Validation!

For my Disability Studies class, I’m reading a chapter on bioethics and the deaf community, written by Dr. Theresa Blankmeyer Burke, who teaches in Gallaudet’s Philosophy department. The chapter includes this:

So far, I have posited a fairly strict duality between signing Deaf community members and the dominant mainstream culture, suggesting that research aimed at eradicating deafness is typically seen as good by members of the dominant culture and that this same research agenda is seen as harmful by members of the signing Deaf community. In reality, it is not quite so simple. Those who occupy liminal space, such as hard of hearing people who sign, or culturally Deaf people who wear cochlear implants or hearing aids, must also be attended to. [emphasis added]

Wow, I never thought of it before, but that is a really validating statement for me! As I’ve been working to understand myself as a hard of hearing person, I’ve been trying to understand my place in the hearing and deaf communities. I have observed people at Gallaudet say that “hard of hearing” is a medical term, you are either Deaf or you’re not, and I guess by that definition I am Deaf – and indeed, I’ve had people tell me that I am Deaf and I should reject the “hard of hearing” label and just let myself be fully Deaf. But to the hearing community, I am “almost” a hearing person…I just need a little help like watching you when you talk or having some things repeated. So I feel like I can’t reject the “hard of hearing” label because I don’t have the same difficulties communicating with hearing people that other Deaf people do.

But there it is in black and white from Dr. Burke: a hard of hearing person who signs. In the middle. Here is what Wikipedia says about liminality:

Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed – a situation which can lead to new perspectives.

Yes. That is me. Neither hearing nor Deaf. In the middle, ambiguous, indeterminate. It feels good to understand this.

I Can’t Go to France

Malheureusement je pense que je dois quitter l’idée d’aller au France pour une mois l’été prochaine. Je pourrais y aller avec une programme de Gallaudet mais le voyage coûte plus que $5000 et aussi si je quitte l’Amérique pour si longtemps qu’un mois, je manquerai plus que $4000 du travail et j’ai besoin du cet argent pour la reste de ma diplome. C’était vraiment une super chance et j’aimerais bien y aller mais les coûtes sont trop haut pour mois. Je dois me rester avec la satisfaction que la France ne peut pas disparait et peut-être un jour je peux y aller.

J’ecris tout cela avec mon français inutilisé depuis plus que dix ans alors si je me trompe et quelque chose ne marche pas en Google Translate, je suis desolée et excusez-moi.

Deafness and Queerness

Bear with me here – this is going to get a little strange. It comes from a discussion we had in my Dynamics of Oppression class (DST 311) today.

Bisexuality – Being Hard of Hearing
Think about this. Many people hear about bisexuals and say they just can’t choose. They’re on the fence. Or they really like one better than the other. Nobody is really bisexual. They secretly have a preference. We insist on shoving bisexuals into the little box marked “straight” or the little box marked “gay” – nobody lets bisexuals be bisexuals.

Now think about being hard of hearing. You either can hear, or you can’t. You don’t get to have a middle ground. You are either hearing (but have some problems) or deaf (but hear really well). You have to pick one…you are either THINK-HEARING or DEAF-HEART. If you live in the Deaf-World, people will say “oh stop pretending, you are really Deaf!”

Why do we insist on putting people into boxes? Why do we say there can’t be a third category? Don’t bisexuals have their own unique needs? Don’t hard of hearing people have their own unique needs?

Ex-Gays – Cochlear Implants
There are special organizations and ministries for what are called “ex-gays” – people who are not happy with being gay and they want to be straight. The organizations are run by people who are genuinely caring and want to help unhappy gay people. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t…but they are definitely for people who feel that being gay is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Of course, there are cochlear implant companies too. They want to help children and adults with hearing loss be able to enjoy music, environmental noise, and voices. Sometimes implants are successful, sometimes they are not…but the companies are definitely operating from the assumption that deafness is something wrong that needs to be fixed.

Are these groups wrong or right? In both cases, they are trying to take the fundamental identity of a person (gay or deaf) and change it into something unnatural. Sure, sometimes people want these changes…not everybody is comfortable being gay, and plenty of people with hearing loss want to experience hearing. Is that bad? Should we say “no, you cannot have this experience, you cannot make this change, it’s not appropriate, you must love yourself the way you are!” Or should we accept that adults can make their own choices about themselves, and if somebody wants to become straight, or wants to get a CI, that is okay?

