Articles like these are what reminds of why I hate people. But man it is so fucking ridiculous that you’d have a campus of deaf people obsessed about their narrow minded sense of identity that they’d react this way to someone who’s not “deaf” enough. Its like a certain segment of black people discriminating against black people that don’t embrance stereotypical black culture, amongst many examples that can be named. The idea of having a bunch of deaf people sitting around quietly to protest is funny.
You know. While they are at that protest thingy we could release the hounds and they would never hear it coming.
Originally Posted by Green Mage Fuck yeah! In the land of the blind, the one eyed man gets stoned to death! It’s always great to punch cliches in the face!
Unless of course he turns down the pot offering.:bowser: p:unch::
It seems like the main problem is that she’s trying to take the focus away from sign language. That IS a problem in a school for the deaf. It’s like someone taking courses in an American university without speaking any English. I can imagine that it is pretty frustrating for those students who can only speak sign language.
That’s not what that is about, though. This has nothing to do with people that only speak in sign language and that are at her mercy because she’s taking away sign language, which she isn’t doing. This is about people that make themselves utterly dependent on sign language because they associate their sense of self with sign language and with other things that are perceived as being truly deaf. They are intolerant of anything that doesn’t conform with their own ideal identity of deafness because of this association with their identity. They formed their little clique and they’re rejecting people that are different just like they feel society has discriminted against them. This is the same thing as a lot of other situations like I already mentionned with black people or the same could be said about the quebeckers and their obsession with French. Same shit, different smell.
You ever hear of Daredevil? Well, blind people are just like him, except not superheroes. They use their heightened hearing to pick out where the guy is.
Sin, you’re taking one sentence out of that article and ignoring the entire rest of it. The claim that this person “isn’t deaf enough” was put out by her, and denied by the students. The rest of the article focuses on the importance of sign language to the school.
“. However, many Gallaudet students and other deaf people have resisted technology that could allow them to hear. They bristle at the notion of deafness as a disability. And they are intent on preserving sign language as an essential part of what they call deaf culture.”
I can parallel this to Quebec with the institutionalization of French and the steps the government took to make sure there was no English tainting the streets.
“In the opinion of some students and faculty members, she was not adequately committed to American Sign Language,”
Backs up my point.
“ASL is the communication mode that so many of us grew up with,’’ said LaToya Plummer, a junior. ``It has its own characteristic uniqueness and is such a rich language that we recognize its value and do as much as we can to preserve these language traditions.’”
This is the same thing as the Quebeckers and is exactly my point. People are paranoid and feel threatened.
“many were particularly worried that she planned to reach out to a broader population of deaf and hard-of-hearing students”
“Those incoming students might now be attending mainstream schools, reading lips, speaking or using cochlear implants.”
More of the same.
Now the sole substantial complaint:
“Many of the student protesters said that creating mandatory sign language standards for all faculty and safety personnel should have been Fernandes’ job as provost.”
This statement is worthless because there are too many questions; before forming an opinion on this I need to know whether or not she was informed this was a problem, how she was informed, when she was informed and what she has done or not done in response to this problem.
The emergence of a “deaf culture” is one thing, and is quite understandable - the exclusion of someone for “not being deaf enough” is something very different, and is a one-sided statement in the article.
“In the opinion of some students and faculty members, she was not adequately committed to American Sign Language,”
Backs up my point.
No, it doesn’t. If anything, it’s more along the lines of my point, which is that having teachers and staff not well-versed in sign language is like having Canadian teachers and staff who don’t speak English.
People are paranoid and feel threatened.
The difference is that if French suddenly stopped being spoken, people could make do with English; but there are some people who have NO CHOICE but to use sign language, and “phasing it out” in any way at all will be detrimental to those people.
“Those incoming students might now be attending mainstream schools, reading lips, speaking or using cochlear implants.”
More of the same
Not quite. If more students have better hearing, I can see there being an assumption that the use of sign language would decline. I feel that probably the students wouldn’t be as angry about “not-so-deaf” students coming to the school if the provost would be emphatic that they would be forced to use sign language.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that what you’re saying is true (as you say, it’s quite evident in Quebec’s militant Frenchism) but I don’t think you can definitively draw that conclusion from the article.
