From: garvey@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Heather Garvey)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Subject: Re: Ear Tags
Date: 3 Sep 1992 03:56:45 GMT
Organization: Smith Undergrad Lab, CWRU, Cleve. OH
NNTP-Posting-Host: colima.scl.cwru.edu
X-Post-Machine: colima.scl.cwru.edu

91babik@gw.wmich.edu (Lisamarie Gemma Babik) writes:
>garvey@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Heather Garvey) writes:
>> 
>Geez Heather!  Settle down!  I am not a cold hearted ice-woman!  
>Geez-o-petey-Lord-almighty!  Cut me some slack here!

	Sorry. I guess a lot of that reaction was after reading 
post after post with people saying the equivalent of "Hey, let's make 
deafness a positive thing! Why wouldn't you want to be deaf? Deaf
is the best thing since powdered toast!"

	Hate to burst some militant bubbles, but losing ANY of the 
five senses is NOT nifty. Like I said, you (and others [Thanks for 
clarifying WHAT they were sticken about....:)]) should not spend 
the rest of your lives moaning and groaning about it. I'm not implying 
that you lay down and DIE or anything, but you almost seem HAPPY
and EXCITED that you are lacking a sense. I will never be able to 
understand that. 
	<tries to explain this...> It's not that you shouldn't 
have a sense of community and be proud of it, or be proud of the 
fact that you can do whatever you set your mind to, no matter what
misguided people may throw in your way. It's this "Being deaf is
the greatest! Everyone should be deaf! That hearing stuff is some
silly evolutionary throwback! We don't need it anymore!" image.
	You (Lisamarie) may not have said that, but this tone
has been creeping into this newsgroup lately right alongside the
"We are Deaf, not deaf!" militants. Actually, you are both. One
would be considered a cultural distinction (Deaf) and one is a
medical fact. That why 'hearing-impaired' is an ideal word to 
describe the range of PHYSICAL distinctions among people whose hearing
requires some label for simple explanitory purposes. As a CULTURAL 
distinction it sucks, because not all hearing-impaired people 
would consider themselves part of the Deaf CULTURE. 


>Everyone at the reunion got geeked out about me losing my hearing, not that 
>I had to quit music.  A lot of them didn't know I was majoring in music and 
>that fact usually came out a bit later in conversation.

	Well, you didn't mention that. I assumed that high school
friends would have known of your enjoyment of music and desire to
follow up with it.

>However, if I spent the rest of my life thinking "oh poor me! I'm going 
>deaf!"  I'd never get on with my life....  I didn't just "give up" music, 
>either.  I fought tooth and nail to hold on to it, but occaisionally you
>have to take a reality check and (if you'll excuse the pun) face the music.

	But these people hardly had the time to 'get used' to it. 
If they had been friends all during this time, they probably wouldn't
still be saying "Awww, poor Lisamarie!" :) Of course, I was going on
the assumption above.
	If I found out my old friend, Pete (real example), could no longer 
dance due to a degenerative knee condition, I would be shocked and
upset. But if I had been around him all that time, I would have a 
picture in my head of someone who did something instead of dancing
(since he, over time, couldn't do that anymore, he had to be 
doing *something* else). But NOW when I think of Pete, it's always of 
his grace and style and choreographic creativity. If I was told tomorrow
about the above, I would not have the time to rethink that picture
without at least a little "Man, what a bummer!". :)
	See? 


--
	" ...dealing with Free-Net makes me very angry  | Heather "Moose"
and gives me thoughts of breaking things and torturing  | Garvey, Biochem 93'
small animals. "   --  Bruce Ikenaga <bxi@po.cwru.edu>  | <hlg@po.cwru.edu>
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