Another Hate Crime…Possibly
Hate crimes are practically becoming routine in the region these days, and local universities are ground zero: from the University of Maryland (the noose incident), to Georgetown (the early morning homophobic attack), to most recently Gallaudet. This morning's District Briefing in the Post reports a "possible hate crime" at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf on the Gallaudet University campus. Six white students and one black student scrawled "KKK" and swastikas all over a black student. I don't quite understand what's "possibly" hateful about this incident. Having symbols of vicious prejudice scribbled all over your body isn't exactly a hobby.
Meanwhile, over at Georgetown, students gathered Monday to protest bias-related incidents at the university, according to school newspaper The Hoya. Members of a LGBT student group, GUPride, gathered signatures "for a petition supporting reforms to university procedure for addressing future hate crimes," and three professors and college group leaders spoke at the rally. But the article didn't mention any direct condemnations of Philip Cooney, the Georgetown student who was arrested in connection with the attack last month.
Is history at work here? Would Cooney have been spared if this crime had occurred prior to March 2006? The incident I'm referring to is, of course, the Duke Lacrosse scandal, which Cooney's lawyer referenced to NBC 4.
"The police investigation was nothing," he said. "You have a complaining witness who says he saw someone who he thought may have attacked him vis-à-vis the Web. That's the investigation. Did they try to talk to Mr. Cooney before the investigation? No. Would you expect the police to do that? Yes," he told NBC.
8:33 pm
I can assure you this is just par for the course for the signing deaf minority in America, the most vicious, petty, vindicative, judgemental and adulterous group of people I have ever encountered in my life. It's really very simple to explain. They want to be hearing. Since they cannot, for whatever reason, integrate themselves into society ("they rejected me" is the most common excuse not to make something of yourself for a signing deaf person) they segregate themselves into their own little world and draw forth the iron curtain of "deaf culture" to simmer in their own-self hate. That self-hatred feeds on itself since the iron curtain has been drawn shut and cultural ideas that lead to liberal societies are not being exchanged. Every once in a while, the pressure has to be released, like this instance, or when they kicked their new President Fernandes straight to the curb because she wasn't deaf enough. Their new president Davila can speak as well, yet strangely enough he was not kicked to the curb either. I guess that trick only works once... This is not the 18th century anymore. It's time to stop isolating yourself and re-join the rest of the world and do the best you can. Nobody really cares what your voice sounds like as much as they care if you are a winner or a loser, and I see a whole lotta losers in the sign language minority, the only group of disabled people who discriminate against themselves!
8:07 am
"the most vicious, petty, vindicative, judgemental and adulterous group of people"
Oh ... I presume you mean "unlike you"?
And I resent your gross overgeneralizations and mischaracterizations. And judgmentalism.
On one hand, unfortunately, there does happen to be a small, though vocal minority of deaf people who not only reject hearing people but also reject people who are "not deaf enough" or whatever. And I can understand how unpleasant it can be for anyone not otherwise familiar with the Deaf community to run into them, especially if you have the misfortune of that being your only real exposure to the Deaf community. I've run into that sort, too, at times (not often though). And although I understand ASL fluently I do happen to sign with a heavy "hearing" accent (English word order, and not as much facial expression as more strongly culturally Deaf people) so sometimes I've run into negative (or, more commonly, simply perplexed) reactions too. But most Deaf people have hearing families -- and are certainly not rejecting or avoiding their own families. And most Deaf and deaf and hard of hearing people I know are delighted to welcome anyone who is genuinely and sincerely committed to making real communication happen. Even Deaf people who have, sadly, had many reasons to mistrust many hearing people in other contexts. (SOME hearing people really do do cruel things to Deaf people--often not because they're necessarily "cruel" people per se but because they either "can't be bothered" to do better or genuinely don't understand how Deaf people are impacted when they are denied genuine access to communication. But for a more extreme example, go to http://www.deafread.com and search Doug Bahl.)
I'm sad and sorry that you apparently haven't had the fortune to meet the great many other Deaf (and deaf and hard of hearing) people who are considerably more welcoming to people all along the cultural continuum. Or maybe you've met them and your hostility turned them off. If you react to any Deaf people you meet with the same tone you use here, then you might want to consider that possibility.
The motivations behind participating in the protests was very badly misreported in most of the media. I admit I wasn't really on top of things when the protests first started in a smaller fashion back in May 2006--but when they became so much bigger in October, I did speak with many of my old contacts on campus, including BOTH protest-supporters (and closeted sympathizers) and ALSO Fernandes supporters. And I never heard anyone say, "Well, she isn't deaf enough." In fact, a very large portion of people supporting the protest were either hearing or very very much "not deaf enough" themselves (grew up oral, sign poorly, have cochlear implants etc). And some of the others who WERE more culturally Deaf were not ever against the idea of Fernandes as president simply because of her background. They opposed her because they perceived her as a poor leader. That was certainly the motivation for the hearing and "not deaf enough" faculty members I talked to, or the parents of students at the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School that Fernandes ran on campus for a few years before she became provost there.
I am not personally in a position to judge whether Fernandes was or wasn't a poor leader. I also talked with pro-Fernandes supporters who think she would have been great if she had been given a chance. I'm not trying to speak against her (or for her). I'm also not trying to deny that there were indeed some protest-supporters who were indeed in it because she wasn't "deaf enough." I've seen the occasional quotes in the media from students who did say pretty much that, so I know they obviously must have been there somewhere. But from my own observations and discussions with people on campus, I didn't meet any of them personally. Any reporter who tried to claim they were in the majority has just point blank not actually communicated directly with a large number of protesters or protest-sympathizers.
(Admittedly, I should point out that most of the people I talked to were people I knew from back when, and I simply didn't hang out with the kind of person who would reject someone just for being "Deaf" enough. I find that kind of audism despicable too when it happens, even when it isn't targeted at me. But I tried to meet everyone with an open attitude and, funnily enough, had no trouble at all meeting plenty of people who met me with an open attitude too. Yes, including some who were very strongly culturally ASL-signing Deaf--even the kind of person who thinks I sign too much like a "hearing" person was still able to treat me decently and seemed to like me, probably in part because I treated them decently too. And--not all the protesters I talked to were people I knew "back then" -- I did branch out to talk with many others who were new to me. Including some who were ASL Deaf. And none of them used the "not deaf enough" line with me.)
Davila was accepted I think because people perceived him as a good leader. I have no clue whether Fernandes would have been as bad as some of her opponents believed, but I do think Davila has been a great healing force for the school. That matters a great deal more to the vast majority of students, staff, and faculty who I know on campus. For the small contingent of people who really do believe in that "not deaf enough" stuff it probably helps that he does sign a bit more fluently than Fernandes, at least from what I've seen of them on videos.
By the way, I'm deaf but from an entirely hearing family and married to a hearing person, and I work in an organization of 10,000 people -- who are very nearly all hearing, non-signing staff. (The tiny handful of deaf people there don't sign, the tiny handful of signers are all hearing.) So I'm not exactly hiding myself away from the hearing world. If anything, I spend far far far more time completely surrounded by hearing people than I do with ANY kind of contact with Deaf/deaf or hard of hearing people (except via email, but most of the people I know on-line are hearing too). And I know plenty of very strongly culturally Deaf ASL signers who are in similar contexts (even if not in organizations quite as large). The vast majority of us are not nearly as isolated as you seem to mistakenly think. So why worry about the few who are? It's THEIR life, not yours (or mine).
Andrea
http://wecando.wordpress.com (Disability in developing countries)
http://reunifygally.wordpress.com (ADA Restoration Act; Gallaudet issues; other topics)