Tag Archives: Deaf

Recommended Reading for 22 October, 2010

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

At Astrid’s Journal, Multiplicity Myths:

I wrote this collection of myths a few years ago, intending to create a multiplicity page on my website. That never got to be, but I still like this list. I have edited some parts where appropriate.

At Tunisia Online News, Tunisian-Italian project to benefit blind people in Gafsa:

A project as part of a Tunisian-Italian partnership to promote the status and integration of the disabled in society, will soon lead to the building of a house for visually impaired and blind people in Oum Larayes in the governorate of Gafsa (South western Tunisia).

From the Los Angeles Times in the United States, Georgia settles suit on confinement of disabled people:

In a settlement that will serve as a model for enforcing the rights of the disabled, the Justice Department reached an agreement with Georgia to move many patients with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities out of the state’s notoriously dangerous psychiatric hospitals and into the community.

From 3News.co.nz, NZ offer world first service for deaf:

Until today, [15 October] New Zealanders who are hearing impaired and deaf have had to use a fax machine to make contact with 1 -1 -1.

[…]

At midday a system was switched on which allows the seven thousand members of the hearing impaired and deaf community to text for help.

From Pro Bono Australia, Judge Caps Court Costs on Disability Case -PIAC:

A decision in the Federal Court is expected to have national ramifications for public interest litigants according to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, PIAC.

[…]

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre was acting on behalf of Julia Haraksin, who tried to book a seat on a Murrays coach from Sydney to Canberra.

Bizarrely enough, I’ve taken a Murrays bus from Sydney to Canberra myself and was just thinking about their lack of accessibility yesterday! Here’s hoping Julia Haraksin wins the case.

That’s all for this time. Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Recommended Reading for Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Good Day, all. It’s been a stressful week at Chez Anna (I’m putting this together at 5 a.m. my time) so forgive me for oversights, please.

Kali at Brilliant Mind, Broken Body: I am not your metaphor

This is something that has bothered me for a long time, and actually led to one of the very few spats between the boyfriend and I (quickly mended, once we both cooled off a bit). I really hate the use of disability-based metaphors. Hate them, hate them, hate them. I believe that they’re part of what makes disability such a fearful, distorted, tragic cloud to people who are able-bodied.

It’s all well and good to say they’re bad, but I think it makes more sense if I actually go through some of the more common disability metaphors so you can see what I mean

DeafMom:Embracing My Deaf Self

My life took an interesting turn at that point. Once the grief subsided and I dried the tears, I entered a new world filled with deaf and hard of hearing people. It wasn’t easy– because I had spent the previous 19 years of my life hiding my hearing aid and feeling quite uncomfortable with anything that reminded me that I was “different.” It took awhile for me to learn American Sign Language and get to the point that I embraced a deaf identity. Once I did, there was an amazing transformation in my life: Yes, I am deaf and gosh-darn-it, that’s perfectly ok.

shiva at Biodiverse Resistance: When Will We Be Paid For The Work We’ve Done?

There are several horrible things here. First, the uncritical use of the term “trainable”, dating from the workhouse-era classification of intellectually impaired people into those who could be “trained” to do “useful” work (often with “training” methods that basically amounted to torture) and those who could not (particularly disturbing coming from a “special education” teacher!). Second, the assumption that her “functioning level” (a heavily loaded and problematic term in itself) will never change throughout her lifetime, and that, despite Brown demonstrably being in reality an adult, her “functioning level” is that of a child, meaning that Masaki buys into the “eternal child” stereotype of learning-disabled people – historically and still used to deny them adult sexualities, adult roles within families, and all the basic rights, freedoms and responsibilities that anyone else is assumed to gain automatically on reaching chronological adulthood – which is perhaps even more disturbing as an attitude held by a teacher whose pupils she considers herself “mentor and so much more” to. Thirdly, the glib “wouldn’t it be nice” comment, which is more patronising “inspirational” crap, making disabled people into ciphers of innocence rather than real, flawed and complex people.

MarfMom: A Call for Posts

A Call for Birth Stories From Women With Disabilities

Whether you knew about your diagnosis ahead of time or not, whether you had a vaginal birth or a c-section, I want to hear your story. Positive birth stories are awesome, but if yours wasn’t what you hoped please feel free to submit it too because I want to keep this blog real and the reality of having a disability is that sometimes our deliveries are complicated. I’m going to leave the term disability open-ended, but I’m basically looking for high-risk pregnancies (or what would have been if you’d known your diagnosis). You don’t need to have a connective tissue disorder.

