Alexander Graham Bell: American Hero or Deaf Boogie Man?

Most of us know Alexander Graham Bell as an incredible inventor but for Deaf people Bell is often seen as the Boogie man lurking in the corner desperately trying to destroy their lives. Read on.

Deaf Protestors at Alexander Graham Bell Convention

Friday July 27, 2007

Today (July 27) a small group of deaf protestors showed up at the site where the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing was holding its 2007 Summer Conference (July 27-28). Some of the protestors were confronted by hotel management staff, resulting in unpleasant moments. Protestors attempted to distribute flyers and engage convention attendees.

The protestors at the AG Bell conference are deaf people who have been hurt by the impact of oralism, or being denied sign language, on their lives. Some have been hurt academically. Others have been hurt socially. All are concerned with what they see as the growing popularity of baby sign language for hearing babies, while more deaf babies are being implanted and not exposed to sign language.

Deaf people are discussing the irony of encouraging hearing infants and toddlers to use sign language, while encouraging deaf babies through the auditory verbal method, to only use speech and sound. This irony was first exposed through Amy Cohen Effron's vlog, "The Greatest Irony," (Available with voice interpretation) and illustrated by a cartoon by deaf cartoonist Maureen Klusza.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today's parents of implanted deaf babies are making choices. Some are choosing to raise their children totally orally, without sign language. Others are choosing to raise their children with both sign language and spoken communication.

It should not be a choice, say the protestors. Sign language is the deaf child's natural language. In at least one foreign country, sign language exposure for deaf babies is mandatory. The thinking goes, even if you can hear sound, you are still missing something. You are still deaf even with an implant or a hearing aid. You are especially deaf when the implant or hearing aid is not being used.

For many deaf people, particularly those who had grown up orally, sign language has been the key to several things: a social life. a better education. personal happiness. a sense of belonging.

Once again, the deaf community is divided over an issue. Some, filled with pain and anger over their life experiences, support the protest. Others, also with pain and anger, may agree with what the protestors are saying but may not agree with the tactic of conducting a public protest. (Update: I personally do not agree with the tactic of conducting a protest. I understand the feelings of the protestors, but I do not support the tactic of protesting.)

The protestors are directing their anger at AG Bell, when oralism is actually the result of a combination of factors. It is the result of the combination of medical professionals, teachers of the deaf, and parents all wanting the deaf children to be "normal." The protestors are arguing that it is perfectly normal to be deaf and use sign language. Thanks to modern technology, a deaf child growing up today who communicates only through sign language can have just as good a life as a deaf child who grows up communicating only through voice.

Regardless of whether you support the protest or not, it is important to read the many blogs on this issue and try to understand the depths of the pain that deaf people feel over how they have been raised, and treated, by hearing people.

In my opinion, no deaf poem expresses the feeling of what it means to be deaf, and probably the feelings of the protestors and the bloggers who are writing about their growing up oral experiences, better than the classic poem "You Have to Be Deaf to Understand," written by Willard Madsen in 1971. This poem has been reprinted frequently on the internet. Here it is:

What is it like to "hear" a hand?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to be a small child,
In a school, in a room void of sound --
With a teacher who talks and talks and talks;
And then when she does come around to you,
She expects you to know what she's said?
You have to be deaf to understand.

Or the teacher thinks that to make you smart,
You must first learn how to talk with your voice;
So mumbo-jumbo with hands on your face
For hours and hours without patience or end,
Until out comes a faint resembling sound?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to be curious,
To thirst for knowledge you can call your own,
With an inner desire that's set on fire --
And you ask a brother, sister, or friend
Who looks in answer and says, "Never Mind"?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What it is like in a corner to stand,
Though there's nothing you've done really wrong,
Other than try to make use of your hands
To a silent peer to communicate
A thought that comes to your mind all at once?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to be shouted at
When one thinks that will help you to hear;
Or misunderstand the words of a friend
Who is trying to make a joke clear,
And you don't get the point because he's failed?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to be laughed in the face
When you try to repeat what is said;
Just to make sure that you've understood,
And you find that the words were misread --
And you want to cry out, "Please help me, friend"?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to have to depend
Upon one who can hear to phone a friend;
Or place a call to a business firm
And be forced to share what's personal, and,
Then find that your message wasn't made clear?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to be deaf and alone
In the company of those who can hear --
And you only guess as you go along,
For no one's there with a helping hand,
As you try to keep up with words and song?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like on the road of life
To meet with a stranger who opens his mouth --
And speaks out a line at a rapid pace;
And you can't understand the look in his face
Because it is new and you're lost in the race?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to comprehend
Some nimble fingers that paint the scene,
And make you smile and feel serene,
With the "spoken word" of the moving hand
That makes you part of the word at large?
You have to be deaf to understand.

What is it like to "hear" a hand?
Yes, you have to be deaf to understand.

****

Blogs covering the AG Bell Protest, in order of appearance

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008

FUTURE SHOCK: DEAF HOLOCAUST

Holocaust is a destruction of life and is known as a form of genocide. The elimination of deafness is a typical of holocaust. Deaf children locally and nationally (and internationally) are the victims of holocaust being done by the medical profession and the schools that promote cochlear implanting. The deaf children are becoming the vanishing breed and the deaf leaders are looking the other way. This is a holocaust being initiated by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and this came a long way since his vision of eliminating the deaf from human race that started in 1880. Bell as well as other people throughout the history are considered perpetuators of crime against the deaf humanity.

