Proposal for Audism policy to be placed in the guidelines

[Bottesini]

Eek. So many people have so much to say on the topic! I hesitate even to post, but, still, here I go.

If an Audism policy is implemented, I think a very clear definition of the term should be included, as well as what is not acceptable amid the policy.

There seems to be much, much more to Audism than I ever suspected; I'm ignorant. I will probably screw up because of it. I have many questions, and I'm here BECAUSE I want to garner a better understanding of the Deaf community and world. However, I'm much more likely not to upset anyone if I have a good idea from the start what won't be tolerated.

I mean, I already know better than to harrass anyone (not that I want to!) and other common sense no-nos, but there are some things I might miss simply because I didn't grow up in the culture. So, for the sake of those who want to AVOID being an Audist jerk, if you implement the policy, please make it clear!

Here's a start. And you did not do this. If you find out someone had an oral upbringing, but is lousy at speech and not great at sign either, it is not appropriate to tell them that as an oral failure their opinion does not count.
This did happen to me.

 

[Lighthouse77]

even if they are an oral success, sometimes their opinion don't count. Hearing people always look on the outside of deaf people of what works and what doesn't.

 

[Bottesini]

even if they are an oral success, sometimes their opinion don't count. Hearing people always look on the outside of deaf people of what works and what doesn't.

That was not my point.

What I meant was, don't come in and disparage the experience of Deaf people, no matter what it is.

 

[Lighthouse77]

They only count on each other of what will work for deaf people or not. To me, that's the same as how people treat oral failure.

 

[flip]

btw, I wonder how many of you feel when a hearing parent come here for our advice, and other hearing parents tend to jump right in and give them suggestions and knowledges but you don't ever see them in other threads.. just whenever a new hearing parent come here.

That's distgusting, and I have seen that too often.

 

[Bottesini]

They only count on each other of what will work for deaf people or not. To me, that's the same as how people treat oral failure.

You mean that hearing think they know best? That I have seen also.

 

[flip]

I did not vote, as I am not sure about this one, but it's an interesting idea. It was more annoying before, some years ago, when the top elite of audists, tried hard to convince deaf people that sign language and the deaf culture is at best, worthless.

I may offend some people here, but I seriously believe that in order to have truly heated discussions, one need hearing people. It's they who starts the bickering and insulting, wether they are pro ASL or pro speech. Deaf people tends to be much more balanced, because they have something that hearing people don't have, lived experiences and the skill to handle deafness. It takes away a lot of the edges, IMHO.

We got some "free thinkers", who keep on asking "controversial" questions, while to us, it looks more like they are seeking acceptance for their audists view among the deaf population, begging us to ditch our lived experiences. That's the tiring part to me, but not sure if we solve this by banning.

An advantage of allowing audism on alldeaf, is that we now have tons of text written by audists in older threads, forever burned into the caches of Google. I think this is part of reason why the worst audists are gone, because the more they stay here, the more documents and better understanding of audism everyone get.

Take AG Bell, I think they shun Audism Free America, because they know their ideology is too fragile to stand an open discussion with AFA.

 

[deafskeptic]

Thanks...was that like 3 years ago when we had so many explosive threads about teachers using speech while signing in the Bibi programs? Jillio and I really got into it, lol! It was awful.

I remember. :P I have a very good idea who you're talking about.

 

[Mrs Bucket]

So you are saying that yes, those comments and their feelings would be unacceptable?

Yes; this is why audism run rampant here in this AD community. Too many long term members seem to suffer the repercussions from sharing their own personal experiences from those who just join this board. Not long ago, this board was hijacked from a mini-community that was bent on corrupting to self-serve their own motto- C.I oralism with no ASL.

This AD community consists of CIers that signs too as well as those who are so genuine in learning ASL.

believe me, if it is just you, we wouldn't be discussing Audism. She was referring to the generation population who are Audists.

as far as "disagreeing" what is audist and what isn't. It's like disagreeing that racism exist and why such and such is not racist. No one really want to put up with it.

LL said it correctly, it is the general population. I would never single out anyone. You may feel like it now in this post, your comments are just omitting a lot of moral fibre; it reeks of flawed logic.

No, I was saying, if this Audism guideline is put in to effect, that would happen.

The audism policy would protect our community, the AD community that consists of Deaf, HoH, late deafened, parents with children that have CIs, the ADers who use CIs and those who enter AD with a curiosity about Deaf Culture, Deaf Studies, ASL and our preserved AD community.

This audism policy will preserve us rather than do damage as you perceive it to do so.

 

[flip]

Eek. So many people have so much to say on the topic! I hesitate even to post, but, still, here I go.

If an Audism policy is implemented, I think a very clear definition of the term should be included, as well as what is not acceptable amid the policy.

There seems to be much, much more to Audism than I ever suspected; I'm ignorant. I will probably screw up because of it. I have many questions, and I'm here BECAUSE I want to garner a better understanding of the Deaf community and world. However, I'm much more likely not to upset anyone if I have a good idea from the start what won't be tolerated.

