OOOooohhhhhhh that term "deaf and dumb" really hits a nerve with me. NOt only is it the most insulting term, but, the most ignorant of ignorants that use it, think there is nothing wrong with that term, because that is what they said back in the "old days".
I myself being hearing too, would have to suffer listening to a childhood friend (yeah right pffttt) always call my mom and dad that whenever we had a fight. But to make matters worse, she would skip up and down the street saying that about my mom and dad, and that is when I lost the fight in me, because I felt so bad for my parent's that they were being called that and for no reason. Terminolgy has changed so many in the past few hundred years, but, for these people who still use that term "deaf and dumb" time must be standing still for them.
Angel I do agree about "deaf and dumb" being just as bad as saying "retarded". My oldest daughter used to work at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Ma. She worked with Deaf/Blind high school students. 3 times a week my daughter would take her student to the store to teach her how to shop and how to spend her money wisely. One day on my daughter trip to the store with her student, my daughter overheard an older female customer tell her friend. " Oh look at that poor girl, not only is she deaf an dumb, she can't see and is retarded", it took everything in my daughter's heart not to lash out at this lady, but, to go over and say to this older customer "excuse me, I couldn't help to over hear what you said. She is not deaf and dumb, she is deaf. She can't see because she is blind. She is not retarded, she is developmentally delayed. I just need to point that out to you so you will realize that these students are not poor souls but contributing members of this society." With that my daughter walked over to the counter to help her student pay for her items. The store clerk knew how upset my daughter was and told her that he is not going to charge my daughter's students for the candy she bought, he charged the older customer to teach her a lesson not to put her foot in her mouth again. YOu see, the merchants and the neighbors of Watertown, had pride for their deaf/blind students at Perkins because the achievements they had made in their lives, so I guess older woman was a foreigner to these parts of town.
Some people can be so cruel with their words, and it takes people like all of you deaf in AllDeaf and all over the world to find it in your heart to forgive the hearing that truly do not understand through their own ignorance.
Seriously, tho, I pretty much agree with you but hesitate to expound on this too much more because I soooo detest political correctness.
