From: rggentry@galluj
Subject: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Organization: Gallaudet University
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 20:26:49 GMT

Lew, you're starting ANOTHER worthless argument.

As a matter of fact, ALL you do is argue. 

Why don't you state your actual concerns?  It's easy enough for anybody with
decent rhetorical skills to take any message in this conference or any other
conference I ever read and find something wrong with it and spit it back at the
original author with your "in your face, mutha" attitude.

Lew, as near as I can tell, you don't like being automatically identifiied with
deaf culture. We've finally learned for certain that, audiologically speaking,
at least, you are deaf or hard of hearing.  From what I can tell, you haven't
based the construction of your sense of self-identity on your ears and how well
they do or don't work.

Lew, that's fine with me, and as near as I can tell fine with other people that
have sent messages to the conference. You have a right to remind people that
not all deaf and hard of hearing people use sign language. I, who am hard of
hearing and have been since age 3, was educated in the public schools without
interpreters or notetakers (I don't really need them in most classroom
situations), and learned to sign at age 25 as a classic late arrival in deaf
culture, understand your situation and have experienced it myself.

Would you mind, Lew, telling us whether or not you use sign language and
whether or not you have deaf friends whom you converse with in sign language?
Now, I don't care whether you do or not---care in the sense of judging you. But
I would like to know because it would help me to continue to construct this
image I am getting of you from the conference.

Now, as to this latest worthless brouhaha, the young man may or may not be able
to find any other deaf people, signers or oral, on his campus. The first place
to ask is Voc Rehab. Yes, there are plenty of deaf non-signers...but don't
forget that there are *oral* interpreters, too. I've watched Rocky Stone,
president of Self-Help for Hard of Hearing People, use one, as well as other
hard of hearing or deaf people. And there are other services that deaf
non-signers in a college environment may want, such as notetakers, or assistive
listening devices. Finally, unless registration procedures have changed since I
last attended one of several colleges (grin---but hey, I succeeded eventually)
Voc Rehab should be tracking all deaf and hard of hearing people at a campus
whether or not they request services. Just as people are asked to list their
race and sex on various forms when they enter college, they are asked to list
their (uh-oh, the H-word) handicaps or (uh-oh, the D-word) disabilities. 

Now, maybe lots of oral or non-signing deaf and hard of hearing people simply choose
not to identify themselves as such on official forms. That's not my experience,
but I'm not going to assert that my experience is universal. And maybe there
are a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people who don't sign. But I've never
found a stat and believe me, I've looked. Yes, I have seen the various
projections for different age groups based on extrapolations of epidemiological
data. But as Lew has often pointed out, not everyone who is deaf or hard of
hearing signs. We simply don't know how many sign and how many don't. So we can
make no firm estimates, and make no credible assertions, that the young man
will find 1, 6, 35, or 75 deaf or hard of hearing people, signers or
non-signers, on his campus. He says he has tried and he seems believable to me.
He is engaged in good work. Why clutter up his life, Lew?

In addition, I would like to point out that no one can say with any authority
that there are more oral deaf and hard of hearing people than there are signing
deaf and hard of hearing people, or vice versa.   


As far as the young man saying that you were lucky to have other deaf people on
campus, Lew, I don't see why you need to try and make an issue out of that,
other than you like to provoke combat. If you don't need to associate with deaf
people out of a need to be with people like yourself, but associate with deaf,
hard of hearing, or hearing people based on interests, attractions, or mutual
esteem, that's fine. I don't associate with people based on whether they're
hearing or not or sign or not either. But this young fellow is looking forward
to the possibility of sharing his work and experiences with other culturally
deaf people and quite naturally extrapolated his feelings onto you.

Ok, so he was wrong. You don't need to bond with anyone based on your deafness. 
You can say so politely, can't you?

In signing off, Lew, please let me invite you to express your concerns to the
members of the conference FULLY. If you feel that sign language and other
elements of deaf culture are overemphasized at the expense of deaf and hard of
hearing people who choose not to enter deaf culture, how does that affect you?
Does it make life harder for you? Do you feel you are being cheated of
something--recognition or respect, perhaps? Do you ever feel you're being
labeled in a way you don't want to be labeled?

These are the kind of things that you can discuss with the members of the
conference that will make a difference in the way people view you and others
like you, Lew. Not these worthless arguments you start that go on for days
until people just give up trying to have an honest dialogue.


Sincerely,


Randall Gentry "Anything that can be done, can be done backwards." 
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