Deafness

Perhaps the outwardly significant feature a stranger would notice about somebody first is their deafness. So I am going to make this blog mainly about that...if only to get it out of the way. For most of you this may be your introduction to Deaf Culture.

First I am going to give you a few operational definitions. For "culture" it's a set of social behaviors and beliefs, usually including a history, a folklore, and a language that is unique to a group of people. A culture's "folklore" includes art, humor, and common stories, even stories from other cultures about your culture. Sharing these characteristics and beliefs and behaving in common ways identifies individuals or members as belonging to the culture. The Deaf culture contains all of these elements.

As with the larger Disabled Community the folklore of Deaf people has very few if any positive characteristics. Where some might see the Irish (please forgive me Irish people) as drunkards, they ALSO see them as poets and playwrights. Until recently disabled people have almost universally been portrayed in the wider culture as crippled (broken in body and mind, and the mirror of that, superheros) and typically as bitter malevolent vengeful types, or as heroic super-achievers. The disabled are seen as the psychic Other because the possibility of becoming disabled looms before every individual, people naturally shy away from serious consideration of disability or the disabled. We become a mythologic receptacle for the fear and anxieties of the able-bodied, or unrealistic icons of overcoming all adversity.

Although the idea that Deaf people have a culture and community is new to many hearing people, it has existed for a long time. The Deaf Culture has the same kinds of characteristics as those of other ethnic groups or subcultures. It is born out of shared experiences. The Deaf community has its own organizations, events, and arts. Deaf intra-marriage is common and there are also Deaf religious congregations. Perhaps the most essential link for members of any culture is language. And for Deaf culture among the American deaf community it is it's language—American Sign Language.

Uniquely for Deaf Culture the majority of deaf children are born to Speaking parents, the passing on of Deaf culture does not usually come from family members, but from contact with other Deaf people in the larger world. Like all acquired disabling conditions the challenges, successes, and pitfalls of living with my disability are recursive. Hopefully two steps forward and one step back, but not always. Like with the aging, disabled people are repeatedly discovering some new loss or some new field of human endeavor unassailably closed to them by virtue of simply who they are. Learning what and where to surrender, or to strategically withdraw, is a skill slowly learned and always at a very steep cost to yourself and your support network. And learning that a new achievement is frequently not an indicator of future successes but a lure to further frustration is a moral challenge in itself too.

Not every deaf person is part of the Deaf community and Deaf culture, however. The deaf ( notice the small "d"? ) and hard of hearing community is very diverse, differing greatly on the cause, degree, and age of onset of hearing loss, educational background, communication methods, and feelings about hearing loss. How people define themselves in terms of their hearing loss is personal and may reflect identification with the Deaf Culture and the deaf community. When writing about deafness, many writers will use a capital “D” when referring to aspects of deaf culture and a lower case “d” when speaking only about the hearing loss or about a group of deaf people who do not identify with Deaf Culture. Therefore, individuals may see themselves as either deaf, Deaf, or hard of hearing.

The “small d” deaf, typically, tend to have few associations with the Deaf community and may never have experienced schooling or community activities with others who are Deaf. This view, sometimes called the medical or clinical view, essentially accepts the behaviors and values of people who can hear as the norm. Those who hold this view might define the Deaf community as a group of people whose hearing loss interferes with, or disables the normal reception and generation of speech and who have a range of learning and social problems due to their hearing loss.

Unfortunately, as with many minorities, we have also built up a reactionary sub-culture that finds it's expression in reverse-audism. This is clearly seen when Deaf parents deny cochlear implants to their children because they would then grow up with the medical view, and disparage the values and worth of their own parents and the wider Deaf Culture altogether.

It's time to break the impasse, to raise our personal standards and stop adding barriers and work together to build a more accpeting society.