Redeafined

Running list of Recent Hate Speech against the Deaf and Disabled

2016-11-10T22:46:00.001-05:00

As happened in the UK after the victory built in part on nationalist rhetoric, it's likely we'll see an uptick in discriminatory behavior here in the coming weeks. Buzzfeed is currently keeping a running list of racist incidents in the day since the election, so here follows a list of similar incidents against the Deaf and disabled community. Due to the nature of hate speech--opportunistic, invisible--the examples are anecdotal, but we've done our best to verify where possible.

We understand the tendency toward disbelief at the such brazen examples of ableism; we don't want to believe them either. That said, we'll do our best to amplify the voices of those truly victimized by this surge of hatred.

[Editor's note: Some (angry) readers have asked why we are focusing on only hate speech propagated by Trump supporters--"hate is hate" they say. This is true, but the reason we're focused-in on is vigilante hatred committed in the name of a President-elect, is precisely because the attackers invoke his name--something we've not seen to this scale since attacks on the Japanese in WWII. That said, if someone has been attacked simply for having a disability in the name of another political figure, yes, we would post that, too.]

Have an experience to add? DM us on Twitter @Redeafined or email at info[at]redeafined[dot]com

7 November, Orlando, FL: Young protester ejected from rally, supporters reportedly kick his wheelchair, via:
Gothamist
Washington Post
Kimberly DeFalco, reporter on the scene

10 November, Indiana: ITC Coordinator at the Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing education called "retarded" told to leave "white America" while signing with a friend.

12 November, Cedar Rapids, TX: Black disabled Veteran kicked out of Chili's after Trump supporter harasses him and tells management the man's service dog is not certified.
Watch the video here

What Happens When a Free Speech Advocacy Center Decides Who Gets to Speak for Whom (and Who Gets to Listen)

2016-10-27T21:05:00.000-04:00

Who Gets To Speak for the Deaf Community?

Some thoughts, on privilege, appropriation, representation, intersectionality, and how even progressives must keep moving forward.

Funny how a single well-intentioned note can derail your day. Usually I avoid looking at my email when I am trying to write, but somehow, last Wednesday, it happened—I peeked—and was pleasantly surprised to see the name of a friend and translation mentor in my inbox. Not having heard from her in a while, and with the intriguing subject line “The plenary on sign language,” I indulged. She wrote that the Free Word Centre in London had featured a presentation on sign language literature and poetry as the closing talk in its International Translation Day programming and she thought I’d be interested; however, she could only find the link to the audio recording. That can’t be right, I thought, still thrilled at the prospect that Deaf poets had been featured alongside other writers in translation. I clicked through the link and began to search. Read the rest on LitHub>

Via NYTimes Opinion: The Deaf Body in Public Space

2016-09-28T10:10:00.002-04:00

A smart op-ed from Deaf writer and Rhodes Scholar Rachel Kolb:
"'It's rude to point,' my friend told me from across the elementary-school cafeteria table. I grasped her words as I read them off her lips. She stared at my index finger, which I held raised in mid-air, gesturing toward a mutual classmate. 'My mom said so.'

I was six or seven years old, but I remember stopping with a jolt. Something inside me froze, too, went suddenly cold.

'I'm signing,' I said out loud. 'That's not rude.'"

Read the rest at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/the-deaf-body-in-public-space.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Deaf West's Spring Awakening Gets Three Tony Nominations

2016-05-03T10:44:00.000-04:00

Deaf West's revival of the musical Spring Awakening has been nominated for three Tonys: Best Revival, Best Lighting, and Best Director. Congratulations to the cast and crew of the show. (And take that, #DeafTalent naysayers! :) )

Read our Founding Editor gushing about the show on Vice here!

Beyond Inclusion

2016-04-14T17:02:00.001-04:00

As science and technology advance, genetic manipulation of our offspring is not outside the realm of possibility. But what are the ethics involved? More importantly, does a strive toward "normalcy" really help the human race?

Like all other living things on the planet, diversity makes us a stronger, more versatile population with greater capacity for empathy and innovation. In our rush to "cure" and "fix" and homogonize, we put that at risk. At a time when the concept of diversity is more valued and talked about than ever before, Deaf and disabled people remain left out.

Watch the Communication Services for the Deaf's (CSD) short film "Beyond Inclusion" and join the conversation on social media using the hashtags #beyondinclusion and #deconstructdisability.

