So as predicted – things have quieted down three weeks out from the AG Bell Association’s pissy fit over Nyle DiMarco supporting bilingualism.
But it was a wild three weeks wasn’t it?
ya all rocked the house. Truths be a tellin’ ten fold.
I especially appreciate the Buff and Blue’s ASL letter to AG Bell Association and the Council de Manos’ letter (see below). While i had seen the Buff and Blue’s English letter, I didn’t know of their ASL letter until a colleague mentioned it a few days ago and i went a googling and ta da. WOW it is a gem. Love the variety of signers and the message as is the Council de Manos, which they also have in English and Spanish – ohhh multilingualism rocks.
I’ve also enjoyed seeing:
#Whyisign
#iamDeaf
Convo’s #tosignishuman
http://www.agbelllies.com/
https://thebelleffect.com/
Letters from individuals (especially poignant letters from parents and victims & survivors), departments, colleges, organizations, De’VIA surdists’ artworks etc singing the praise of ASL & English and busting the bullshit on language and cultural bigotry have been making the invisible visible. Thank you each and all for standing and demanding that the AG Bell Association cut the crap. Many of the letters by AG Bell and our communities have been posted up at The Bell Effect website https://thebelleffect.com/
After just one week AG Bell Association’s President M. Sugar released a 2nd letter in which she maintained her very patronizing tone of voice basically saying we don’t know squat.
ha
Problem is – we know a plenty and have brought the truth forward to prove it so she can hide behind their b.s. euphemism LSL as if it were a language when it is the jealous mistress called ORALism, and hide behind the bs shield of parental choice but we know their version of “parental choice” includes child abuse. YES FOLKS when Ms. Sugar and Co. says parents have the right to choose Oral / Aural Only and ban ASL for their child’s life they are saying depriving a child of ASL and Deaf culture is FINE. It’s DANDY. Why? because ASL is dying she says (in her first letter) and cuz the babes no needy any ASL cuz they can hear just fine with CI and AVT ie Oralism ie LSL. Yes she said this crap in response to the American Academy of Pediatric praising bilingualism as best practices too. She is relentless in her delusions.
Oh the holy grail – to make the Deaf child unDeaf. to make them speak and hear “like” Hearing folks. all hail the god of “independence through listening and talking” which is the AG Bell Associations motto and mantra and mission and..
yawn – so boring so endlessly boring and WRONG
W R O N G AG BELL and Co. – listening and speaking do NOT make someone independent. This has been proven time and time again.
How do we know?
cuz many completely hearing folks can hear and speak perfectly fine and they are not fully independent
cuz many Deaf folks who use bilaterial implants, do not sign whatsoever, and speak a plenty still want CART services, still want close captioning, still want Oral interpreters, some no go home for the holidays
and cuz… drum rolllllllll
We are all interdependent. Its called living. and the holy grail of normalcy is a falsehood and neurodiversity, sensory diversity, gender diversity, ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, etc are groovy. They truly are – they is what makes the world go round methink.
Truths gonna flow Ms. Sugar and Co. (ie AG Bell Association) and the truth is – there is NO HARM in being bilingual or multilingual and there are GREAT BENEFITS to it. So…..
depriving a Deaf child of such is just basically cruel and unusual
You can cling behind the bilaterial cochlear implants, you can cling behind the clause of “parental rights” when they are really wrong but the truth remains – its unjust and you know it
And YOU – AG Bell Association – have known it since your inception. You have KNOWN that you can not do pure Oralism (ie lsl and implantations etc etc) without some form of abuse. YES AG Bell Association you have known about the putting of children into closets for signing, you have known about the making of children sit on their hands, fold their hands, have their hand taped to table tops, bound by mitten strings, tied up, stacked with books to uphold while kneeling on a broom stick, dunked in scalding HOT water, whacked with rulers, and more. those poor wee dear hands that did nothing but try to do what came naturally – talk. talk with their hands. why has this ever been such a sin that parents and teachers have HIT those hands, have made those hands write on boards and sheets of paper 100 times “I will not use my hands.” ha ya all have tried to also make liars out of the children – they knew to write that very sentence they were using their own hands and they knew that to raise their hand in the audiobooth when not really hearing to end the testing, prodding, probing, and distress they would have to practice your skill and value set – deceit.
