I kind of find it hard to agree with Jillio in that we need advocacy for just the childrens (but she is making a very strong valid point I do happen to agree, however I think its short sighted, we need wider scope of interest in deaf people's right in general, while ADA is there, (disabled people did that , kudos to them nicely they did an excellent job) but I think we could do ALOT more like making clear, stern advisory and set down condition which deaf people ought to know and exercise lawsuits against many form of subtle discrimination that goes unwary even right now. Jillio's arguement is about making is 'right from the start' for future generation of deaf children, my view is that, we need to show whose fault is that for all the failure of majority of deaf people...... like failed education, we need to politicise and present the facts to courts and governments that the blame lies in the hearing people's interfering and expliotation of deaf people, (cochlear implants, hearing aids profits, speech trainers, psychologists steering so-called troubled deaf students (some are, but not as many as they make it out to be), career advisors are fucked up too, they just want to get paid and cover up the arses for their failed schools and so on. But I fear even so one might do useful work to expose and statisticise these experiences, another person comes along (usually the government will deliberately pick that person or group for that specific job for doctoring and presenting it differently so it can in turn do more harm than good, all depending who is handling the information.
Jillio's point as strong merits, shes' clear an probably clearer than me, however i still think we ought to stop obsessing over language in schools, need to think further like how do or can we advocate for rights to be INCLUDED in ALL levels in the hearing based organisation of work?!
That is important becasue as long as we dont look at this, and challenge the 'society's configuration of work' then the hearings will never realise the value of Sign Language (I didnt say ASL, because deaf people DONT only bloody exist in America) is worthy and can and would be recognised in ALL aspects of society thereby seeing the new-way of looking at how useful sign language can be. Like brain storm sessions I'd bet deaf people are wonderfully clever at making very abstract ideas into concentrate thinking for plans (i've done this before, i have found my second language -Signs- enabled me to do this and i was quite wowed at that but anyway...) for maybe 'problems' such as market strategy for instance. see where I'm coming from?
Language concerns is quite separate from rights concerns. There is a need to be vocal on the rights aspects. We have seen from the 1970's Language as being a novelty recognition it only went so far, one might ask why this is allowed, maybe because deaf languages was and still considered inferior for workplace- use. So its small wonder many deafs are still in shitty job situations, or unemployed. Dare I say, I sometimes think it was allowed to go this culture route as for the government would feel more comfortable to avoid abuse settlements, retribution costs for loss of rights and so on. This is getting dangerously close to exhibiting a 'conspirancy theorist's thinking', but one can't help wondering. I think cultural model is heading to a dead-end soon, it is outlived its usefulness for progress towards deaf people's rights in general. Education is only a small area of a person's life, (first 20 years or so) and then you have another 60-80 years to do something, make a living , get rich, travel, enrich own's life with experiences, but language advocacy will have very small impact on addressing the much wider activity which society offers. Make no bones language is important for thinking, feeling and communicating but as long as hearing people dont recognise how useful sign language (users) really could be in workplaces, in a much further realisation than merely as manual work shit, I meant the whole slew of creativity in organising around sign language users for speed, total immersion with their hearing co-working counterparts, leadership amongst even the hearing workers, safety aspects to be covered well and list goes on.
Jillio's comments "The problem is, advocacy only works when advocacy has been requested." is very succient, I like her remark, it is telling, and yes hearing people will only listen when they like what they hear, more information, new information is definitely sough (which is why I was ranting and argunig that about rights and workplaces is wider, to show deaf children are a Part of soceity and as a part of the deaf world)
RH, I understand whats Jillio's saying, she meant, it is 'only listened to' when in favour, or when in convenient. In other words, there's a lack of powerful political motive or force or even chrisma which Deaf people (community/academics even!) lacks. We need a new vision, that for sure. Like maybe not "we're different accept us", to something more like maybe like 'we are different but we can also help you (and why...........etc etc........), this would put a different picture of deaf people in hearing people's eyes.