The picture on the right is A.G. Bell being considered as the public enemy number one in the deaf community.

Creator of Deaf Holocaust

In 1883, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell presented a paper titled "Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race" before the National Academy of Science in New Haven, Connecticut. He did not believe that deaf persons should be allowed to marry each other. He was totally against the idea of having deaf have intermarriages. He was worried about the type of race that the deaf had demonstrated in the early 19th century.

Thanks to Laurent Clerc for the advancement of deaf human race. We were coming out of oppression into indepedence. With the use of sign language, we were capable and functioning citizens.

Bell noted that man was able to modify breeds of animals by careful selection. He wanted to apply the same procedure to genetics. It is a new kind of genocide where he wanted to eliminate deaf from the race.

Bell used oral philosophy as a hidden agenda to accomplish his plan to eliminate the deaf from the face of the earth. He did not approve of the educational system where the deaf work with the deaf in education settings. He succeeded in getting the infamous Milan 1880 mandate that stopped the use of sign language in classrooms. He did not approve of the deaf socializing among themselves, having reunions, having social gatherings, forming their own clubs and associations, publishing their own newspapers, holding religious worships, and having state and national conventions as further encouraging social intercourse among them. Such association, Bell believed, restricted deaf persons' selection of partners and friends. Bell thought about enacting a law banning such intermarriages. It backfired on him.

He saw forbidding congenitally deaf persons from marrying each other as one way to check the "evil" although he admitted that "proving that a person had been born "deaf" would probably make the law inoperative."

To Bell - the ideal condition is to have only one deaf child in a school with hearing children. Bell opposed the employment of deaf teachers and considered them "another element favorable to the formation of a deaf race therefore to be avoided."

Bell had trouble getting support from the deaf as one noted educator of the deaf opposed him. Dr. Phillips G. Gillet, superintendent of the Illinois School for the Deaf studied 1,886 students and alumni of the school and found no justification for Dr. Bell's position.

George W. Veditz, a deaf teacher, called Alexander Graham Bell the American most feared by the deaf people saying, "he comes in the guise of a friend, and is therefore, the most to be feared enemy of the American deaf, past and present."

Albert Ballin, teacher and Bell had differing views on deaf education. Both did oppose residential schools for deaf children.

Bell wanted complete oralism while Ballin preferred sign language and fingerspelling.

Dr. Bell - A Negative Thinker

Dr. Bell had been harping about the dangers of the formation of a deaf race and the relationships among groups. He said that the segration of deaf-mutes, the use of the sign language and the employment of deaf teachers produce an environment that is unfavorable to the cultivation of articulation and speech-reading and that sometimes cause the disuse of speech.

Fast-foward to present day (2008), some hearing people have continued to carry on this hidden agenda of carrying on Dr. Bell's beliefs by maintaining oral schools for the deaf and some programs geared for elimination of deafness.

The schools that advocate oralism have succeeded in "brainwashing" the communities that the schools are located in to believe their success stories in using oral methods that only last a short time for the duration of education at specific schools. They are taking advantage of parents who are confused and hurt by the shock of having deaf children in their families. They work hard on educating the communities about their so-called programs and they have succeeded in "pulling wool over their eyes" (making money) They claim that those things work.

VEDITZ RIDICULED BELL AS ONE OF THE PHAROAHS

In the early 1900's, George Veditz expressed concern that, "A new race of pharoahs that knew not Joseph" are taking over the land and many of our American schools. They do not understand signs for they cannot sign. They proclaim that signs are worthless and of no help to the deaf. Enemies of sign language - they are enemies of the true welfare of the deaf.

Methods used to ban the use of sign language in classrooms were barbarian and that was the result of the problems throughout the 20th and 21st century. In order to concentrate on speech methods and oral methods, the teachers would resort to do these following things. They asked for cooperation of parents. They refused to hire deaf teachers, even their own products. Deaf children were told that using sign language was bad and degrading. They were told that it would prevent them from growing up "normal" and that they would not be able to live in a hearing world if they relied on sign language.

Suppression methods were used in forcing the deaf children to sit on their hands, put the hands in desk out of sight, slapping the child's mouth with a chalky eraser, tie the child's hands behind the back and used rulers to slam on the palms, they even used soap to put in mouths of any stubborn deaf child, they even put hands under scalding hot water, they even force the child to disrobe and also many other barbarian acts against poor deaf children. It will take entire length of column to describe the horrors. It is being described in the upcoming film, "THE BLUE RIBBON STORIES" to be out by Fall 2009.

DEAF HOLOCAUST - A debate to start with...

You can realize what that word means. It is often scary to think how hearing people remain hell-bent on eliminating the deaf from the human race by any methods imaginable in their quest for pathological actions. Deaf people has been around for thousands of years and the society continues to think otherwise.

We, the Deaf Advocates, leaders, friends, relatives, lovers, families, etc do not see the need for elimination of deaf. The hearing people continue to be so pathological in that sense they are hurting and tampering on our rights in life.

It is time to STAND UP and say, "Enough is enough!"

**adapted for today's blog from Jan/Feb 1996 - St. Louis DEAF ADVOCATE - FUTURE SHOCK: DEAF HOLOCAUST - Paul Kiel's editorial, Deaf Heritage by Jack Gannon and other notes from the old file of Jan/Feb 1996.

post comments, thoughts, questions, and feelings. Please ask each other questions and create a discussion.