more has been done to the Deaf child – the Deaf body – lots of surgery – lots of various experimentation on their ears, brains, tonsils and more. All in that effort to make the Deaf child into something they are not “unDeaf” and as “Hearing like as possible”
ie: AG Bell’s latest and lamest effort at myth-a-making – the notion of “there are many ways to be deaf” duh
that is about as inspired as “Deaf people can do anything except hear”
jewish folks have always been diverse – you dont see folks saying jewish versus Jewish or J/j
African American folks have always been diverse – you dont see folks saying African American vs african american
You did see lots of stratification of disenfranchised folks by the dominant culture in its effort to divide and conquer. You saw them conjure up Mulatto as a “way of being” and giving it a wee bit of privilege so that resentment and inequality would fester and the oppressed could be the oppressor so the master could worry less and control more
So AG Bell and Co. you can try to paint “your deaf children and poster children turned adults” as being a different way of being deaf but still it is the same ole same ole. They still be people of the hand eye – they still glean info via their eyes and their hands. i have seen them in those youtube activation viral videos, i have seen them sitting across from me at the AG Bell Volta Bureau & Laboratory – speaking when you called on them to speak and trying to read the CART screen when anyone else was speaking despite them having CI and a voice interpreter sitting right behind them. I have seen how their eyes scan the horizon and i have seen how their hands point and gesture. So while they are not bilingual with ASL because they have been taught that to use ASL is a dependence and a crutch and demeaning and they should be as hearing-like as they possibly can be, they still gravitate to visual access and if they are Deafblind orally raised they gravitate to tactile access as did John Spencer.
This is nothing NEW. What it means to be “deaf” has not changed. The props and excuses and myths have been updated but they are still props, excuses, and myths in which to propagate cultural and linguistic bigotry and that is not cool – AG Bell Association, John Tracey Clinic, House Ear institute, NCHAM, CDC, Cochlear LTD, Advanced Bionics, Med El, and blood cord registry and more.. We see you and we call your bluff.
Not cool at all fools.
We are Deaf – not damaged nor damned.
soooo Ms. Sugar of AG Bell Assoc – you conclude your second letter with a comment about respectful open dialogue after having spread a bunch of disrespectful crap in your letter about not discouraging parents from ASL (tsk tsk how you lie) and how your mission is backed by research – dont u see how your ACTIONS and words in your letters and history are NOT respectful for open dialogue and if you TRULY wanted an open dialogue – you would accept the Gallaudet Student Body Government invitation to go to Gallaudet for such a dialogue. AG Bell Association your commitment to crucifying children on the cross of a single method is WRONG and you know it.
Ya busted Ya basta.
George W. Veditz knew that ASL & English was the greatest good for the greatest number.
And from the NAD resolutions from the Proceedings of the Ninth Convention of the National Association and the Third World’s Congress of the Deaf. Colorado Springs, CO. August 6-13 1910
- Resolved, That we recognize and appreciate to the fullest extent all methods of educating the deaf, but deplore and condemn the narrow and destructive spirit that endeavors to educate all pupils by any single method. We are firmly and unalterably in favor of the Combined System, which adapts the method to the pupil, and not the pupil to the method. (Resolutions similar in tenor to the above were unanimously adopted at the Nation Convention sat Chicago 1893; Philadelphia, 1896; St. Paul 1899; St. Louis, 1904, and Norfolk, 1907.)
- Resolved, That the educated deaf, even though they may not be in the profession, feel that it is their privilege to discuss and pass upon questions of educational methods, inasmuch, as they are the results of these methods, and that their opinions therefore should have the weight of authority.
and now i conclude with the truthful words of a Deaf educator and leader. James L. Smith, who was a teacher and Supt at the Minn. School for the Deaf. He stated these words at the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) in 1900 at the Paris Congress. Yes this is the same congress that in 1880 Milan, Italy declared oralism to be superior and banned natural sign language from the hands, hearts, and minds of Deaf children and educators and the same congress that in 2010 (2010-07 ICED Resolution – A New Era document-2) declared that the Milan 1880 ICED resolutions were unjust and caused great harm and that we should remember our history and issued an accord for the future in which Deaf folks shall not be deprived of natural sign language and Deaf culture and they shall be involved in decision making in matters that affect their people.
(note there are a million other great statements from gems from our past who prove that what it means to be Deaf has not changed and that excluding Deaf folks from their birthright – a fully natural and accessible language – is wrong like McGregor’s short, precise, and profound 1920 message – but you get the point – things have not changed cuz the oppressive nature of the jealous mistress, Oralism, remains. Its time for an upgrade AG Bell and Co. Your deceit aint sweet. In fact it is toxic. and its old as in unchanged and ASL is on the rise not on the decline and the Deaf will always be Deaf.
“Let us join together as one to protest these educators who would fix our destiny without consulting us, without hearing us. Here in the greatest republic of the Old World, the delegates from that in the New ask all present to join together to affirm a new declaration of human rights, the right of the deaf to life, liberty the pursuit of happiness, and the education of their children on a plan they accept. Let us declare to the entire world that the deaf will not be crucified on the cross of a single method.”
~ James L. Smith
Gallaudet Buff and Blue’s ASLized letter to the AG Bell Association:
Council de Manos letter in ASL below (to see in text English and text Spanish go to https://thebelleffect.com/2016/04/08/council-de-manos/)
“A language divorced from its culture is like a body without a soul.” ~ M. Byram, 1998
Thanks Brian S for the quote