I mean, I already know better than to harrass anyone (not that I want to!) and other common sense no-nos, but there are some things I might miss simply because I didn't grow up in the culture. So, for the sake of those who want to AVOID being an Audist jerk, if you implement the policy, please make it clear!

This is a reason I am unsure if we are ready to implent this policy here, and agree we then need an clear policy and explaination in a FAQ, for example.

By they way, audism is not lack of understanding the deaf culture. It's simply looking down on deaf people. It's also not something that only can be coined at hearing people, but deaf people can be audists as well.

 

[deafskeptic]

This is a reason I am unsure if we are ready to implent this policy here, and agree we then need an clear policy and explaination in a FAQ, for example.

By they way, audism is not lack of understanding the deaf culture. It's simply looking down on deaf people. It's also not something that only can be coined at hearing people, but deaf people can be audists as well.

Yep. The audist that I had in mind in one of my earlier posts in this thread is deaf himself or as he prefers to call himself HOH.

 

[Mrs Bucket]

I did not vote, as I am not sure about this one, but it's an interesting idea. It was more annoying before, some years ago, when the top elite of audists, tried hard to convince deaf people that sign language and the deaf culture is at best, worthless.

I may offend some people here, but I seriously believe that in order to have truly heated discussions, one need hearing people. It's they who starts the bickering and insulting, wether they are pro ASL or pro speech. Deaf people tends to be much more balanced, because they have something that hearing people don't have, lived experiences and the skill to handle deafness. It takes away a lot of the edges, IMHO.

We got some "free thinkers", who keep on asking "controversial" questions, while to us, it looks more like they are seeking acceptance for their audists view among the deaf population, begging us to ditch our lived experiences. That's the tiring part to me, but not sure if we solve this by banning.

An advantage of allowing audism on alldeaf, is that we now have tons of text written by audists in older threads, forever burned into the caches of Google. I think this is part of reason why the worst audists are gone, because the more they stay here, the more documents and better understanding of audism everyone get.

Take AG Bell, I think they shun Audism Free America, because they know their ideology is too fragile to stand an open discussion with AFA.

I support your decision as you have a right to decide.

I support the text on audism rather than excluding it.

I do not support the action of audism itself, you see, doing an act of audism itself towards another member.

I encourage all literature of audism such as vlogs, blogs, pictures and archives of audism to be in AD. This reinforces the reason why audism should not continue, I am a heavy thinker- philosophy & psychology are my main majors.

I encourage healthy free-thinking and actually encourage controversy because we all grow from this.

My Deaf-world consists of hearing people, you see, this AD community has hearing people. They are "Culturally Deaf", those people are Reba and jillio amongst others. They work for our community and in our hearts of hearts, they are capital "D"eaf.

We embrace hearing people in this community; we are far from shunning people in our community.

I, personally, believe accessibility is a right for everyone; hearing and Deaf.

I also personally believe both Deaf and hearing people are just as guilty of audism.

In order to practise what we preach about audism to the hearing community, we need to be role models first in our community and implement the audism policy.

We cannot enforce the hearing community to accept the audism policy when we, the Deaf community, practise audism as well.

Hope this helps.

Namaste!

 

[flip]

Yes; this is why audism run rampant here in this AD community. Too many long term members seem to suffer the repercussions from sharing their own personal experiences from those who just join this board. Not long ago, this board was hijacked from a mini-community that was bent on corrupting to self-serve their own motto- C.I oralism with no ASL.

This AD community consists of CIers that signs too as well as those who are so genuine in learning ASL.

LL said it correctly, it is the general population. I would never single out anyone. You may feel like it now in this post, your comments are just omitting a lot of moral fibre; it reeks of flawed logic.



The audism policy would protect our community, the AD community that consists of Deaf, HoH, late deafened, parents with children that have CIs, the ADers who use CIs and those who enter AD with a curiosity about Deaf Culture, Deaf Studies, ASL and our preserved AD community.

This audism policy will preserve us rather than do damage as you perceive it to do so.

 

[Lissa]

Agreed

 

[deafskeptic]

Agreed

I agree too.

 

[shel90]

I support your decision as you have a right to decide.

I support the text on audism rather than excluding it.

I do not support the action of audism itself, you see, doing an act of audism itself towards another member.

I encourage all literature of audism such as vlogs, blogs, pictures and archives of audism to be in AD. This reinforces the reason why audism should not continue, I am a heavy thinker- philosophy & psychology are my main majors.

I encourage healthy free-thinking and actually encourage controversy because we all grow from this.

My Deaf-world consists of hearing people, you see, this AD community has hearing people. They are "Culturally Deaf", those people are Reba and jillio amongst others. They work for our community and in our hearts of hearts, they are capital "D"eaf.

We embrace hearing people in this community; we are far from shunning people in our community.

I, personally, believe accessibility is a right for everyone; hearing and Deaf.

