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:roll: I'm not a freaking naysayer. Leave me alone.
Deaf Town, South Dakota
- Thread starter kristy2078
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:roll: I'm not a freaking naysayer. Leave me alone.
If deafies were the majority in a town, I would most assuredly move there. The reason for that is because we need to elect deafies to state and federal positions, and that will give us more power, and of course that can only help us all in the future. There isn't a single elected deafie in any state or federal capacity and that is just plain pathetic.
jillio
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Bring back Martha's Vineyard.
posts from hell
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InfamousMacBook
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Would I be able to live there since I have hearing loss?
Not my loss.I'm not worried about it. Deaf town subject isn't really a big deal to me.
I am hearing apathy on your part! I type out Marvin Miller's vlog (in the next post) so YOU can read instead of watching his vlog and see for yourself if it changes your mind. I am not doing it just for you. I am also doing for any deaf-blind who might come into this thread.
Marvin Miller vlog (2010)- Building an ASL community.
We need to build a deaf town - fully integrated city for all type of deaf people and hearing people.
Statistics:
Education:
Wikipedia said roughly 25% of world population has no formal education
World Federation for the Deaf said roughly 80% of world Deaf population has no formal education
Employment:
Before ADA passed, Andrew Huntsville came up with 63% unemployment of disabled Americans (all kind of disabilities.)
Few years after ADA passed, he repeated the data and found 65% unemployment of disabled Americans.
The OPM does keep data on disabled people working in Federal jobs. The GS is a pay level going from 1 to 15 (GS 15 is much bigger salary and more responsibility than GS 1.) GS 1 thru 7 is pretty similar for the deaf versus other disabled people. After GS 7, the level for the deaf nosedived to next to last - the last is those with mental retardation.
Politics:
There are about 510 thousands elected politicians in USA (all levels) versus 307 millions Americans . 400 thousands of Americans are deaf with ASL - no hard data - just rough estimate. If you figured in the percentage of elected politicians to Americans, we should have 665 elected deaf politicians that would represent us. How many deaf politicians we have? Zero.
Adoptions:
My friend is in processing of adopting a deaf child and the friend already had two natural CODAs. The friend learned a fact that the deaf child is usually the last one to be adopted. Even a disabled child that required a lot of work get to be adopted before the deaf child.
All this statistics should give us a big hint,. Do we own deaf schools? Do we get to input about the Deaf Education at all Deaf schools? No. the states own them.
Why America existed? For the people who had to escaped from religious persecution. Yes, but it is not the only reason. The founding fathers also experimented with a new kind of government. A government governed by its own people. The Europeans didn’t believed it would work as they were used to the royalty rulings. We now know that this government is very successful. Now, we don’t have 665 deaf elected politicians representing us, that is taxation without representation. You all are being dumb, paying taxes and getting nothing in return (including me). The other key is the value of free public education for all, teaching the kids to be public servants. The public servant is considering to be the most noble thing but we deaf aren’t involved in that.
Our way of living, to be honest, is dying. The deaf clubs are closing up. The deaf schools are closing up, too. There are about 4 or 5 deaf schools that are the best, even with that, the budget is in trouble. What to do? Even though there are technology but we are disconnected from one other. I wish we all can see each other daily instead of going to an occasionally deaf event just to get the Deaf “fix“.
As in healthy community, (show a picture of a glowing green ‘spider web‘) it should look like this - so many connections (intersections). All of you holding onto each other. But the true fact is sad. Not only for the deaf but for the hearing as the hearing people design the community around driving hence the urban sprawls. The European cities are more healthy as there are so many places to go in cities, to eat and to walk around. Ironically, the hearing people are becoming more like us, disconnected from one another. Let me show you what the deaf communities really looks like (a picture of glowing green ‘spider web’ with lots of spaces.) Look, how there are some strong deaf community here and there but otherwise very sparse. Can the web catch a lot of bugs? No, many bugs might just fly through the spaces. Suppose a big bug hit the web? It would take out all of the deaf communities. We are depending on very few deaf leaders that are spread out. We really have no political voice. We are holding on. What is worse - we are punishing ourselves by yelling at other deaf people for being lazy. We should not be yelling at each other because we are not physically wired. Yes, we are wired to the Internet but that will never replace the physically wired self. The internet can only enhance it and make it stronger.
Let me tell you about my daughter, Steffani aged 11. After we moved from a small town in South Dakota to a big town in Indiana, we were busy for a couple years. She said that when she grow up, she will move back to Salem. That town is really small (about 1000 people) and not really pretty. I was shocked at that. When I asked her why, she replied “I was free there”. She said that she could ride her bike anywhere, go visiting a friend or helping out by going to store to buy bread, etc. Now she had to beg for a ride to see a friend. The small town has made a big impact on her.
