them both so much. First, David asked, “How do educational norms (such as those of oralism) benefit or harm Deafness and Deaf culture?” First, I think the Burch paper’s analysis on oralism is a good place to focus. While it is true that “Deaf Russians not unreasonably also looked to oralism” as David stated in his blog post, I think that there is a far broader rejection rather than embracement of oralism in deaf history across the world, including in Russia. Again, it is true that due to strict societal rules and order, oralism came as a solution to the Russian deaf community. However, in that case oralism was the “least worst option.” After all, due to the strict mandate of oralism, the only means to communication was oralism, with the alternative being no communication at all. Oralism offered communication; however, it did not offer much. Later on, Burch points out the complex nature of the Russian deaf community in its criticism of the Party’s attachment to oralism (398). In addition to displaying remarkable autonomy, the piece proves that oralism was never a good solution, but instead only a fallback that was disappointing at best.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the fact that the children in deaf communities rejected oralism clearly demonstrates the preference for sign language. While it would not be accurate to fully ignore other factors influencing deaf communities such as time period and location, the mere fact that deaf people’s relation to communication (which showed strong preference for sign language) helps to argue that oralism was broadly rejected in favor of signing. There are many benefits to signing. First, Edwards gives the example of Charles. Edwards notes, “The true obstacle was his community’s lack of familiarity with the sign language” (56). Sign language was the best way to teach Charles, like most deaf people, and that education was the key to having a deaf community. Furthermore, another student also claimed, “I consider to prefer the language of signs best of it because the language of signs is capable to give my elucidation and understanding well” (63). Edwards points out that, “deaf students… still recognized [sign language] as being uniquely theirs” (64). If Edwards’ thesis is right and that sense of ownership helped to spur the creation of Deafness, then the importance of sign language clearly makes it the best model for communication for deaf people. The conclusion from these accounts and more indicates that Deafness itself as well as simple ease with communication was most always achieved with sign language instead of oralism.
RE “Do medical treatments for deafness qualify as “cultural genocides?” What are the benefits and drawbacks to these procedures intended to cure deafness?”: If implants really do destroy culture, that destruction is obviously a drawback. If the readings enforced any one concept, it is that Deafness needs to be in every discussion of deafness and that culture is at the heart of this discussion. Baynton does, however, go on to say that “Today, with implants increasingly common, opposition has diminished” (51). In the end this is an instance of personal choices and whatever a deaf person chooses should be fine for them; even if this choice diminishes deaf culture, it is an individual’s choice.
DeleteHowever, I think an important discussion here is the intersection with class. Baynton briefly mentions that, “Among wealthier countries… implant rates now range from 50 to 90 percent of deaf children” (51). Whether or not implants are good, they are only an option for the richer people/areas of the world for the most part. This difference means that if deaf culture is erased by these implants, it is the rich places that will lose that culture. If deaf culture is better than the benefits of the implants, the poorer areas will still hold on to deaf culture. However, the very lack of capital means that the option to choose implants is never available in the first place for many around the world. The lack of that choice for some is a good example of how class differences intersect with deaf culture.
I would like to address David's question: "How does a cultural reading of disability and Deafness differ from other readings of disability history?"
ReplyDeleteAs I have stressed in previous comments on earlier posts it is nearly impossible to define disability in the context of a group of people with shared experiences. This is because, as we've already talked about, within the community defined as disabled there is very rarely common experiences that tie groups of people together. I would argue that even within a certain type of disability (categorizing disability by type is questionable but the only way that effectively communicates the point) people will not necessarily experience that identical disability in the same way. That being said deaf culture defies many of these previously stated notions.
It is relatively simple to understand why deafness evades the stigmatization of disability that the medical model relies on so vehemently. The first reason is that there is a "linguistic gap" between deaf and hearing people that results in creating a seperate insular culture that only the deaf can participate in (Edwards 82). Because sign language is literally a different language than English, Americans were more willing to interpret deafness as a culture because it better fit the definition of culture than other disabilities. To meet the definition of culture a critical criteria that the Deaf had to meet in order to establish themselves as a group of people who constituted a culture was to establish that they were seperate from hearing culture. While other disabilities were not nderstood as a culture Deafness was able to convince the hearing population that they were not, as non-disabled society was convinced, trying and failing to acheive normalization in society.
Culture in the anthropological sense is a set of ways of living that are passed on generation after the next. Deafness specifically meets this defenition because of the nature of the schools the Deaf attend. The schools in the deaf community teach history the history of Deafness and therefore pass the ways of living on (Edwards 72). Schools get to determine what sort of things Deaf students are taught and unlike other disabilities a large amount of people who experience a similar disability are in the same place at the same time receiving the same education. This serves to create a unity within the dinsular deaf community that results in a culture that not only has a different language but also a completely different history and set of values than mainstream culture. In this way the Deaf succeeded in establishing themselves as seperate in the understanding of the "normal" people as opposed to other experiences of disability which "normal" people only understand as failing to achieve normality because they are unable to be normal.