More than Applause: Deaf Art Needs Deaf Ed (from HowlRound)

2016-04-04T11:17:00.000-04:00

This week on HowlRound, we're discussing Deaf theatre. This series is a result of the NEA Roundtable on "Opportunities for Deaf Theatre Artists" hosted by the Lark Play Development Center in New York City on January 20, 2016.

2015 was a breakthrough year for Deaf artists. Deaf West’s Broadway revival of Spring Awakening inspired rave reviews at every turn. Artist Christine Sun Kim enchanted TedTalk viewers with “the music of sign language,” and the hashtag #DeafTalent (brainchild of filmmaker Jules Dameron) trended on Twitter, garnering widespread awareness for the importance of casting Deaf actors for d/Deaf roles. Deaf people also featured prominently in the world of hearing entertainment: Deaf model/actor Nyle DiMarco won the 2015 season of America’s Next Top Model; ABC Family’s Switched at Birth entered its fourth season starring an array of Deaf and hard of hearing actors. In addition, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s Ukrainian Sign Language film The Tribe took festivals by storm across the US and Europe. It seemed like centuries of stigma against deafness might actually be falling away.

But if we look deeper, “seemed” is indeed the operative term. Simultaneously, Deaf education throughout the developed world is in a state of crisis. The medical community continues to push medical devices on parents of deaf babies, with the accompanying medical advice that the child be enrolled in oral-only education. Bilingualism, the goal for many hearing children, is framed as a fallback for deaf ones, who are supposed to focus on learning to pass in the “normal” world.

Read the rest at HowlRound >>

A NYC Theater Project Needs some Deaf Talent!

2016-03-23T19:14:00.000-04:00

SMFSA is seeking a Deaf performer/collaborator:

The performance will focus on a pair of people, one deaf and one not, moving through a historically charged space in lower Manhattan. The writing will engage the history of that space through narration and dialogue. The text will originate from the deaf performer in ASL, and at times will be translated and spoken in English by another performer. A chorus of movers will punctuate the text with movement, breath, and vocalizations, but no spoken language. Their vocalizations will at times take on qualities of spoken language, and their movements will at times take on qualities of ASL, providing a sonic and visual score for the text. There will also be four(?) dancers in the performance, performing a visual and auditory score to the text. Their movements and breath will underline and interact with the text from underneath (supporting, underscoring the text). We anticipate having about four rehearsals leading up to the performance, which will take place at Dixon Place's mainstage as part of their Performance-in-Progress series on June 14th. We're able to provide a modest fee.
Here's their website: http://smfsa.net/

Sound like it's up your alley? Email us at info[at]redeafined[dot]com, and we'll send your contact details along!

A brief history of violence against deaf people in the United States

2016-01-23T01:57:00.000-05:00

The United States has a long (and still thriving) tradition of violence and subjugation of minorities, and d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people are no exception. On some of the physical and mental violence and oppression leveled at d/Deaf people:

1. Historically deaf children were forcibly institutionalized and bound and beaten to prevent them from using sign language.

2. Historically, attempts were made to forcibly sterilize deaf people and prevent them from marrying.

2a. The leading anti-deaf group in the eugenics movement still exists and advocates against deaf rights today: the Alexander Graham Bell Association.

2b. You can find Bell's detailed "eradication plan" in his lecture "Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race."

3. Today, deaf people continue to be denied the right to education solely on the basis of their deafness:

at the early education level
at the secondary and higher education level

4. Deaf people continue to be denied the right to work based solely on their deafness.

including systematic bypassing of ADA laws by HR departments
in the arts: repeated use of hearing actors to play deaf characters

5. Deaf people are arrested without being told their rights, and jailed while denied an interpreter and pen or paper.

6. Today, deaf people are attacked and killed by the police for "failing to respond to verbal commands." Most recently:

Pearl Pearson (beaten on side of highway, Oklahoma)
Edward Miller (shot and killed in his car for "talking too loud," Florida)
John Williams (shot and killed walking down the street, Seattle)

7. Deaf people are endangered daily in hospitals without access to sign language interpreters or mental health professionals.

8. Sometimes within hours of a deaf child's birth, doctors inform parents their child is "broken" and can only be "cured" with CIs and preventing the use of sign language.

8a. Hearing children are encouraged to sign.