When you became senior citizen and you can’t drive anymore. Nursing homes and living communities are all over. Almost all are sort of isolated. One would have to find a ride to visit a friend, etc. That made an impact on me. Let me ask you a question. Are we worth it? Are we worthy to save? All the problems with deaf communities and ASL. Maybe we should just leave the earth.? No, we are worth it. Why? We have a lot to give to the world. We know it. If we are worthy, then we should do something about it. Macolm X said if we want to achieved the social equality, achieve the socioeconomic equality first. Increase our wealth, support each other and build up the network. Let me tell you a story. Let us say you live in a house by a huge empty lake. Now you hook up your garden hose and start to fill the empty lake. How long do you think it is going to fill the lake? Too long. Say you dig a hole and fill that hole. How long does it take to fill it? Pretty fast. Now dig that hole bigger. You still can fill it. When you spend money on something huge like the huge empty lake, you are just wasting your time and money. When you fill that small hole, you reap it back. Make the hole bigger and enlist your friends’ help and garden hoses. It became bigger reap. Big enough for you to swim in it and dive into it. You might look at the small hole and decided against it because you prefer the big city living. Fine, but you got to start somewhere. You want a city as big as New York City? New York City started out as a very small town.
By building ASL town, you can see how the community became like the healthy looking spider web. How to go about it? Physically get together with other deaf people. Just one deaf person is not going to work. Make it many deaf people as possible and grow from that. Also get together with hearing people, interpreters that have incentive to interconnect with one another. Let say there is a hearing person trying to learn sign language and attempted to strike conversation with you. It gets old fast. You would want to get away which is understandable. Now suppose you have your own hair shop in the ASL town. The same hearing person comes in and wants a haircut. You are all for communicating with your client and teaching him/her more signs all because you need his/her money to support yourself and your family. That is just one example. An owner of a McDonald franchise in the ASL town will teach the McDonald Company on just what a deaf person need. The company might ask the owner if he/she knew more deaf friends who might want to have a franchise, too.
The best thing is you can be anything you want to be in the ASL town. You will not be limited to being a teacher for the deaf or interpreter or counselor for the deaf, For example, I talked with a teacher about the ASL town, the teacher was puzzled at the reason for the town. The teacher asked if he/she could set up a dog kennel in the ASL town. I said sure, why not. The light went on for the teacher. You really can pursue your passion by interconnecting with other people in the town. Now for the school, say you are in the school board. Is the school going to be just for the deaf kids. No, it is going to be for all kids where both deaf and hearing kids are going to be immersed in the bilingual languages. The kids (not us) are going to experience the world very different from us. The kids are going to build even better world beyond our belief. I promise you that.
So will you join me and help me build this town and live there? And grow the town and grow more towns around. Thank you.
We need to build a deaf town - fully integrated city for all type of deaf people and hearing people.
Statistics:
Education:
Wikipedia said roughly 25% of world population has no formal education
World Federation for the Deaf said roughly 80% of world Deaf population has no formal education
Employment:
Before ADA passed, Andrew Huntsville came up with 63% unemployment of disabled Americans (all kind of disabilities.)
Few years after ADA passed, he repeated the data and found 65% unemployment of disabled Americans.
The OPM does keep data on disabled people working in Federal jobs. The GS is a pay level going from 1 to 15 (GS 15 is much bigger salary and more responsibility than GS 1.) GS 1 thru 7 is pretty similar for the deaf versus other disabled people. After GS 7, the level for the deaf nosedived to next to last - the last is those with mental retardation.
Politics:
There are about 510 thousands elected politicians in USA (all levels) versus 307 millions Americans . 400 thousands of Americans are deaf with ASL - no hard data - just rough estimate. If you figured in the percentage of elected politicians to Americans, we should have 665 elected deaf politicians that would represent us. How many deaf politicians we have? Zero.
Adoptions:
My friend is in processing of adopting a deaf child and the friend already had two natural CODAs. The friend learned a fact that the deaf child is usually the last one to be adopted. Even a disabled child that required a lot of work get to be adopted before the deaf child.
All this statistics should give us a big hint,. Do we own deaf schools? Do we get to input about the Deaf Education at all Deaf schools? No. the states own them.
Why America existed? For the people who had to escaped from religious persecution. Yes, but it is not the only reason. The founding fathers also experimented with a new kind of government. A government governed by its own people. The Europeans didn’t believed it would work as they were used to the royalty rulings. We now know that this government is very successful. Now, we don’t have 665 deaf elected politicians representing us, that is taxation without representation. You all are being dumb, paying taxes and getting nothing in return (including me). The other key is the value of free public education for all, teaching the kids to be public servants. The public servant is considering to be the most noble thing but we deaf aren’t involved in that.