I also personally believe both Deaf and hearing people are just as guilty of audism.

In order to practise what we preach about audism to the hearing community, we need to be role models first in our community and implement the audism policy.

We cannot enforce the hearing community to accept the audism policy when we, the Deaf community, practise audism as well.

Hope this helps.

Namaste!

Wow! I couldnt have said it better!

 

[shel90]

I think anyone who defends a member who spouts audist views or attitudes towards any other members are just as guilty of audism themselves. My two cents.

 

[flip]

I support your decision as you have a right to decide.

I support the text on audism rather than excluding it.

I do not support the action of audism itself, you see, doing an act of audism itself towards another member.

I encourage all literature of audism such as vlogs, blogs, pictures and archives of audism to be in AD. This reinforces the reason why audism should not continue, I am a heavy thinker- philosophy & psychology are my main majors.

I encourage healthy free-thinking and actually encourage controversy because we all grow from this.

My Deaf-world consists of hearing people, you see, this AD community has hearing people. They are "Culturally Deaf", those people are Reba and jillio amongst others. They work for our community and in our hearts of hearts, they are capital "D"eaf.

We embrace hearing people in this community; we are far from shunning people in our community.

I, personally, believe accessibility is a right for everyone; hearing and Deaf.

I also personally believe both Deaf and hearing people are just as guilty of audism.

In order to practise what we preach about audism to the hearing community, we need to be role models first in our community and implement the audism policy.

We cannot enforce the hearing community to accept the audism policy when we, the Deaf community, practise audism as well.

Hope this helps.

Namaste!

You got a good point about allowing audism among us, while asking hearing people to ban it, didn't think about it. Agree with Shel90 about supporting audism, too.

The reason for my doubt, is that we got a debate raging in europe on allowing parts of Islam in public spaces or not, and if muslims should accept caricatures of the prophet muhammad. Many muslims are asking to ban every caricature of Muhammad in the name of blasphemy, but it don't work as europe is used to mocking religions. It still looks to me like muslims are benefitting from this, and western seculars are starting to understand Islam better. It's something with growing from controversy to do. I feel somehow that hearing people have the right to ask us why hearing values aren't superior to deaf values, and that we can handle it very well. If the word audism becomes as widely known as deaf, it will be much more easy to make it immoral. This is also why I think AFA is such a good idea.

As for hearings debating, I know that the intentions are the best, but somehow hearings who are pro ASL seem to attract hearing oralists. It's typical to see parents who raise deaf children different accuse others of wrong doings, the same for professonials working in deaf education, they seem to be more focused on technique, speech vs ASL, than deaf deaf teachers. This is perhaps not an easy topic, as some of them really are a part of the deaf community, and much valued. The problem is that it looks like deaf people are enaged into a ASL vs speech debate, while we really not is, and hearings debating on this becomes a bit audistic to me. Sorry if I made it sound like I don't welcome hearing people into the deaf community!

 

[iowaboy]

Someone tipped me off that you all were talking about me.

Look, I've never really knowingly met a Deaf person. I don't know what Audism is. I don't know if it's taboo to have said the following in a post:

"There aren't many resources in this area. Our hospital has an ASL interpreter on call, but has never used her. The Deaf community here seems pretty non-existent. The one thing we have going for us is that my aunt is an ASL interpreter. She lives over an hour away, but has been sending us good books and resources, and is going to try to stop in once every couple of weeks.

My first thought is to learn signs and use Signed Exact English, thinking that we will try to enhance her hearing by whatever method to the point where she will be able to have speech. Seems SEE would make communication easier in rural Iowa where she is unlikely to be around other deaf people on a regular basis. Those are just my initial thoughts though. I'm still mulling all of this over."

If that is offensive, someone should have clued me in- and I am truly sorry. However, our Audiologist instructed us to try to formulate our ultimate goal. They gave us an informal list of plausible goals- one of which involved the +/- acquisition of speech. We live in the middle of nowhere. I have to drive over an hour, 50 miles, to buy a pair of pants. My daughter isn't going to run into anyone fluent in ASL, SEE, or any other manual communication out here. No matter how fluent she is in sign, nobody is going to "get it" out here. For that reason, if she can make a sound that communicates a meaning, that's a pretty important goal for us. But it doesn't make her any better or worse than anyone else. If that reasoning is offensive, please find a constructive way to tell me, please.

I respect the Deaf community, ASL, SEE, and all of the above, but I'll never be a part of it. I get that. But I'm the one who is going to raise my daughter, and introduce her to both worlds. This is my starting point, and if I offend, or mess up, or totally botch anything, someone please pull me aside and set me straight. No more talking about life bans behind my back please.

 

[Lighthouse77]

As far as no one knows ASL... her family will. Her hearing friends will try to learn with her. Is clear communication in your goal with your daughter/father relationship? If so, consider ASL

I grew up without ASL. Please read our story before you decide you don't want ASL