I would like to respond David’s question “How do educational norms (such as those of oralism) benefit or harm Deafness and Deaf culture?”. One of the main differences between disability and deafhood is the belief within the deaf community that they are a culture. As Burch argues, the foundation of deaf culture began “with the establishment of deaf residential schools” (Burch, 393). Just by bringing together deaf children together who might have believed “that they were the only deaf person on earth” (Edwards, 53) to a place where they become the “norm” makes a profound impact on that person. Also these schools help prevent the deaf from forming a feeling which Harriet Martineau describes as “false shame” (248-249) because they have been forced into the position of the other due to the fact they are unable to understand the language. An example of how close knit communities like helped deaf culture is the Rabfaks in Russia. These small groupings of the deaf showed how by grouping deafs together it formed a place where “deaf values were the norm” (Burch, 397).
ReplyDeleteHowever; in many of these schools the deaf were taught in “oralism” manner, which directly attacked the deaf language of signing by teaching deaf students to read mouths and try and learn the national language rather than be educated through signs. In spite of big movements during the 19th and 20th centuries for this method of education, I believe Braynor and Burch argue that this system was unable to succeed. First, Braynor states that any attempts to introduce this system often became a failure because many the percentage cases of people being born deaf increased because of the decrease in deaf cases due to childhood sickness due to modern medicine becoming more adept at preventing and curing childhood illnesses leading to “those born deaf became increasingly predominant”(Braynor, 50). These people who were born deaf would never be able to be schooled in this oralistic manner, and because of the ineffectiveness of the education they would taught in the way of signs. Secondly, Burch shows that places with weak educational infrastructure allowed graduates of deaf schools to leave urban areas and go teach in a more sign based method out in the countryside. Therefore, oralism education did not have as large of an impact as it was thought to.
Throughout the readings, Burch and Edwards specifically, exist references to how deaf communities were able to act in ways either opposing the institution or norms it enforces without significant reproof. I’d like to analyze in what ways the aspects of these communities facilitated this interaction.
ReplyDeleteIn Russia, as the Burch document relates, schools for the deaf were able to easily resist “the application of strict oralism,” and educated deaf people went out into the countryside and established their own school, allowing “Deaf people to dictate the standards of education” (394-395). Here, the deaf community presented the power to resist external influence as well as control of the internal structures of their community. Later on, as the Communist Party took over and placed deaf schools under direct governmental control, Deaf periodicals openly condemned party sanctioned deaf schooling practices, declaring prominent oralist institutions failures (398). It is also important to note that in this time period critiques of the state or its programs constituted transgressions that sanctioned violent response.
In the United States, deaf schools rebelled against racial norms with their complete integration of African Americans into their schools, black and white students living and studying side by side at the New York and American school (65-67). This composition of the American school is especially significant considering that “Connecticut was an overwhelmingly white state. Its free black residents faced discrimination at every educational level” and that other schools offering education to black youths were closed by legal mandate (67). Within this context, it seems surprising that the American school for the deaf could succeed whether others could not.
Susan Burch provides key incites into why the deaf communities in Russia were able to exert so much internal control and external resistance, citing that “Russia’s weak educational infrastructure enabled greater resistance to the application of oralism” (394). As far as critiques of party programs later on, Burch argues that “ their separate culture was overlooked and considered insignificant…a perception of Deaf people as non-threatening” (398). Unlike Burch, Edwards does not provide justification for why the American school was so successful in its own enrollment policies; however, I think that much of Burch’s reasoning can be applied to the American school as well.
While this evasion cannot have been resulting from a lack of institutional power especially because of the closure of local schools which catered to similar populations, Burch’s other point regarding the perceived insignificance of the deaf community seems particularly apt in analyzing the American school’s effectiveness. For schools catering to students perceived as normal in the Hartford area, it is important to note their value as a community fixture. Local schools catered to residents by offering education to the community’s children, leading to active involvement by a significant part of the community. However, in the case of the American school, students came from across the nation due to the extremely low occurrence of deafness (as Edwards notes) and it seems very unlikely that any large amount of individuals in surrounding communities had a significant relationship with the American school. Thus, either by escaping attention simply because of the scattered origin of its students or as a result of the perceived insignificance of its community as a whole, the American school was able to continue against racial educational norms, mirroring the rebellion exerted by Russian counterparts.
I am very interested in answering David's 4th question: "Do medical treatments for deafness qualify as “cultural genocides?” What are the benefits and drawbacks to these procedures intended to cure deafness?" I am also interested in responding to Will's above post. However, I am troubled by the question itself. I will begin my discussion there.
