Forewarning - This is a controversial post. For your information, I'm still outrightly new to Deaf culture.
As I briefly illuminated in my post two weeks ago, Stefanie accosted me about DeafRead [annotation for Jared - with my roommate's help, I made a separate post]. Heretofore, in addition, as a best friend would do, I excitingly detailed out about DeafRead I was suggested to check out and post at by the interpreter (for Chris) in my old class and by my ASL professor, Joseph. Stefanie, as ever a student of psychology could be good at, listened and held a pail to collect some of the nuts and bolts I poured for her. Without my knowledge, as a cynical person, she had choosen to look over the Deaf weblogs. She uncommonly, literally read the whole of the weblogs including their comments where I hadn't, well, only a few. That was where this post came in.
Sooner after Joseph left for his class, I came to join my friends and sat next to Stefanie in the cafe. We, routinely, hugged and chitchatted a bit. There, she dropped a Hydrogen Bomb on me by sliding the papers she had printed out towards me. It was the remarks some Deaf webloggers and posters made towards hearing people in general. Stefanie circled the remarks with a red marker to make it easier to glance over. The more I looked over the remarks, the deeper my heart sank. The interpreter and Jospeh had cautioned me in the past that some Deaf people held a small to a elephantine grudge towards hearing people but that wasn't what I reckoned. The realization spat in my face; no matter what I could do, no matter how I could do and no matter where I could do, they'd readily concede me as an "outcast" or cast their wary eyeballs upon me. Aside from that, for instance, a comment: hearing people are welcomed to contribute their comments as long as it's only comments. In a broader sense, it is kind of defeating the purpose. However in retrospect, a hearing person with no Deaf relatives, no background or knowledge in Deaf culture and nil cultural experience of ASL like me evidently, undeniably, contribute nullity to DeafRead. Especailly weblog with the word "Deaf" in it. In parallel reality, a white person (well, I am but to make a point) has a farm and roof to sleep under telling the black people in the African Slave Trade era that I understand their pain and frustrations. In a sociocultural essence, that person, who made a comment is inerrant in her (or his) observation. The truth is, out of all people, I shouldn't be invited to DeafRead as a weblogger. Technically, at best, I'm a newborn baby that crawled into the Deaf community. Would you allow a baby to grab a chokeable toy and stick it in its mouth?
Chris, my former Deaf classmate and now ASL tutor, and I subsequently became friends shortly after he erroneously envisaged me as a hearing person to be wary of. He distinguished me from other hearing people given the passionate affection I have attained to the Deaf community in general. But was that enough for other Deaf people? The hesitation is forming thicker and smelly than a smog. For instance, today I met a Deaf woman. She was the third Deaf person I met who is in an interrelationship with my ASL classmate, Marco. While I was introduced to her by Marco, the Deaf woman eluded from Marco's gaze and gave me an unmistakably dirty look. I don't know her and she doesn't know me, yet her territory was antecedently threatened by me. Is that what I'll have to cope with all the time? My thought, later, was emended by Stefanie with the counsel that their (some women) territory had been invariably threatened by me.
Back to Stefanie and the printed remarks. After I had finished reading, I sat, inwardly drawn to silence. Stefanie succored me that she only wanted me to envision the other side of DeafRead that I giddily absentminded over. But the argumentative facts I threw at her were about Deaf people being oppressed, subdued, harassed and mistreated by some hearing people for years, perhaps, centuries. Their anger is comprehensible, reasonable. The territory has been dividing multitudinous over the years by various reasons including kleptocracy. Conjointly, what we received and accessed, Deaf people must have the same. It's not an issue of fairness, it's a issue of "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
Stefanie exerted the argument by appending the information she found; Deaf is only the culture that doesn't have an empirical characterization of "identification" in itself. As a newborn baby to Deaf culture, I found it astonishing and unbelievable. It's another thing I have to ask Joseph about. For instance, Deafhood. There is a political spectrum in it between a group who veritably read the Deafhood textbook by Paddy Ladd and advocating it and another group who hadn't read it yet so readily condemning Deafhood without analyzing or studying the textbook (that strikes me as head scratching).
I had to take a week off to ponder about it. I had an ambivalent moment whether or not if I should quietly drop out of DeafRead and go back to my old routine. I, unremittingly, wanted to get implicated in the Deaf community and wanted to be a team with Deaf people. To be specific, in sociocultural areas.
But with the remarks they made left me unsure as if to stay in DeafRead as a weblogger. "Team" is plausibly non-negotiable whereas it's understandable from a standpoint's perspective. This post is, beyond doubt, controversial and may lead to smearing by others. Undeniably, there is no mistake that I adore Deaf culture. I fell in love with ASL. But the quintessential problem here is: will the Deaf webloggers and posters ever accept me as a person who wants to be a team with them? Even before or after this post?
I'm not interested in swiping the jobs away from you nor exploiting your culture. All I wanted to do was to work with you as a team or maybe, a friend who geninuely cared about your culture. The question Stefanie catapulted at me haunted me for a time, "Who are you doing this for, yourself or Deaf people?"
After the ASL sessions I had with Chris and Joseph, I choose both. I did it for myself because I admired the beautiful language of ASL. I did for others inasmuch as oppression and mistreatment, incontrovertibly, need to be stopped. Some white people and black people conjoined together during the Civil Rights era to fight for their civil liberties. Many of them put aside their differences and worked together. Why can't it be said the same for hearing and Deaf people? I'm ready but are you?
Moi asked a question, "What role do hearing allies have in our community?" Maybe the question that is needed to ask, "What role is acceptable for hearing allies to be in your community?"
Lastly, but not leastly; contemned, hated and discountenanced, I still want to learn how to sign ASL, to be part of the Deaf community and do what's right for myself and the people, Chris and Joseph, who welcomed me into their world. There is a bright side, despite the remarks I endured, I stay optimistic about my presence in the Deaf community. A quote - "there is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses; all knowledge, at all events, is examined by these, approved by them, and finally presents itself to us firmly grounded upon some pre-existing knowledge which we possessed; because without memory there is no experience, which is nothing else than reiterated memory; in like manner memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been." - De Generatione (On the Generation of Animals) [1651], William Harvey, English physican. He's right and I couldn't say that so well myself.
Maybe I'm too naive and idealistic to hold on the contingency of being part of the Deaf community.
Annotation to lurkers, I sent the webmasters of DeafRead a letter. Given the lack of Deaf-cultural experience, I don't feel right to be a part of DeafRead but it's in their hands to decide. In face of the remarks some people made towards hearing people in general, I'm still posting what's going on in my life or what I've learn about ASL and Deaf culture. Or make some comment at Deaf weblogs to input my perspectives. Flaming, smearing, comments and constructive criticism away.
With my Sociology professor's go-ahead (and Joseph's), I have a new assignment - tracking down the rumor of "Deaf girls never say no". I just wanted to find out who and how it started. It may take a while and I may not post for some time either.
To chime in Edward R. Murrow's illustrious statement - "Good night, and good luck."
What's new: The picture posts - jibble's KiteCam, Girl-Gone-Photogenic-esque and Photo of the Month. The profile updated - Interests, Favorite Movies, Favorite Music and Favorite Books. The Motorola RAZR V3x Photo updated. Yikes!
Update - I deleted a few irrelevant statements.