Dont even get me started…it is the stupidest thing I have ever seen…
Not the people of Quebec themselves but the political forces…
and actually I’m a special needs worker and my brother is autistic…
there is a very very political under working to this kind of thing people in power in these situations. People want the person in power to represent them…as in any democratic society. ALS is all alot of these ppl have. It’s hard to really appreciate it from the outside
They don’t want other forces invading on them as sinistal stated…it is insulting to them. They cant live any other way, its not like they can go to any school they want without unrealistic barriers. This would make it harder on them. Any of us would do that if a school would make life harder on us.
Heightened? Not quite. It’s the same as everyone else, it’s just that they’ve grown dependant on their ears, just like we have grown dependant on our eyes.
There is no emergence of culture, this is about the perceived preservation of the culture.
Not really. I don’t buy that argument. I don’t understand how you can have a university full of deaf people that willingly don’t learn to communicate in any other way and the faculty doesn’t speak in sign. Its like having a university full of white canadians only teach in Chinese. It makes no sense.
Where is this article about phasing out ASL? A side point is that the article has consistently shown that people can do without it.
Yes. The very fact that fewer people go to the university, as pointed out by the enrollment issue Fernandes wanted to confront, shows that people are managing to get along or in other situations like at UCI, they have facilities and staff ready to acccomodate such students. For example, 1 sign language translator followed 1 student to all his classes to translate what the prof was saying, despite the fact I could have a conversation with this person because he could read lips (reading lips in a huge auditorium isn’t simple). Nowhere in the article was there any support that the provost was making it so that people were being put at a disadvantage because they only knew sign language.
See, your last phrase goes along the lines of what I want to say, the deaf want other deaf people “to be forced” to use sign language. This isn’t about the deaf being imposed other means of communication on them. This is about a few deaf people wanting to force other people to do as they want. They complained somewhere that campus police couldn’t all do sign. While I agree that this may be problematic, to put it solely on the back of the campus police and the provost is retarded. This is a problem on both sides because of the community served by the campus police and by the deaf people in question for refusing to accept that there is a world outside with capabilites they don’t have, which they can’t accept, just like they can’t accept that being deaf is a disability. In this day and age, they have had the oppurtunity to break these language barriers but they choose not to do so, which further goes to make my point about the 1 sided social dynamics of the whole conflict.
I disagree, its very simple to draw parallels and conclusions. What drives people to behave how they do is the same, no matter what it is they are driven to do. The same basic fears and the resulting behavior doesn’t change no matter what the topic is.
Look at the bright side. The only sign language you would need to make them understand you is the “fuck you” sign, and then the “victory”- sign when they get pissed and leave. Short conversation. Effective result.
Seriously though. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re going to take over the world. It’s stupid, yes, but there’s plenty of stupidity to go for. If you freak out every time you read an article about another separatist group of weirdos who insist on privileges or whatever, you’ll just lose your shiny hair from all the tearing. Sit down, relax, and go read an article about fluffy bunnies. or watch <a href=“http://www.sinn-frei.com/loituma_3002.htm”> this for a few hours.</a>
See, what you’re doing is making them out to be the victim when yo’re saying they have no other way, there are unrealistic barriers, etc… the only part you got right is that it is insulting to them, but not why. This isn’t about life being harder for them, its about how they make life harder for others in how they force others to accomodate them and their prejudices, beyond what their needs are. The school doesn’t make life harder on them unless its removing support for deaf people, but that makes no sense, as I described to Cid. “I don’t buy that argument. I don’t understand how you can have a university full of deaf people that willingly don’t learn to communicate in any other way and the faculty doesn’t speak in sign. Its like having a university full of white canadians only teach in Chinese. It makes no sense”. ASL isn’t all they have; its just that they are obsessive and rigid about the use of ASL and its role in their lives.
It sounds like it’s not quite there yet, but it’s slowly pulling towards less emphasis on ASL. Yes, it makes no sense, which is exactly why they’re angry about it.
Where is this article about phasing out ASL? A side point is that the article has consistently shown that people can do without it.
“Consistently shown”? It mentions that some people have done without it. It doesn’t mean that everyone can do without it. I don’t believe that reading lips is every bit as accurate as communicating with sign language. And even though some people perhaps could learn to read lips, they’re much more comfortable with sign language for a variety of reasons.