9. Doctors and tech companies knowingly inserted defective cochlear implants into the skulls of infants, children and adults (for years, for $).

10. Deaf boys are 3X and deaf girls 2X more likely to experience sexual assault than their hearing peers.

Ableism in the Criminal Justice System: The Case of Ms. Opal Gordon

2015-12-22T11:57:00.001-05:00

On 21 September, 2015, Ms. Opal Gordon was arrested by the NYPD for allegedly violating an order of protection. A Deaf person who's primary language is American Sign Language, Ms. Gordon was arrested without an interpreter on scene. She was transported to the 45th precinct in the Bronx, held for hours without access to an interpreter or even, according to the NY Daily News, a pen and paper, before being transferred to a cell at the Bronx criminal court, where she was held overnight.

The fact that Ms. Gordon was never brought an interpreter--despite her repeated requests for one--goes far beyond an inconvenience or preference; it is a gross (and illegal miscarriage of justice). The fact that the NYPD did not provide an interpreter means also that Ms. Gordon did not know what she was being arrested for, or what would happen next, nor was she made aware of her Miranda Rights.

What is even more disturbing is that the New York City Administration for Children's Services made an unannounced visit to Ms. Gordon's home several weeks after the incident, and they too failed to provide an interpreter. This brings into question whether ACS had communicated fully with Ms. Gordon in the past, and whether she understood the order of protection she was alleged to have violated on the 21st.

Ms. Gordon's case is yet another example in which the ableism, racism, and classism of our justice system are inextricably bonded together to form a pattern of systematic oppression against people with disabilities and minorities. Please share Ms. Gordon's story, along with the following points from Eisenberg & Baum Law Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing:

1. These cases address a complete systemic failure by the NYPD and ACS to prevent egregious discrimination against Deaf individuals. The NYPD has failed our clients, and Deaf individuals throughout the city, by blatantly violating not only to their legal rights, but their basic human rights, and our clients refuse to tolerate this abuse any longer.

2. The NYPD has been repeatedly warned that failure to ensure effective communication with Deaf individuals could have grave consequences on innocent peoples’ lives. However, the NYPD has made a conscious choice not only to skirt the requirements of the law but to violate a Consent Decree entered into with the Department of Justice in 2009.

3. First and foremost, our client wants to see change. If proper policies, training, and procedures were in place, these situations could have been prevented, and our client could have been spared these traumatic experiences. Our client wants to ensure that this does not happen again to any Deaf person.

-Eisenberg and Baum Law Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing; Eric Baum, Esq. , Andrew Rozynski, Esq., Sheryl Eisenberg-Michalowski (Deaf Liaison)

A Good Deaf Man is Hard to Find (in the World of Literature)

2015-12-02T18:01:00.001-05:00

In recent months, deaf actors have launched a series of online protests to draw attention to ableist discrimination by Hollywood production teams. They lack opportunity not because deaf characters don’t exist, but because producers refuse to use actual deaf people to play them. In response to objections to his decision to cast a hearing actor as a deaf lead character in the film Avenged, filmmaker Michael Ojeda explained that “it really wouldn’t have been logical to have a deaf girl playing the role because it was so action-intensive; she would have got hurt.” Read more on The Believer >

Review of Deaf West's 'Spring Awakening' on Broadway

2015-10-04T19:49:00.000-04:00

Photo by Joan Marcus, courtesy Deaf West Theater.

It starts in silence. Maybe it's a shift in lighting, or in the way the actors carry themselves—though they've been on stage, curtain open this whole time—but the audience senses something and is rapt almost instantly. Center stage, Wendla (played by deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank), examines her 19th-century pajama-clad self in a glassless mirror frame. On the other side of the frame, her hearing counterpart, actress Katie Boeck, stands in modern clothing. Read the rest on Vice.com

Interview with Deaf DJ Robbie Wilde

2015-09-09T15:33:00.000-04:00

I was a little nervous to interview Robbie Wilde. I had seen his name around and knew peripherally of his work as "the deaf DJ," but what I could find of him on the internet was only the usual hearing-powered drivel: an "inspirational" character who triumphed over his "handicap" to harness the power and beauty of music. Not that this is Wilde's fault—perhaps borne of genuine curiosity, perhaps brain-damaged by Mr. Holland's Opus, people who can hear just cannot resist a deaf person showing even the vaguest interest in music, so you can imagine the clichéd frenzy around Wilde's making a whole career out of it.

