Oh Canada – Out Audism Out
NOTE: text in red is from George Veditz’s Preservation of Sign Language Speech (1913) as translated to English by Dr. Carol Padden. (move playhead to 11:53 to see Veditz sign it)
“‘A new race of pharaohs that knew not Joseph’ are taking over the land and many of our American schools.”
Can you spell audism? I know, I know some folks can NOT but most folks can and KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
Audism is attitudes and practices based on the assumption that behaving in the ways of those who speak and hear is desired and best. It produces a system of privilege, thus resulting in stigma, bias, discrimination, and prejudice—in overt or covert ways—against Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf people of all walks of life. ~ Audism Free America
Some evidence of audism in action in Canada –
1. a Principal with no sign skills and a degree in “special education” is hired over a bilingual-bicultural Deaf candidate for the post at Centre Jules Léger (CJL).
“They do not understand signs for they cannot sign. They proclaim that signs are worthless and of no help to the deaf.”
students three demands
Canadian Association of the Deaf (CAD) letter of support of the three concerns of the students
http://www.cad.ca/news_events_en.php?newsID=88
ASL vlog on the protest and demands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54VvHjP62ZE&feature=player_embedded#at=21
LSQ vlog on the protest and demands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DYGClMN_Qk&feature=player_embedded
ADDED JULY 2011 – the students’ protest is successful – there will be a NEW qualified director in the fall http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Centre+Jules+L%C3%A9ger+review+finds+unqualified+unprofessional+staff/5007426/story.html
“Enemies of the sign language, they are enemies of the true welfare of the deaf.”
2. Ontario is giving out FREE cochlear implants – (see http://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2011/03/improving-access-to-devices-for-people-with-severe-hearing-loss.html)
– was The “VOICE” organization behind this? – the equivalent to the AG Bell Association a la Canada
(See Dr. Snoddon’s rebuttal to this action http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/952943–ear-implant-decision-raises-questions)
“…As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs…”
3. there are no Deaf superintendents of Deaf schools in all of Canada – count ‘em folks – none, as in Zero, as in nada
see CAD’s statement re: employment
http://www.cad.ca/employment_and_employability.php
hmmmm so much for “nothing about us, without us – Canadian Deaf schools”
4. The Newfoundland School for the Deaf has been closed as a doctor gleefully predicted it would (and “should” in his opinion).
(see http://www.thetelegram.com/Education/2009-04-27/article-1436743/Eradicating-deafness/1)
“It is my hope that we all will love and guard our beautiful sign language …
ADDED: link to an AD taken out calling for the investigation into the closing of the NSD
5. Newborn Hearing Screening – http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/child/hearing/hearing1.html
…as the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.”
Do not let a new race of Pharaohs that knew not Joseph take over the land.
We need not let this bad history REPEAT itself.
Say unto the 2nd Wave of Oralism and Neo-Eugenics, Out Audism Out!
TRUTHS:
*** Biodiversity, linguistic diversity and cultural diversity are interconnected. Cut one and u will be cutting down the others and dooming us all
http://www.terralingua.org/html/home.html
*** Data showing % of Deaf children in Oral-Aural-ONLY programs sharply declines around adolescences when dialogue and discourse is much more complex and bilingual-bicultural programs sharply increase at this time to accommodate for the influx of oral-aural-ONLY survivors
***Report re: secondary education Deaf students
http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20113003/
George Veditz’s typed transcript of his famous signed “Preservation of Sign Language” speech (1913) – note some word choices and ordering is not the same as it appears in the film. Read it and ask what they faced then, do we face now?????
PEOPLE OF TH HandEYE -…first, last, and all the time” – g. veditz 1910 