INDIANA’S HB 1367 – Send Your Letter of Opposition Now!!!

If you keep up with the political happenings around the country, especially those points that will affect the Deaf and Hard of Hearing population, you might already know about Indiana’s House Bill #1367. If you are not familiar with this, you can read it at:

http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2012/HB/HB1367.1.html?tr=y&auid=10213723

The main point of this bill is to remove the current outreach center at the Indiana School of the Deaf and replace it with a new one. This simply does not make any sense. For one, the school already has a center that is well-serving its community. There’s no information to the contrary. There’s also no reason financially or otherwise to fire all of those workers and start anew. However, when you take a look at the group that pushing this bill, you might understand better what’s going on.

I did some reading of material both SUPPORTING this bill and of the OPPOSED group and I can whole-heartedly say that I feel this bill should be OPPOSED. The most interesting fact I found was that the main supporter for this bill is Hear Indiana. If you visit their site, you will first see that they are a chapter of the Alexander Graham Bell Association, which is a staunch proponent of oralism. They believe in the No-Signing “rule,” and vehemently push for cochlear implants in babies and young children, oralism and audism. See my blogs about AG Bell “He Ain’t As Great As They Think He Is,”

and Oralism “You Say Oralism Isn’t Perfect? Right On,Brother!”

for more of my comments on those two issues.

Hear Indiana’s Mission Statement, which they proudly post, is, on all three parts, for the use of “spoken language” for all Deaf and Hard of people. They are opposed to teaching them the use of their native language, American Sign Language. They are adamant about the use of “spoken language,” as if that were THE answer for all Deaf and Hard of Hearing people out there. No one can say what is best for ALL. In fact, there IS no “best for all.” Everyone is different. However, this group does not see it that way.

The fact of the matter is that Hear Indiana wants the current outreach center at the Indiana School of the Deaf replaced so that they can push oralism into the school and community. That’s how I feel, anyway. And it’s wrong. And we, as a people who are, know, and/or care about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing population, need to oppose this bill. Most importantly, we need to make our feelings heard now, before they vote on the amended bill.

You can do this easily, by clicking on the below link and sending an email or emails to the Indiana Legislators stating your opposition to HB  1367.

http://www.in.gov/cgi-bin/legislative/contact/contact.pl

HE AIN'T AS GREAT AS THEY THINK HE IS

BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

When I begin an American Sign Language class, I try to make sure that everyone not only learns sign language, but perhaps most importantly, also learns about the population who uses it. Deafness is something that almost always shocks hearing people when they delve into such things as Deaf Culture and Deafhood and what they mean.

There are several capacities to our culture that many hearing people tend to shut their eyes to. However, not all are avoiding the subject; many are simply misinformed.

Deaf history is also very important to learn about if you’re interested in learning our language, so that people can see how far we’ve come in the past decade. We still have a heck of a ways to go though. And, inarguably, one of the biggest figures in the past movements of the deaf and hard of hearing was Alexander Graham Bell.

AG (as I will call him) is known by many individuals, organizations, and doctors, as a huge supporter of deaf and hard of hearing people. I mean, hey, he had a deaf wife, a deaf mother, and he invented the telephone as a way to try to help deaf people communicate. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Didn’t work at all for us and actually caused more oppression, but, hey, you accomplished something. Right?

AG’s known in the Hearing world as a supporter, yet he is known in history to be anything but that. In fact, you see, AG was completely against Sign Language. He was completely against many things related to the deaf and hard of hearing. He was a strict oralist and, oh yeah,….

Ever heard of eugenics? Does World War II ring a bell? Hitler? Nazism? Well, remove one Adolph Hitler and replace him, at another time and place, with AG and you’re pretty close in deciphering his attitude to this “defective race.” Yes, I said “defective.” So did he.

See, AG had this theory that, if the country could keep deaf people separated and they didn’t socialize with each other, things would be easier. Deaf people would eventually disappear. If they could make a mandate that deaf people cannot marry, (and why not throw in some sterilization of deaf people?), they’d have the “problem” covered.

His reasoning? If deaf people didn’t have children and they stayed away from each other, “those kind of people” would eventually die off.  Nice. Kind of gives you a warm, tingly feeling, don’t it?

But, thankfully (times a million), his ideas didn’t stick for the entire COMMUNITY. Sure, there are definitely areas where oralism rules supreme, but there are also lots of places where ASL is accepted and Deaf people are simply a minority with their own language and customs.

As you can see, AG Bell, is one of the most well known advocates against Sign Language and yet ASL prevails. As George Veditz said a long time ago (1913), “As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs.” It’s true. I guess I just wanted to get rid of people’s notions that AG helped the signing community. He may be, in my opinion, one of the most notorious figures in Deaf History.