Still, I saw repeated mention of Wilde's "normal-sounding" speech, and couldn't find any evidence that he knew sign language. What if, where I saw deafness as a part of my cultural identity, something that enriched my worldview, Wilde really did see it as a defect to be conquered on the road to music-making? And how were he and I—two deaf people—supposed to communicate if we couldn't hear one another and he didn't know sign language?

In the end, we spoke to one another in English the way I wish I got to speak English every day: with a laid-back patience in repeating things for one another, sans tests of—"can you understand me if I do this? How about this?" and above all, without that most dreaded backhanded compliment: "Oh, but you speak so well!" At our table in the corner of a Korean bar in the Flatiron, at least for a few moments, Wilde and I reconfigured speech and sound and deafness for a new normal. And as it turns out, that's what Wilde's been doing with his music all along. Read more on vice.com>

Sign Language Interpretation at 2015 Edinburgh Book Festival

2015-07-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: True, I've got a vested interest in the Edinburgh Book Festival. I'll be there, talking about my book, Girl at War. But aside from my personal excitement about these events, I also find it remarkable that the festival coordinators are working so hard to make this week--one of the biggest book festivals in the world--so accessible to Deaf readers. I can't think of a comparable effort made here in the States, so if you're a UK Deafie, I'd urge you to put in a request for interpreters for your favorite authors' events, and spread the word!

Click here to see a list of events for which BSL interpreters are already scheduled.

Click here to request a BSL interpreter for a different event. (Requests due 31 July!)

Fun fact-- Did you know that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different? This is because both ASL and BSL are languages of their own, unrelated to English. ASL is more closely related to French Sign Language than British-- they even have different alphabets. Read more about it here >

THE TRIBE is Not a "Deaf Movie": An Interview with Yana Novikova

2015-06-23T09:49:00.000-04:00

Deaf interpreter Maleni Chaitoo, Editor
Sara Novic, and actress Yana Novikova

From vice.com:
When I first heard that The Tribe had been sweeping awards at festivals worldwide, I was skeptical. The film, written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, is set in a Ukrainian boarding school for the deaf and made exclusively in Ukrainian Sign Language (USL). I was intrigued, but assumed people's excitement had more to do with the novelty of sign language than any merit of the actual film. I expected remarks on how "inspiring" it is to see deaf people acting, the way hearing people often declare themselves inspired when a deaf person does something they deem "normal." Then I watched the film. Read more on Vice.co m >

From the Editor: What it's like to be a Deaf novelist

2015-05-25T21:58:00.002-04:00

My first novel has recently become an audiobook to which I will not listen. The characters have been assigned voices and accents and inflections that I’ll never hear. This is not a complaint, exactly; to have written a book that someone wants to publish in any and all formats is a writer’s dream. But to hold some disc or drive that contains a thing I made, transformed into a new thing I can no longer understand, is a predicament in which few writers find themselves.

This disconnect will appear with increasing frequency as I embark on a series of literary events following the launch of my novel. As an audience member I have been to my share of readings in New York. I go because I am in love with books; I go to be with my friends. But even as a spectator they require a lot of concentration, and sometimes when I’ve worked myself into a cross-eyed headache I turn off my hearing aids and dip below the surface of the sound, let myself drift in the quiet. At my own events I won’t have the choice to opt out.

Read the rest on The Guardian >

Raise your Voice: Accessibility and Travel Study

2015-03-27T11:11:00.003-04:00

Researchers at the College of Brockport (a SUNY school) need your help--they're conducting a study on accessibility in travel and tourism industries (hotels, etc.) and would love your input. You can share your experiences, opinions, and ideas using this survey: http://www.gumus.com/survey/

Reminder: ASL is a Real, Live Language. We Promise.

2015-02-12T13:39:00.004-05:00

In New York City, every time there is a severe weather announcement, the mayor gives a press conference with an ASL interpreter beside him. Immediately thereafter, the lowlier news outlets write condescending posts about the interpreter's strange, wild, or over-the-top expressive signing. [Note: Chances are, you've seen or heard about these kinds of news stories before--remember the collective conniption the media had over Lydia Callis and her interpreting during Hurricane Sandy ? There are many others, more recent than that, too. I won't do these media outlets justice by linking back to their posts here, though if you're so inclined, you'll find the links in some pointed tweets at several culpable news agencies.]