These are just some things to think about as you go through your day.

The Homeless Near Gallaudet

Last year, I wrote about the neighborhood around Gallaudet and I included a picture of the people who live between the 6th Street Gate and the sports field of the public school behind Gallaudet.

This year I have a class in the Washburn Arts Building for the first time, and I was surprised by what I saw through the windows. Specifically, trash. Lots of trash, which you can see in the picture here (click to make it bigger). This is the back of the place where the homeless live. You can see a blanket stuck onto the fence, a chair overturned on the ground, and a man sitting on a milk crate. This is the life they have. When you have a home, DC does trash pickup. If you don’t have a home, your trash doesn’t get picked up, and let’s face it…what incentive do you have to walk to the nearest trash can, wherever that may be?

I want to interview the people who live in this area, but I have no idea what I’d say or how they’d react to the idea. This is right next to Gallaudet – the clean side of the fence is Gallaudet property. I don’t know who owns the other side…but people live there. I wish I knew their stories.

Honors Retreat 2009

The Gallaudet Blog has been a pretty quiet place over the summer, hasn’t it? Here’s something new!

I just got back from this year’s Honors Retreat…and I mean I just got back! My first priority was a shower, because Camp St. Charles doesn’t have air conditioning, but now I’m here to tell you about the retreat.

Everybody in Honors chats over the summer on a discussion board, talking about the summer reading and life at Gallaudet. The first time they meet in person, though, is on Sunday night at the Honors dinner. We had Chinese food this year, and parents joined their students to hear the Honors Director, Dr. Myers, and Honors Coordinator Geoff Whitebread speak. (Well, sign, but we had interpreters for the non-signing parents.) Afterward, the parents went to a discussion called “Letting Go” while the students came to the Honors Lounge to check it out and establish some ground rules for its use. (The HL is in SAC, in the same area as the TIP Center and OSWD.)

Monday morning – that’s yesterday, for those of you keeping track – we all gathered at the Benson Hall Circle at 7am and waited for the bus to show up. Somebody had to phone over to the transportation department to ask about it, but it finally came and we loaded the bags, people, snacks, and drinks and headed off to Charles County. We got to Camp St. Charles about 8:30am and everybody got situated in their cabins. We had some icebreaker activities to start with – the Human Knot was led by Allison Weiner, and everybody participated in the Name Game which helps us all remember who each other is! We had lots of academic sessions on Monday too. The professors for GSR 101 (English) came out to talk to students, and we talked about Academic Integrity. In the evening, author Josh Swiller came out to discuss The Unheard as he did last year, and he brought his brother Zev which was a nice treat. Just like last year, Josh’s talk provoked some interesting discussion; unlike last year, Josh signed on his own and I had to voice for his brother so he could follow what was going on! Monday wrapped up with Smores, but they weren’t around the campfire as we’d hoped. We had to have a camp employee start it, of course, for safety reasons, but the poor guy tried and tried for at least 30 minutes before giving up. He told us the wood and ground were just too wet, and we all trooped back to the mess hall where he built a fire in a “smoke tower” (basically a standalone fireplace) and we toasted the marshmallows over that. After smores, I know many of the freshman stayed up until sunrise chatting, but I went to bed! Being an upperclassman on the Honors Retreat is cool because you get to meet all the new freshmen, but it’s also WORK because you’re the one who has to do the grunt work while the faculty actually work with the kids.

Today everybody was up bright and early for a nice breakfast. Camp St. Charles provides all the meals when you go there, and they were on time this morning at 8am. We had to finish up some Academic Integrity stuff in the morning and then it was time for fun! Most of the group, about 20 people, went canoeing with the camp employee (he’s a lifeguard, he’s a tour guide, he’s a campfire starter…) and the rest stayed in and played word games like Scattergories. I personally plunked down in front of a fan and read my book…I think I might have dozed off for 20 minutes there even! The only other activity for the day was lunch…we had forgotten to ask the camp for vegetarian options, so some of us (myself included) went a little hungry for lunch, but we still had plenty of snacks left over so we weren’t starving. Then we just had to wait for the bus, and it was a long wait! We were all cleaned up and ready to go by 12:30 but the driver wasn’t coming until 2:00. Fortunately he showed up a little early and we loaded everything up and back we went.