Anne at Where’s the Benefit: The Damaging Effect of how People Perceive disability benefits

If you are one of society’s more vulnerable members, you will have to fight for everything and wade through reams and reams of red tape. That is the experience that many of us have. And people who become eligible for disability benefits and try to claim them are often completely shocked. Some do not have the energy, emotional strength and/or intellectual capacity to go through all of the form-filling and bureaucracy involved in applying and apppealing.

But so long as the myth persists that it’s simple and easy to apply for disability benefits, people will believe that anyone who says it’s not is making a fuss over nothing, or sticking up for so-called scroungers – and when people become eligible for these benefits and try to apply, they will continue to be absolutely gobsmacked when they find out how difficult it is.

In The News

Canada: The National Post: Bygone Braille. “Advocates blame funding shortages, not enough qualified teachers, and decisions by administrators to deny Braille instruction to children with low vision because of an emphasis on encouraging these students to read print. Educators say this assessment couldn’t be further from the truth and argue that today’s diagnostic tools have honed the art of identifying those who truly require Braille instruction and those who don’t.”

Australia: Australia Misses the Plane on Accessible Tourism. “Based on general population statistics of age acquired disabilities the total expenditure of this group in the travel sector is likely to exceed 22% in ten years time. Not only is this relevant to Australia’s domestic tourism market but the majority of Australia’s inbound tourism is sourced from countries with similar age demographics.”

UK Learning Disability Coalition protests in Birmingham at Government cuts. “The campaigners from Birmingham, many of whom use social care support, held up “Cuts Incident” boards displaying the frontline services which they fear will be affected by the Government’s Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review and subsequent cuts that will be made by local councils.”

Recommended Reading for 15 October, 2010

The month’s going fast, isn’t it? Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

At Deafinitely Girly, Nobody puts Deafinitely Girly in a deaf box:

Sometimes I wonder what I should do about this living in a box thing – should I work with it? Get it some comfy cushions, make myself right at home, play up to the illusion that I’m going nowhere fast. Or should I throw the damn box out of the window and continue the daily fight to prove that putting people in boxes – no matter who they are or what they do – is a very outmoded way of thinking?

At Rolling Around In My Head, A Pop Quiz by Dave Hingsburger:

Clearly there are two ways to view every situation. I am wondering about all of you. Was the curtain a thing designed to give privacy or was it something which indicated the hiding way of shameful movement?

New Zealand: Government Bullying Must Stop by Red at Walking is Overrated:

This bullying of innocent families (who, let’s be honest, have enough on their plate) must stop. The Government is relying on the apathy, relative inertia and fear of the disabled community to make life hell for the people who deserve it least. No other group in society is so reliant on the Government from birth as people like myself who are born with a disability. We must support each other, and band together to tell whoever is behind this vendetta against good, hard-working families who are dedicated to their kids, that enough’s enough.

Singapore: Call for awareness on mental health issues at TODAYonline:

Associate Professor Fatimah Lateef said: “It is also significant that there was another follow-up survey (to the one done in 2004) that showed 37 per cent (of those surveyed) said even if they had serious mental health symptoms, they would not come forward to seek professional help because of the fear of stigma.”

Canada: at The Standard, City of St. Catharines plans for an inclusive election experience:

“We looked at everything from the Facilities Accessibilites Design Standards checklist, the updated building code and for accessibility, said Karen Ellison, the city’s election co-ordinator.

“We’re trying to make this a superior experience.”

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Recommended Reading for 28 September, 2010

I hope all is well in your world on this fine Tuesday! Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Canada: Disabled-services flip-flop at Winnipeg Free Press:

The about-face came one day after an internal U of W memo was leaked to media and revealed a number of university programs to help disabled students were on the chopping block. The decision outraged students and raised eyebrows since it comes just weeks after the U of W launched a new disability degree program devoted to the “critical analysis of disability in society.”

USA: College Web Pages Are ‘Widely Inaccessible’ to People With Disabilities from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The study found that more colleges are deploying basic accessibility features, like adding alternative text to images so a blind student can understand them with read-aloud software.