These news stories are problematic for several reasons:

1. They stem from a place of ignorance, one that reveals that journalists are happy to revel in misinformation rather than put in the 5-10 minutes of basic research that would reveal that facial expressions are key to ASL grammar. Different eyebrow movements and mouth shapes denote tone and degree, much like punctuation or inflection in written or spoken English--they are not the result of a weird or quirky signer putting some fun flavor into the mayor's state of emergency address.

2. They are condescending, representative of the ongoing ableism and audism d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people have to put up with every day. Consider the news story in which the journalist writes the equivalent of "ha ha ha! Look at that Spanish-speaking person speaking Spanish! He sounds so weird and funny because he's not speaking English!" This, of course, would never be an acceptable "news story" on any mainstream site, because it is quite obviously bigoted and belittling toward Spanish and its native speakers. The fact that the media feels okay about repeatedly presenting the equivalent of an elementary schoolgirl's giggle whenever they see ASL suggests that they do not consider or respect ASL as an actual language, or native signers actual people on par with hearing people who do not have to have their languages mocked in the daily news.

ASL has been recognized by linguists as a language distinct from, and at least as complex as, English since the 1960s. So why is it still that the news media gets such a kick out of mocking it? Part of it has to do with lack of exposure, certainly, but with the internet at our fingertips, this is becoming a rapidly less viable excuse.

To that end, below are some links to information about ASL, ASL-English Bilingualism, and political correctness in the Deaf world. Take a look, and maybe pass it on to a friend/ reporter in need:

What's the deal with ASL? (FAQs)

Bilingualism and the stigma against ASL (implications for deaf education)

Sign without stigma (What happens in communities where both hearing and deaf people use sign language)

On that time everyone freaked out about interpreter Lydia Callis

'Politically correct' terminology and deafness (what is it, and why it matters)

Alexander Graham Bell and the eugenics movement against Deaf people (what better evidence of a thriving language / culture than a deranged man trying to eradicate it?)

Recent coverage of black versus 'mainstream' ASL (the fact that these dialects developed so differently during the period of educational segregation speaks to the fact that ASL is a living language, and one that is distinct from spoken English)

Repost: Signs of Segregation-- Linguistic Differences in Black ASL

2015-02-08T17:39:00.002-05:00

With schools and communities long segregated in the US, American Sign Language developed differently amongst racial groups. A look at "mainstream" and Black ASL shows stark differences in certain vocabulary, at once serving as a painful reminder of our segregated past, and bolstering the linguistic truth of ASL as a living, evolving language, rather than a set of gestures or a manual code for English. Read about it on The Washington Post's blog.

Emergency Information Regarding Winter Storm Juno in ASL and Subtitled

2015-01-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

If you live in or around the New York City area and need information about travel, school closings, or other issues pertaining to the storm and the state of emergency, visit Notify NYC for links to videos in ASL (with English subtitles.)

For example, here's a video on who to contact about school closure questions:

Happy Holidays from Redeafined

2014-12-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

Give your child the gift of good grammar this Holiday season.Here are two versions of the famous "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in ASL:

Repost: When Inclusion Gets in the Way of Education

2014-12-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

In a post from her blog That Crazy Crippled Chick, Cara Liebowitz tells of her experiences in the mainstream and what happens when inclusion comes at the price of an actual education.

Back in high school, I habitually missed class. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because my bus was always late. I took the short bus, the butt of immature teen jokes everywhere.
The retard bus. The bus whose riders are commonly assumed to be drooling sacks of shit who don't have a brain in their heads.

Unfortunately, the transportation company seemed to share these views. Every day was a gamble, waiting for the bus and wondering if it was going to show up today. We would teeter on the cusp of late and not-late and wait til the last possible minute, when my mother, who worked in a school herself and would be late for work if she drove me to school, would haul me and my over-stuffed backpack into the car and speed off to school. More than once, the bus would conveniently show up as my mother was pulling out of the driveway. There would be no apologies, most times, from the driver and bus aide. Sometimes there would be a different driver at the wheel entirely, with no explanation whatsoever. Occasionally there would even be a random student sitting on the bus, who wasn't usually there, and no one would acknowledge the situation. And then I'd just have to pray that we wouldn't take an unexplained detour to another school or place, because that happened more than once too. My mother would come home from work, tired from a long day, and then she'd have to call the transportation company to complain about how they were late again, or how they didn't show up at all, or about how my driver was on his cell phone while driving. Nothing ever really changed.