I think the Honors Retreat went pretty well this year. I hope the students who attended agree with me!

Walking Class

Today was the last day of my walking class. I needed it to get my phys ed credit; I transferred from a school that used half credits for PE, and Gallaudet uses whole credits. So I took walking as a summer class; it met 2 hours/day, 5 days/week, for three weeks.

I picked walking because it was something I knew I could do. I’ve been walking almost my whole life, so I wouldn’t need to learn anything new for this class! I’m also really out of shape, so walking would be something I could do without overtaxing my body. Most of the time in class was spent walking, of course, but most days the teacher also told us a little bit about walking techniques and fitness. Fitness was emphasized throughout the three weeks of the course; we learned about safe exercising, what exercise can do for your body, and so forth. We also had our body composition tested – mine confirmed what I already knew: I am extremely overweight, have virtually no muscle tone, and am not flexible at all. Nothing was a big surprise, but it is kind of disappointing.

As I mentioned, we did a lot of walking for class. We walked over 30 minutes every day, and most days it was more like 45 minutes or an hour. We walked around the Gallaudet “oval” and also around MSSD, and we took field trips to the National Arboretum and the Mall downtown. We learned to use walking sticks, which I thought were pretty cool, but it’s hard to have a conversation with your partner or use your pager when you’ve got sticks in both hands.

The class was basically great, but one thing did bother me. Today, after I finished the final exam, the teacher said he wanted to talk to me. He told me he had enjoyed having me in class and he hoped I’d keep walking. Then he told me about his adult daughter, who used to be very overweight and is now very skinny; he said she took all the weight off in 8 months using diet and exercise. I smiled and nodded when he told me, but inside I was thinking “hey, you’re calling me fat!” Come on, there is not a single fat person alive who doesn’t know they’re fat and doesn’t know exactly how to fix it. Trust me, every fat person is very aware of their weight. What confused me even more, though, was that he was telling me this after he spent three weeks emphasizing fitness! Over the past year or so, I’ve been trying to accept that losing weight is nice, but being physically fit is what’s really important – looking good is awesome, but being healthy is better! So to hear about his daughter kind of turned me off a little…I know he meant well, of course, but it was just kind of odd for that to be the last thing he said.

Anyway, he says our grades will be posted by Monday. I think I’ll get an A, because I showed up for every class (the other two people missed two classes each) and I did well on the tests and my walking. But even more important than the A is that I developed my muscles such that long walks don’t hurt anymore!

The Product of a UU Upbringing

We have been discussing religion in my Cultural Geography class lately. The teacher mentioned two types, philosophical religions and secularism. I raised my hand and asked where Unitarian Universalism fit in, and I said “I was raised UU but I don’t know!” The teacher – who I’ve known for a while now – said “oh now I understand you better!”

After class, I asked what she meant. I said “is it because I’m always questioning everything?” She said yes, it was that, and also because I don’t insist on one way of doing things – I always consider that there are multiple approaches to everything. I thought it was very perceptive of her to notice that.

And she’s right. I think it is due to my UU upbringing that I refuse to accept that the Muslim rules about covering women are inherently evil. My wife is very much against them; we recently saw a woman in a store wearing a full chador, nothing visible – my wife called it a “body bag.” And yes, there are many extremists who use the rules to oppress women. But I don’t have a problem with the idea itself: it’s just different from how we do things. I do not think chador, niqab, hijab, or burqa are wrong, just different.

The same applies to fundamentalist Christians in the US. Last night we watched the documentary “Jesus Camp” and I was astonished by the level of their devotion, and what it leads them to do. It seemed that the kids don’t get to play baseball or anything, it’s all Jesus all the time. But although it dismays me that these people invest so much into politics, I don’t have a problem with them doing so. It’s their right to pursue God by uttering nonsense syllables and falling on the floor. I think they look a little silly doing it, but I don’t have a problem with it. It’s just not for me.