Our way of living, to be honest, is dying. The deaf clubs are closing up. The deaf schools are closing up, too. There are about 4 or 5 deaf schools that are the best, even with that, the budget is in trouble. What to do? Even though there are technology but we are disconnected from one other. I wish we all can see each other daily instead of going to an occasionally deaf event just to get the Deaf “fix“.
As in healthy community, (show a picture of a glowing green ‘spider web‘) it should look like this - so many connections (intersections). All of you holding onto each other. But the true fact is sad. Not only for the deaf but for the hearing as the hearing people design the community around driving hence the urban sprawls. The European cities are more healthy as there are so many places to go in cities, to eat and to walk around. Ironically, the hearing people are becoming more like us, disconnected from one another. Let me show you what the deaf communities really looks like (a picture of glowing green ‘spider web’ with lots of spaces.) Look, how there are some strong deaf community here and there but otherwise very sparse. Can the web catch a lot of bugs? No, many bugs might just fly through the spaces. Suppose a big bug hit the web? It would take out all of the deaf communities. We are depending on very few deaf leaders that are spread out. We really have no political voice. We are holding on. What is worse - we are punishing ourselves by yelling at other deaf people for being lazy. We should not be yelling at each other because we are not physically wired. Yes, we are wired to the Internet but that will never replace the physically wired self. The internet can only enhance it and make it stronger.
Let me tell you about my daughter, Steffani aged 11. After we moved from a small town in South Dakota to a big town in Indiana, we were busy for a couple years. She said that when she grow up, she will move back to Salem. That town is really small (about 1000 people) and not really pretty. I was shocked at that. When I asked her why, she replied “I was free there”. She said that she could ride her bike anywhere, go visiting a friend or helping out by going to store to buy bread, etc. Now she had to beg for a ride to see a friend. The small town has made a big impact on her.
When you became senior citizen and you can’t drive anymore. Nursing homes and living communities are all over. Almost all are sort of isolated. One would have to find a ride to visit a friend, etc. That made an impact on me. Let me ask you a question. Are we worth it? Are we worthy to save? All the problems with deaf communities and ASL. Maybe we should just leave the earth.? No, we are worth it. Why? We have a lot to give to the world. We know it. If we are worthy, then we should do something about it. Macolm X said if we want to achieved the social equality, achieve the socioeconomic equality first. Increase our wealth, support each other and build up the network. Let me tell you a story. Let us say you live in a house by a huge empty lake. Now you hook up your garden hose and start to fill the empty lake. How long do you think it is going to fill the lake? Too long. Say you dig a hole and fill that hole. How long does it take to fill it? Pretty fast. Now dig that hole bigger. You still can fill it. When you spend money on something huge like the huge empty lake, you are just wasting your time and money. When you fill that small hole, you reap it back. Make the hole bigger and enlist your friends’ help and garden hoses. It became bigger reap. Big enough for you to swim in it and dive into it. You might look at the small hole and decided against it because you prefer the big city living. Fine, but you got to start somewhere. You want a city as big as New York City? New York City started out as a very small town.
By building ASL town, you can see how the community became like the healthy looking spider web. How to go about it? Physically get together with other deaf people. Just one deaf person is not going to work. Make it many deaf people as possible and grow from that. Also get together with hearing people, interpreters that have incentive to interconnect with one another. Let say there is a hearing person trying to learn sign language and attempted to strike conversation with you. It gets old fast. You would want to get away which is understandable. Now suppose you have your own hair shop in the ASL town. The same hearing person comes in and wants a haircut. You are all for communicating with your client and teaching him/her more signs all because you need his/her money to support yourself and your family. That is just one example. An owner of a McDonald franchise in the ASL town will teach the McDonald Company on just what a deaf person need. The company might ask the owner if he/she knew more deaf friends who might want to have a franchise, too.
The best thing is you can be anything you want to be in the ASL town. You will not be limited to being a teacher for the deaf or interpreter or counselor for the deaf, For example, I talked with a teacher about the ASL town, the teacher was puzzled at the reason for the town. The teacher asked if he/she could set up a dog kennel in the ASL town. I said sure, why not. The light went on for the teacher. You really can pursue your passion by interconnecting with other people in the town. Now for the school, say you are in the school board. Is the school going to be just for the deaf kids. No, it is going to be for all kids where both deaf and hearing kids are going to be immersed in the bilingual languages. The kids (not us) are going to experience the world very different from us. The kids are going to build even better world beyond our belief. I promise you that.
So will you join me and help me build this town and live there? And grow the town and grow more towns around. Thank you.
Yes, once the town get built (if that do happen), it is open to all who are deaf. Hearing people are welcome, too (as long as they are open to learning ASL).