But those gains were offset by challenges from inaccessible emerging technologies. For example, a person with disabilities who can’t use a mouse will often be stymied by a Web site that requires users to hover their mouse over a page element to trigger a sub-menu.

Australia: Disabled drivers get no favours on private property from the Brisbane Times:

The Department of Transport, which issues disabled parking permits under its Disability Parking Permit Scheme, is powerless to protect drivers who park in shopping centres, with centre management charged with enforcing the scheme there.

India: Promote sign language, urges deaf association from expressbuzz.com:

More than 100 members of the Deaf Enabled Foundation, an NGO for the deaf, took out a rally on International Day of the Deaf, here on Sunday, from the Labour Statue to Light House.

And, also from India, framed in possibly the most patronising way possible, Movie made by deaf and dumb to premiere on Oct 9 from the Indian Express:

The movie Amir=Garib, to be premiered on October 9 in the Town Hall Auditorium, has all the essentials of a Bollywood flick, but one fundamental element — sound. The movie has been made by deaf and dumb people.

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Recommended Reading for 17 September, 2010

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

From BBC’s Ouch, by Charlie Swinbourne, Deaf country life v deaf city life:

I’m soon to become a Dad for the second time, so we’ve started thinking about the long term, and where we want our children to grow up. With houses on the pricey side for anything bigger than a shed in our area of West London, we’re currently wondering whether we’d be better off bringing up a family outside the city. […] The capital is full of opportunities for deaf people, with weekly deaf pub meets, regular events, accessible cinema and theatre performances, and numerous deaf centres and sports clubs.

Badgermama presents Kids and wheelchair manners:

Please stop yelling at your kids just because they’re 20 feet away from a wheelchair! Nothing bad is going to happen. It really pisses me off when someone grabs their kid, yanks them “out of the way” and yells at them, just because I’m in the same grocery aisle or on the same sidewalk. Usually, the kids are nowhere near me. All these people are doing is teaching their children that people in wheelchairs are scary and weird.

Some good news from ysobel of i hear the voices when I’m dreaming in *sags in relief*:

So, there’s been this whole saga with trying to get a ramp to the front entrance of our church, made vastly overcomplicated by the fact that the church is a designated historical site blah blah blah. […] The church appealed to the city council, who had it on the agenda for tonight, after several postponements on their part.

Leah at Cromulent Words writes You Can’t See My Pain:

You don’t see me not talking about disability in class because I’m fraid of being silenced again. You see someone who doesn’t care about the assignment.

At random babble…, our own OYD writes Medical Autonomy Chronicles: The Virgin Pap Smear (do be warned, it’s graphic):

For all the talk of how having sex outside of marriage or whatever message had been pounded on me for however long, and how it would leave me hollow and leave me feeling worthless and damaged, and for all the ways I had been told that casual sex would leave me reeling and feeling depressed and with a hole of missing self-esteem, nothing I did in my consensual sex life has ever compared to the way that pelvic exam and pap smear felt to me, a fourteen year old girl. A person rising on the crest of womanhood, not yet there but ready to fly, and having had myself violated before I took my first steps.

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Recommended Reading for 05 August 2010

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Raising My Boychick: Vocally crazy: on privilege and the risks and benefits of being out

Openness, vocalness, outness are good for an invisible, marginalized group: we’re here, we’re [crazy], get used to it! It helps to replace highly distorted stereotypes with real faces, real lives, real persons. As more and more people in a group are out, more and more people not in that group know someone who is — and suddenly, they start caring. No longer is it just “those people” who have to worry about discrimination and hatred and violence and the loss of rights and dignity; it is someone you know, someone you might care about, someone you’re willing to stand up for. These are all very good, very important things.

But openness, vocalness, outness can be dangerous, even lethal, for an individual who is marginalized: when someone comes out as mad (or queer, or trans, or a rape or incest survivor, or any other oft-invisible oppressed way of being), they might risk losing their job, losing their children, losing their life. Outness cannot be dictated, imposed, or required. It must not be. It can only be chosen, based on an individual assessment of risk and worth, and the outcome of such calculations will change with each individual, and often with each situation.

Longwindania: PSA

One of my friends is working on a sexual education book for people with disabilities and their partners. Shanna’s very knowledgeable and passionate about responsible queer-positive, disability-friendly, kink-friendly sex education.