Now, I can predict some people suggesting that this means I endorse the former slave-dependent culture of the American south. After all, wasn’t that their way of life – just different from mine? My response is that while I may be tolerant, I do have morals. Human beings owning each other is immoral, particularly for reasons of skin color alone. Depriving people of their human rights, especially liberty, is not acceptable. My wife will say, “but Muslim women are deprived of their rights!” And this is true. But they were not captured and enslaved by another culture; they are part of the culture that keeps them behind closed doors. And I don’t have a right to judge their culture; I accept it as different from mine.

Religion is a funny thing, and it makes people behave strangely. But I’m pleased to note that the nature of my religious upbringing has resulted in tolerance and open-mindedness. And asking questions, always asking questions.

Made a choice this morning…

I missed my geography class this morning. The reason is that I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and while I was driving to school, I was literally falling asleep on the road. I knew it wasn’t safe, but I pressed on for a few more miles because I felt I must go to class! We didn’t have a test or anything, but I like this class and the teacher and I didn’t want to miss it. Finally I had to decide to pull over in a parking lot and take a nap. I felt really bad about missing class, but it was either that or get into a car accident. Which is less responsible, missing class, or driving drowsy? I decided on the latter and I had to solve that problem first. My afternoon class was already canceled, so when I woke up I drove out to my wife’s workplace and we had lunch. I think in the end I made the right decision, but I do still feel bad about missing class.

Designing a Major

I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do if I’m not accepted into the Deaf Studies major. I think I will self-design a major that incorporates Deaf Studies, History, and Sociology. I’m looking at classes at consortium universities to see if there is anything I could incorporate. So far I have found:

• CUA – SOC 383 – Disability Policies
• CUA – LAW 618 – Legal Rights of People with Disabilities
• GWU – SPED 352 – Concerns for Individuals with Disabilities
• GWU – ENG 172 – Disability and Literature

I’m surprised that’s all there is…I will have to keep looking!

Not Deaf Enough, Redux

Is it necessary for someone to be deaf in the audiometric sense in order to be a leader within the deaf community? Many hearing people do not recognize the distinctions between levels of deafness in the deaf community, such as when using a cell phone on the Gallaudet campus can cause fellow students to look at someone as “less deaf” than those who are profoundly deaf and cannot use the telephone. Although those who study deaf culture insist there is no decibel limit for someone to be culturally deaf, there is a definite class distinction between those who are hard of hearing and those who are profoundly deaf; those who are prelingually deaf and those who are late-deafened; those who are able to interact with the hearing world easily and those who are not.

Gallaudet University must have a culturally deaf president – someone who is not fluent in sign language and who is unfamiliar with the struggles faced by deaf people when they interact with the hearing world would not be able to lead a school for those who use sign language and experience barriers to communication. It is my belief that all future presidents of Gallaudet will be culturally deaf, holding deaf values to their heart. But I foresee trouble when it comes time to choose another president, because the divisions within the deaf community will rise again if someone is chosen who does not fit the politically correct definition of what the president should be. If someone is selected who is postlingually deaf, there will be conflict; if someone is selected who has enough hearing to use the telephone, there will be conflict; if someone with lipreading and speaking skills is selected, there will be conflict. For some, the “perfect” deaf candidate will be someone who shuns speech, cannot hear a jet engine, and so forth.

How are we to find this ideal deaf person? Will Gallaudet be able to continue if we cannot? Given that the chances of finding this person are so slim, what are Gallaudetians willing to sacrifice in exchange for the continuation of the university’s mission? Should we pick someone who is suitable in the deaf sense, but has little administrative background? Or should we pick someone with outstanding administrative experience, but who can speak if they choose to? Will we ever again manage to be happy with our president, or did that possibility fade in 1988 when Deaf President Now changed our world? The wounds of 2006 have not yet fully healed, and there is a definite spark in the air at Gallaudet as the presidential search gears up again. It seems we are just waiting to see who is chosen so we can get on with our lives. I can only hope there is not another protest in our future…I do not envy the job of the Presidential Search Committee or the Board of Trustees.