Once I got to school, depending on how late it was, I would have to go to the attendance office and try and explain why I needed a late pass, even though I wasn't late yet. They didn't seem to understand that the lateness was inevitable, that I could not possibly drag myself up three flights of stairs (my school had an elevator, but it was dirty, creepy, and frequently broken. Plus the proximity of the elevator to where I needed to go meant that it would take the same amount of time for me to drag myself up the steps as it would for me to take the elevator.), get my books from my locker, and go down a flight of steps to my classroom and still be on time for class. By the time I finished arguing with the attendance dragons (erm, I mean "ladies"...), I would end up being late anyway. My first period teacher would then yell at me for either being late or not having my textbook, because I'd skip going to my locker in a futile attempt to get to class on time for once.

During the school day, I was frequently pulled out of class for physical and occupational therapy. Once my therapists realized that pulling me out of academic subjects wasn't a good idea, they started pulling me from lunch. I'd either scarf down my lunch and rush to therapy, or bring my lunch with me to therapy and eat before starting my exercises, acutely aware that this was cutting into my already limited therapy time. And my PT wondered why my "lunch" normally consisted of a chocolate milk and a bag of chips - it was portable, quick, and edible. And that was if I had a lunch period at all, which wasn't a given. So my therapists turned to pulling me out of resource room. The resource room period that I had specifically written into my IEP to accommodate the need for extra time on tests. Many days my therapists would come looking for me when I was trying to finish a test, and be annoyed that I hadn't shown up to therapy. My therapy period would often run over and I'd be late to class. Again.

My accommodations would often get messed up. My test would get lost on the way to my resource room teacher's mailbox. Assignments would be given that I simply did not have the motor skills for - like drawing a map of the world, for instance. The students tasked with being my notetakers would decide they just didn't feel like taking notes for me that day. My AlphaSmart, the keyboard that was my notetaking lifeline, would break in the middle of class. Accommodations for standardized tests seemed especially prickly. I was told that "Most kids who get accommodations don't take the SAT." The notion that I was both disabled and academically gifted seemed to boggle people's minds. And these were the people who were supposed to be responsible for my education.

On top of all of that, I left five minutes early from each class to beat the hallway stampede and ensure that I didn't get trampled. This averaged out to 45 minutes a day of academic learning I missed. When you consider it was almost 4 hours missed per week, it starts to add up. Frequently I would stay til the bell just to make sure I didn't miss anything important, risking my safety out in the wild high school jungle halls. One teacher would constantly give out and collect homework after I left. When pressed about it by my mother, she had the audacity to respond: "It's not my responsibility to remind Cara when to hand in her homework."

Despite everything, I graduated high school in the top quarter of my class, gained acceptance into a fairly elite college (though I ended up going to a less elite college), and earned enough AP credits to allow me to graduate college a year early. I often wonder how much better I could have done had all those barriers not been in my way - barriers, it is important to note, had nothing to do with my actual impairment, but instead everything to do with the environment around me. This is where the social model of disability comes in. I had impairments in high school - I will always have impairments - but it is the societal barriers around me that actually disabled me and prevented me from reaching my full potential.

When and where did we get the idea that it is okay to give disabled students a sub-par education? The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) states that all students are entitled to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). Was my education free? Yes, and so was the therapy and other associated services I received - which is exactly why my parents didn't choose to have me go to therapy outside of school like many other disabled children. We couldn't afford it. But was it appropriate? I don't think so. Though many would say my high school education was a prime example of model inclusion, I tend to disagree. My education was a dispirited attempt to show that my school was inclusive - nothing more. I fear the same is true for many disabled children across the nation.

The education system in America is failing all children, but none more so than disabled children. In our rush to secure equal rights and acceptance, we have skipped a crucial step. We are arguing for inclusion, which is certainly a noble and just cause, and one that I advocate for often, but without having the necessary pre-requisites in place. First, we must ensure that all children, including and especially those with disabilities, receive a quality education. Inclusion means nothing if a child is not receiving a good education, which is, in fact, the very reason we have schools in the first place.