Disability on Dreamwidth: New licenses premises access law in Scotland

The Barred! amendment, passed by the Scottish Parliament as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act, requires landlords to show how their premises can be accessed by disabled customers, when they apply for a license. The amendment is an important milestone in Capability Scotland’s Barred! campaign which aims to promote better access to pubs and clubs for disabled people.

Valley News: Temporary Custody

The unknown male subject found in the home? He was actually the 34-year-old African-American who owns the home and has lived there for four years.

And the part about taking him into temporary custody?

Hartford police neglected to say that in the process he was: blasted with pepper spray; struck with a nightstick; handcuffed, wrapped in a blanket and hauled — naked — out of his home, according to a neighbor and what the man says police later told him. When the neighbor tried to tell cops that the handcuffed man on the pavement was the homeowner — not a burglar — he said he was threatened with arrest for interfering in police business.

Moving Hands: Ashley Fiolek: a deaf motocross racer (Thanks to maxporter for the link!)

Today, I watched the final womens motocross race. I was about to fast-forward through it – I dislike motocross and I dislike racing, so it’s not a great combo. But then I noticed that someone was signing, so I hit “play.”

Turns out that the woman who was signing is named Ashley Fiolek. She is a deaf 19-year old who has won gold in the past. The segment that I’d seen was one of those special segments where they take a prominent athlete – usually somebody who is looking to repeat a previous victory – and interview her or him. In this case, they asked Ashley how she got involved in motocross and so forth. She communicates in ASL and uses an interpreter. (According to her bio on Wikipedia, she actually went to a deaf school as a child.)

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com

Nominations for the 2010 Captioning Awards (Australia) to Close Shortly!

To give you a bit of background, the Deafness Forum of Australia is, according to their website, ‘the peak body for deafness and seeks solutions and advocates on issues for all Australians who are Deaf, have a hearing impairment or chronic disorder of the ear’. They’ve been working hard to to make cinemas more accessible, for instance, and they’re running Hearing Awareness Week, which is coming up on 22-28 August! They’re also running the Captioning Awards, which are aimed at motivating companies to improve their captioning services.

You can nominate in the following categories: Free to Air TV Captioning Award, Subscription TV Captioning Award, Advertising Captioning Award, Best New Captioning Initiative Award, Live Event Captioning Award, DVD Captioning Award, Roma Wood Community Award, Best Promotion/Consumer Education Campaign Award, Most Consistent Captioning Award and Members’ Choice Award (the last only if you are a member of the Deafness Forum). Here is the Captioning Awards page and here are the nomination forms.

Nominations close Friday 6 August, so get them in now!

De’VIA

As I repeatedly told anyone who would listen to me, last weekend I went to a conference in Toronto. While there, I visited Toronto’s Deaf Culture Centre. [1. Little-d deafness is the “medical” condition of not being able to hear, or hearing very little. Big-d Deafness is being a member of a cultural & linguistic minority that uses Sign Language. In English Canada, this is typically American Sign Language, although there are other Sign Languages used here.]

One of the exhibits at the Deaf Culture Centre was about De’VIA – Deaf View Image Art – which “specifically reflects Deaf experience and Deaf Culture.”

I’m still learning about De’VIA, as my particular studies are in nineteenth century d/Deafness. What I like about what I’ve seen is looking at art that is not only explicitly political, but is explicitly about being Deaf. In Toronto, the current exhibit is paintings of Sign Language.

As a Hearing person, I don’t want to talk too much about Deaf artists and De’VIA. Instead, for people not familiar with it, I’d like to show you some very iconic De’VIA images, and then direct you to some websites where Deaf Artists are writing about their work.

This first piece is by Ann Silver, called Deaf Identity Crayons: Then and Now.

A description follows this image
The image is of two crayon boxes. One is done in sepia tones, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across in an ‘old-time’ script. The crayons each have a label: Dummy; Lip Reader; Deaf & Dumb; Handicapped; Oralist; Deaf-Mute; Freak. The second box looks like the iconic Crayola-crayon box, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across the front. The crayons are CODA; Seeing; Deaf-Blind; Late-Deafened; Deaf American; Hard of Hearing; Signer; Deaf.

(Oralism is the techniques used to teach Deaf people to talk. CODA is Children of Deaf Adults.)

