I went to the link in your post.
I will take time with this on the basis of your statement: “Despite how rigid and formal we may seem, we're actually pretty open to possibilities and ideas.”
Thanks, everyone, for the good perspective, regardless of how uncomfortable it is. :red cheeks: And thanks for the hug, Mrs. Bucket; I needed that.
I don't doubt you do need a hug, but I believe you are male and I only hug men who are close friends and family members. Hugging strange men could leave an impression that is inaccurate.
You are quite perceptive, Berry. O_O I am, perhaps, too enamored with and focused on academics.
Academic culture and Deaf culture are not, by nature, compatible.
Academic culture, like the typical American legal system, is very compartmentalized and low context.
How can you say you are my friend when we have coffee together in the morning, but not my friend at court, and now you want us to go hunting together – as WHAT ???
By nature you are an academic.
By nature if I were deaf I would be Deaf and among people who understood me.
And I've not seen racism in action a whole lot, so I guess it doesn't jump at me (like you said) when I'm sounding like it, even if I don't mean to be it.
I bet you have seen a lot of it, you just never recognized it.
The term "Ivory Tower" is used about academics for a reason.
Racism is easier to recognize once you have been the butt of it. As an older, blue eyed, blonde haired, halfbreed Native American, I've had my share. Being raised in multiethnic neighborhoods I've seen friends suffer from it. As a child, being best friends with a Coda, I have seen his parents suffer from it.
Most racism, and the most deadly racism is not “meant”. It is the casual assumption you, and your group, are superior. The group making the assumption is seldom even aware they have made it because to them it is both too natural and too obvious to require mentioning.
You reserve the right to edit “submissions” as Mrs Bucket pointed out.
And once they were edited would they mean what was originally intended? Or would they mean what your group thought was meant that was consistent with your perceptions?
I'm a little bit puzzled at your saying (implying?) that learning isn't an adventure. Isn't it an adventure to learn? I want to learn EVERYTHING! . . . But you're right that I'm ignorant. That's why I want to learn.
Personal distinction that I see as a common academic fallacy.
In their attempt to distance themselves from their subjects academics tend to learn “about” things rather than learn things.
When you study dinosaurs or ancient Mesopotamian culture you “learn about” them because there are no living examples in anyone's back yard.
Another distinction:
When you decide to learn something you begin an adventure.
When you decide to have an adventure learning is seldom achieved, regardless of what you may think.
People who think it is a great adventure to learn “about” Japanese culture run off to Japan and traipse around in Buddhist temples wearing shoes saying “Oh, dear, isn't that a darling statue.”
They find it impossible to understand why the Japanese Buddhist feels insulted.
Deaf culture, like Japanese culture, is alive and well, and here to stay. You don't have an adventure learning “about” it.
You learn the culture and that becomes the adventure.
So riddle this:
Do you want to learn Deaf culture?
Why?
Where do you see yourself in relation to Deaf culture a year from now?
Five years from now?
Ten?
Oops.) And I've not seen racism in action a whole lot, so I guess it doesn't jump at me (like you said) when I'm sounding like it, even if I don't mean to be it. 