ReplyDeleteDavid's question, while extremely interesting is rather problematic. The question as to whether or not medical treatments can eliminate Deaf culture is entirely too reductionist. To suggest the possibility of it is to assume that Deafness operates solely on a medical level and can thus be eliminated by finding medical cures. This approach to Deafness is entirely flawed. As Baynton indicates, Deafness is a confluence of "linguistic practices, literatures, rules of etiquette, values, marriage partners, and community institutions. Ethnic studies rather than disability studies was its primary model" (50). To suggest that a medical device could eliminate all the factors that Baynton outlines relies on a faulty understanding of Deafness. The question is on par with asking if a medical device could lead to the end of any national identity/culture. Deafness shares all common aspects of an independent ethnicity: linguistics, literature, distinct etiquette, unique moral codes, etc. Thus, by claiming that it is possible for Deaf culture to be eliminated by allowing one to hear reduces Deafness to the traditional medical model of deafness or the inability to hear.
This reduction of Deafness to the medical model only serves to reinforce other trends that are isolating and making Deafness harder to operate. As Baynton points out, evolutionary sciences "cast sign languages as relics of savagery, and eugenic fears that deaf marriages would lead to the proliferation of 'defectives'" (50). By reducing Deafness to a medical model, it implies a sense of diversion or difference from the normal, as it defines deafness as the inability to hear. This perceived deviance from the norm provided the basis for movements like oralism that attempted to rid Deafness of its ability to engage in its linguistic practices.
Thus, in regards to David's other question about whether or not Deafness is a disability, I would argue that it is not. Rather, deafness is entirely a social construction. Society has always attempted and continues to attempts to eliminate different cultures and positions for the sake of maintaining the norm. This is proven by the fact that despite evidence backed calls for an end to oralism due to its threat to Deaf linguistics and cultural practices, society continued to push for pure oralism (Braynton 50).
Thus, to conclude my discussion on the initial question that David posed, I argue that the suggestion that medical treatments can eliminate Deafness relies on a faulty notion of Deaf culture because it assumes that Deafness is entirely medical. Rather, Deafness is like any other social identity in that it has its own linguistic practices and other fundamental aspects of distinct societies. Therefore, assuming a medical treatment can eliminate Deafness ignores the nuances of Deaf culture. Instead, one must recognize that the "cultural genocide" has been an ongoing act. Ever since the establishment of oralism, society has been attempting to rid certain aspects of Deaf culture. In doing so, many components of Deafness have been repressed. Therefore, it is important to view deafness as a social construction. By doing so, one recognizes the nuances aspects that create Deaf culture, providing a more holistic picture of the Deaf experience. I would thus argue that the use of medical devices is only another instance in an ongoing cultural genocide that attempts to conform deaf people into "normal" society.
I think the reason Deaf culture became so dominant in comparison to other “disabilities” is because the deaf community has their own language. The use of a language exclusive to their culture gave the deaf community solidarity and freedom from the English language, which they could not communicate to their full intellectual capabilities. According to Edwards, 19th c. Deaf culture emphasized sign or ASL over English. He claims, “While deaf people recognized the importance of learning English and stove to become literate, they clearly regarded it as a second language. Overwhelmingly, deaf people preferred the sign language to English” (63). ASL “could not rightly be said to belong to speaking people,” it gave the deaf community a communication platform that unified and distinguished them from the rest of society (64).
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that the deaf community transformed their disability into the Deaf culture. Within the Deaf community of the 19th century, deafness was not seen as a disability but as a different culture, which simply required a nontraditional way of learning. Edwards illustrates how the deaf community saw a stark difference between deafness and disability and believed they should be “pitied…not for their deafness but for their ignorance” (73). This idea is significant because it revealed the deaf community’s, or at least its leaders/teachers, awareness that society was not built for the Deaf, so finding an alternative form of teaching would enable people to overcome their ignorance and become equal members of society.
I also think it is important to recognize the 19th c. deaf community’s appreciation and acceptance for hearing people. In the history of Deaf culture the importance of both hearing and deaf people is emphasized. The 19th c. deaf community recognized and appreciated “the important role that hearing people played in their world” (70). They deaf community did not view hearing as a disability nor as superior to deafness. In contrast, the oralists viewed ASL and deafness as threatening and damaging to the English language and American culture. It is interesting to see how much more accepting Deaf culture is of other cultures, particularly more so than hearing people. The largest Deaf schools, The American School and The New York School, not only appreciated hearing people but also embraced African American and Native American students. Deaf culture and schooling was never exclusive to a “superior” or specific race. Therefore this characteristic of Deaf culture makes Deaf culture non-confining, someone can be apart of Deaf culture and another culture. This idea also challenges traditional binaries of superior and inferior both in terms of disability and race, because it portrays deafness as an equal but different culture and is non discriminatory, which implies that all deaf people, who are equal to hearing people, have the equal right to education.