Nowhere in the article was there any support that the provost was making it so that people were being put at a disadvantage because they only knew sign language.
See, your last phrase goes along the lines of what I want to say, the deaf want other deaf people “to be forced” to use sign language. This isn’t about the deaf being imposed other means of communication on them. This is about a few deaf people wanting to force other people to do as they want.
Except that the “few” deaf people are currently the majority or entirety of the school student body. Once again, I point you to the analogy of “forcing” foreign students to speak English. Yes, sometimes people have to speak in languages they’re not used to in order to accommodate people.
I’m also not sure why you’re so angry at the creation of a “deaf culture”. Cultures start in many ways, and the article makes clear that many deaf people surround themselves with other deaf people (many of their family members usually share their condition), so it makes sense that they feel more comfort with a shared language.
I like watching Sin and Cid debate. There’s less of a sense of overall stupidity than against Zhare or Quina …
… though I imagine the two of 'em of them against each other would quickly degenerate into a variation on “Welcome to Corneria!” “I like swords.” “Welcome to Corneria!” “I like swords.” etc.
There are ways, but not all people that are deaf are highly intelligent, some people need to learn in a simple way, ASL is the simplest way for alot of them to learn.
American Sign Language (ASL) , the fourth most commonly used language in the United States, is a
complete, complex language that employs signs made with the hands and other movements, including
facial expressions and postures of the body. It is the first language of many deaf North Americans,
and one of several communication options available to deaf people. Even though ASL is used in
America, it is a language completely separate from English. It contains all the fundamental features
a language needs to function on its own: it has its own rules for grammar, punctuation, and sentence
order. Different sign languages are used in different countries or regions, and no one form of sign
language is universal.
Reason that I put it there is for ppl who aren’t familar with it, and to express how intricate ASL really is.
If my language is ASL and I want to go to school, I want to learn in my language…this is not happening, I’d be pissed too. I’m going to a school that is suppose to cater to what my needs are. THIS IS A SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF…Almost all of them are fluent in ASL…they should be too, period. I think that they are more upset that this lack of ASL will continue with the addition of students who don’t need it.
This is an interlude (no new material added, but lots of jokes (not really)).
What irritates Sin is:
“But man it is so fucking ridiculous that you’d have a campus of deaf people obsessed about their narrow minded sense of identity that they’d react this way to someone who’s not “deaf” enough.”
“This is about people that make themselves utterly dependent on sign language because they associate their sense of self with sign language and with other things that are perceived as being truly deaf.”
“They are intolerant of anything that doesn’t conform with their own ideal identity of deafness because of this association with their identity. They formed their little clique and they’re rejecting people that are different just like they feel society has discriminated against them.”
“People are paranoid and feel threatened.”
“This isn’t about the deaf being imposed other means of communication on them. This is about a few deaf people wanting to force other people to do as they want.”
“…its about how they make life harder for others in how they force others to accommodate them and their prejudices, beyond what their needs are.”
In other words (although I’m just repeating stuff :P), those deaf people think that because they’re “different”, it gives them a sense of false self-importance and the right to be exclusive toward people who’re not like them. The way they act with others is exactly the way they don’t want others to act with them. They don’t want to learn other methods of communication aside ASL, but they insist that everyone else should use ASL. It’s not how it works. It should go both ways. Moreover, this situation can be compared to:
“Its like a certain segment of black people discriminating against black people that don’t embrance stereotypical black culture, amongst many examples that can be named.”
“This is the same thing as a lot of other situations like I already mentioned with black people or the same could be said about the quebeckers and their obsession with French. Same shit, different smell.”
“I can parallel this to Quebec with the institutionalization of French and the steps the government took to make sure there was no English tainting the streets.”
(And anything that looks like Quebec is enough to make anyone angry. Among other things. >.>) This type of behaviour, described in paragraphs above, is precisely what Sin dislikes so much, which has been clearly shown throughout this thread as well as many other threads in the past. That’s only my interpretation, though, so I might be wrong, haha (and I suck at debating, although I’m not really debating right now). <.< And that’s all. runs away