Silver’s biography is available on the Deaf Art website, but I especially love her description of her art:

My language of art has, over the years, metamorphosed from pictorial grammar to creativity and critical thinking. I turn to art (1) as an artistic expression of the Deaf Experience—i.e., culture, language, identity and heritage; (2) as a Zen meditation and an aesthetic recreation of the contemplative state in which it allows my thoughts to drift by without grasping at them; (3) as an emergency back-up whenever the English language gives me semantic anxiety; 94) as an academic study vis-à-vis Deaf Studies; and (5) as a visual weapon to deal with polemical issues and concerns such as stereotyping, inaccessibility, paternalism, inequality and discrimination on the basis of hearing status (a.k.a. audism)

Another very popular piece is this one, by Betty G. Miller, called The ASL Flag:

Description follows
Description: This is a diptych, and the two canvasses come together to show a waving flag much like the United States flag. Instead of stars again the blue square, it shows 28 white hands Signing. Between the red and white stripes of the flat, it has the following:
Oh can’t you seeee…. by dawn’s early light
what proudly…. we Deaf wave at visual beauty
we see in sign language burst in air…
no matter people hearing stare…
show proof that… Deaf and ASL still here…
oh why Deaf people opressed?
over the land of the free…. and the home of the brave…??

Again, I like Betty’s bio, but I will highlight this portion:

When asked to explain the values behind her work, Dr. Miller replied:

“Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience expressed in the most appropriate form of communication: visual art. I present the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it, both in the past, and in the present. Oppression of Deaf people by hearing is actually cultural, educational, and political. Another aspect of my work shows the beauty of Deaf culture. I hope this work, and the understanding that may arise from this visual expression, will help bridge the gap between the Deaf world, and the hearing world.”

You can see images of Betty’s work, and perhaps buy a t-shirt or similar article with images on it, at Betty Gee’s cafe-press store.

I won’t say too much else here, except to link to discussions about De’VIA elsewhere.

Betty Gee’s website
Deaf Art, Deaf Artists
Deaf Culture – Deaf Art on About.Com
Deaf History Through Art – De’VIA revisited after 15 years!
Deaf Art.org

Quote: Not a lack

It seems difficult for nondisabled people to write about disability without reflexively imagining what disabled people are missing or how difficult their lives must be. Rod Michalko, a sociologist who is blind, writes that sighted people typically conceive of “blindness in terms of ‘lack’-lack of sight. But this conception does not really help us understand what blindness itself is. It does not generate any curiosity about what blind people ‘see,’ since it defines reality in terms of the physical sense of sight …. Sighted people seldom question these preconceptions.” Stephen Kuusisto, a blind writer, tells of the expressions of pity he encounters so often on the street: “I want to take strangers by the hand and tell them there is no abyss.” Similarly, deaf people are relentlessly depicted in popular film as pining away their days regretting their inability to enjoy music (usually classical music, which one would think from these movies has a central place in most American households).

– Douglas Baynton, Review: Laura Bridgman and the History of Disability, Source: Reviews in American History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 227-235.

Anna History Rants: Harlan Lane

My name is Laurent Clerc. I am eighty-three years old. My hair is white, my skin wrinkled and scarred, my posture crooked; I shuffle when I walk. Undoubtedly my life will soon end in this time and place: 1896, Hartford, Connecticut. I spend most of my day sitting alone at my dining room window, looking at my orchard and remembering. I also read the paper and occasionally friends come to visit. I know what’s going on. Important people, distinguished gentlemen, are repudiating the cause to which I have devoted my life. Endowed with the sacred trust of my people’s welfare, they seek, without consulting us, to prevent our worship, marriage, and procreation, to stultify our education, and to banish our mother tongue simply because our way and our language are different from theirs….

– Lane, Harlan, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf, pg 3.

I have issues with Lane. He outright states in his introduction that he made stuff up when he couldn’t find out what happened, and I feel he wrote well-researched historical fiction rather than an actual history book.

But still. Lane didn’t write the first book about deafness from the POV of actual deaf people (Lane is Hearing – he cites Jack R Gannon’s book as the first history written by someone who was Deaf), but he wrote the one that launched a thousand ships, so to speak. He challenged, quite viciously, the idea that deafness was something to be “conquered”, and argued that a deaf-focused history was necessary.
Continue reading Anna History Rants: Harlan Lane