It’s hard for me to grasp the particulars of the Deaf community. With Black English and Spanglish speakers I can see and understand oppression that has taken place for hundreds of years. I have never believed that being black or Spanish is a disability or a defect. Deafness is different. The words disability and defect are ugly in this situation. I do not mean to say that deafness is a bad thing; it is an extremely unfortunate problem for all those plagued with it. I truthfully can’t imagine that anyone would want to be deaf. If you are Black or Spanish, you can “overcome” adversity if you will by changing yourself in certain settings to fit more to the standard idea of what a person should be. If you are Deaf, you can’t change or shape yourself into something else.
This being said, I do believe that the problems that these groups have are similar. All of them are striving to be recognized as their own valuable entity in the world. Deaf people, however, are of a different breed altogether.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
i agree the word disability in itself makes you feel dumb not up to do something. However wehter deaf people lke or not it is a disability they need diferent types of assistance if they want to be able to integrate in society. that's why ADA was formed to defend the rights on not only deaf people but also other types of physical and mental ailments that may come in the way of success. there's is nothing wrong with with having a disability but if they start waving their arms and wanting society to exclude their deafness than they need to renounce and demand any type of help from their school or work setting
I can see what you mean because it is hard for someone who is not deaf to associate with deafness. I agree with you though about the fact that deafness can not be overcome and it is something that has to be dealt with. Being black or spanish, although they are a different skin color than mainstream "white" america, they can still assimilte into the culture and survive in general society.
What you said makes complete sense. If someone told me I was disabled i would feel like I was lower than others.
I appreciate the in insights you shared in your post in regards to your feelings on the matter; however, I did find this statement to be problematic:
If you are Black or Spanish, you can “overcome” adversity if you will by changing yourself in certain settings to fit more to the standard idea of what a person should be. If you are Deaf, you can’t change or shape yourself into something else.
First, I think you are posing a false analogy between these groups. While I would agree with your analysis that there are similarities between the groups, and where there are not even similarities, there exist "meta-criteria" with which we can evaluate/analyze each group's circumstances.
However, this is not one of them. This notion of "overcoming" does not translate from the one group to the other, and more importantly, does not have the same contextual definition for each group. While it can be successfully argued that both groups have adversities they must resist against, the simplicity/complexity with how this resistance is carried out is simply not pragmatic to compare.
The most problematic part of that statement, however, is where you state that speakers of Black English and Spanglish can simply change themselves in certain settings to fit more to the standard idea of what a person should be, AKA the dominant bloc. This "standard idea" is a myth, first of all. It is only conjured up by those in power - remember our multitudes of discussions on discourse. Moreover, use of and advocacy for Black English and Spanglish as language variations has very little to do with conformity, but rather, in its most stark of terms, it is about modes of communication; in more complex terms, however, it is about staving off white-washing assimilation in the exact dominant bloc you believe they should "overcome adversity" to be a part of.
Just my rebuttal to a small part of your post, which was otherwise good.
Post a Comment