Therapy and other obligations overshadow a disabled child's day. A quality education means all the tools are in place for a child to succeed in school - including safe and reliable transportation to and from school, an edible and nutrient filled lunch that's designed to help children focus, time to eat said lunch, necessary adaptations to curricula, and individual accommodations. Notice that therapy wasn't in that list. Therapy can be useful for minimizing pain and maximizing independence, but when it starts taking precedence over academics, there's a problem. For children, school is their job. We must ensure that they are allowed to perform the functions of that job to the best of their ability, just as they will be expected to do in the "real world" with a "real job."

It's time to go back to basics. Let's put education first.

Thanks for letting us share, Cara. To read more about mainstream versus Deaf school education here on Redeafined, check out these posts:

"Deaf School vs. Mainstreaming Pros and Cons"

"Guest Post: Welcome to the Mainstream" (An excerpt of Mark Drolsbaugh's Madness in the Mainstream)

"The Benefits of a Mainstream Education for Deaf Students"

Information about Ebola in ASL

2014-10-24T22:55:00.001-04:00

Need some information about Ebola and its transmission? Here's an ASL interpreted video from the Mayor's press conference in NYC on Friday:

Deaf Students Rally for Opportunity to Serve in Military

2014-09-26T10:24:00.001-04:00

Students at the North Carolina School for the Deaf traveled to Washington DC earlier this month in an attempt to draw attention to the fact that the deaf and hard-of-hearing are not allowed to serve in the military. While safety concerns are often noted as the reason behind the rule, students were confident they'd be a good fit for several kinds of non-combat roles. You can see more images from their trip here.
While it makes sense that being deaf or hard-of-hearing could be potentially hazardous in a combat situation, the military employs many people with other kinds of disabilities in noncombatant roles. The ongoing refusal to allow D/deaf people to serve seems to highlight a special kind of ableism that has little to do with the reality of a person's ability to do the work, and more to do with an established set of stereotypes or prejudices (reminiscent of the recently repealed "Don't Ask Don't Tell" mandate).

Deafness and Mental Health

2014-08-11T20:43:00.000-04:00

Having heard about the sudden death of Robin Williams this evening (likely the result of depression and suicide) I wanted to put out some information on deafness and mental health I've been meaning to post for quite some time.

The fact of the matter is that deaf people statistically have more mental health issues and less access to care than the general population. The reasons for this are relatively simple--deaf people are more likely to experience isolation, even within their family unit, if friends and family members don't make an effort to facilitate communication. The US News & World Report says children who cannot make themselves understood within their family are four times more likely to have mental health problems. To learn more about communicating with a deaf family member, read one mom's perspective here.

Additionally, other abuses also befall deaf children at higher rates, with one study reporting that deaf boys were 3x more likely and deaf girls 2x more likely to experience sexual assaults (likely from predators who think a deaf child doesn't have the means to communicate the abuse to an authority figure).

Access to mental health care, and health care in general is notoriously difficult for deaf patients. (Check out Charlie Swinbourne's Guardian op-ed "How Long Before a Deaf Person Dies in Hospital for Want of an Interpreter?") Access to medical interpreters or health professionals who understand how to communicate with a deaf person are few, and aren't always readily available in emergency situations. This deficit then creates a cyclical effect in which deaf and hard-of-hearing people are less likely to trust doctors ore to seek treatment at all.

Even at a prestigious and generally inclusive Ivy League institution like Columbia University, for example, one cannot make an appointment to visit the Counseling and Psychological Services center without first submitting to a phone interview. And while some might argue that relay technology makes this kind of call possible, consider that if a person were distraught or otherwise in a fragile mindset, this barrier might be enough to keep them from seeking and getting the care they need.

Do you have a healthcare story you want to share? Email us at info[at]redeafined[dot]com

Do you or someone you know need help with a healthcare issue?

Check out the NAD's rights for the deaf and hard-of-hearing in healthcare

E-chat with a suicide prevention counselor here

Short Story with a Deaf Protagonist

2014-06-30T02:55:00.002-04:00

Looking for some beach reading? Our founding editor's got a short story (with a Deaf narrator) in this issue of the Massachusetts Review:

Everything that moves makes a sound, my mother told me once. It was her response to a firestorm of test-cases, me running around our house pointing and saying, How about that? How about that?
Everything, she said.
Of course there are the obvious examples: feet stomping, drawers shutting, vibrations I can feel. But with other things — the ceiling fan, the flicking of switches and igniting of bulbs — I’m not so sure.
[Read the rest for free here >]