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Reflection on deaf culture
Reflection on deaf culture
Reflection on deaf culture
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We live in a society where we need every piece of ourselves to be ideal so we can live a perfect life. There are whole communities that live on this planet that chose to live, work, and play without a piece of themselves, and you won’t hear them complain. Over 5% of the world's population, that’s more than 360 million people, has disabling hearing loss otherwise known as deafness. For many people, the idea of living their lives in total or partial silence is unthinkable. General misinterpretations and fallacies about the Deaf have created both passive and active prejudices against the Deaf.
Many can’t afford to be deaf, they spend more on living costs than those that can hear. Between interpretation services and travel costs they have are hard
The movie “Audism Unveiled” was a very interesting and powerful movie. I never realized that deaf individuals are discriminated against. This could be partly because I have never been immersed in or educated about the deaf culture until this year. One of the things that struck me the most while watching “Audism Unveiled” was the many heart wrenching stories about children being unable to communicate with their own non-signing hearing families.. The deaf child would have to ask their family members, why everyone was laughing or what’s going on. The family members would just tell them “I’ll tell you later” or “Nevermind. It’s not important”, resulting in the individual feeling isolated. Personally, I agree with people saying that if a parent has a deaf child they should learn how to sign; communication is what brings families together. As a result, the most intriguing thing to me was the stories of family members never learning American Sign Language; leaving their family member isolated.
In the following chapters, there is an extensive amount of knowledge to learn about how Deaf culture is involved in our modern world. The pages assigned give us an outlook of how Deaf people are treated in our daily life, and how we should learn from it. Its gives a clear line between what are myths and what are facts, to those who are curious about the Deaf community or have specific questions. This book has definitely taught me new things that I could put to good use in the near future. In specific chapters, my mind really opened up to new ideas and made me think hard about questions, like “why don’t some Deaf people trust hearing people,” or “do we need another ‘Deaf president now’ revolution?” I realized many new things in the course of reading this book, and have recommended this to my family.
Kimmy Bachmann A Journey into the Deaf-World Chapter 1 The narrator begins this chapter by introducing himself as well as his colleagues and co-authors. Ben Bahan, the narrator, is a deaf man from New Jersey whom was raised by deaf parents and a hearing sister. After spending an immense amount of time studying American Sign Language (ASL) he moved on to now become an assistant professor at Gallaudet University in the Deaf studies Department. His colleague Harlan Lane, a hearing man, is a specialist in the psychology of language and having many titles is a key aspect of this book as he believes, as does most of the Deaf-World, that they are a minority language and takes up their point of view to the hearing world.
What I found most interesting about Jarashow’s presentation were the two opposing views: Deaf culture versus medical professionals. Within the Deaf culture, they want to preserve their language and identity. The Deaf community wants to flourish and grow and do not view being deaf as a disability or being wrong. Jarashow stated that the medical field labels Deaf people as having a handicap or being disabled because they cannot hear. Those who are Deaf feel as though medical professionals are trying to eliminate them and relate it to eugenics. It is perceived that those in that field are trying to fix those who are Deaf and eliminate them by making them conform to a hearing world. Those within the Deaf community seem to be unhappy with devices such
Marika Kovac-Houlihan’s TED Talk hurt me. Hearing her stories first hand truly reveals the discrimination Deaf people face. It’s an easy to listen and understand the definition of discrimination but to experience it or witness is different. Kovac-Houlihan’s intention was for the audience to be stunned by her experiences, I imagine most of those people feel the same way I currently do. Her understanding was that most hearing people see Deaf people as disable or inferior, not every hearing person thinks that way, but most do. Kovac-Houlihan believes hearing people’s assumption is “that a deaf person may be isolated, uneducated or without language” (2:29 Kovac-Houlihan). I slightly disagree with her, but there are exceptions to every rule, one individual does not always impact the thoughts of the mob. I choose this video because of my reaction to Kovac-Houlihan’s primary discussion topics: the phonocentric ideology, loss of identity, and the divide between hearing and Deaf
Many people never realize or take much notice on what deaf people go through in life, but by watching the movie "Love is Never Silent", hearing people are able to have a clear view of what it is like to be deaf in the hearing world. Many different perspectives towards how deaf people live, socialize, party or work are built by many distinctive types of people. As the movie "Love is Never Silent" shows, Margaret and her family are isolated from their community. They aren 't allowed to sign in front of the hearing because it 's strange and abnormal. Seeing a deaf person sign during a time where being different can make a person look like an outcast makes hearing people pity the deaf and end up treating them as ignorant people. Although deaf
My response to this question is two-fold. Firstly, I believe that (for the most part), Deaf people actually like being deaf. While observing my neighbor (who happens to be deaf), I realize, he is never unpleasant, he keeps an unceasing smile on his face, is eager to help us hearing neighbors whenever applicable, and in general, he always looks for the silver lining in the clouds. I don’t think that I could ever work up the nerve to ask him if he’d desired the ability to hear. I’ve never seen him preoccupied with his inability to hear, so why should I. His deafness is a part of who he is. In our book, it mentions that being Deaf is a part of the individuals’ personality, an attribute just as important to a person that is right or left-handed. Why would Deaf people want to be hearing? If a person is born deaf, such as my neighbor, they don’t find themselves missing what they never experienced. Our book lends to us the illustration of someone who is
The problem faced by the deaf community is the injustice they encounter in the criminal justice system. Someone who is deaf or hard of hearing has at least a 50 percent loss of hearing in one ear (Ridgeway 2009), and some may be able to read lips. However, only 12 of all spoken sounds can be translated into American Sign Language (Ridgeway 2009), which makes it difficult for the deaf to communicate without using sign language. Because English and sign language are not the same language, many deaf people are illiterate because of a lack of schooling past a certain age. Even those with schooling up to the age of 18 or older are often functionally illiterate, read at a grade level of second grade or below, and have unintelligible speech (Vernon 2010).
Many people of society perceive deafness to be a disability a person has at which causes them to lack the power of hearing. Many of the people whom choose to believe that those who are deaf are disabled rather than possess a simple difference amongst them have most likely never had the chance to learn about deaf culture. Only about two or three out of every thousand children are born with detectable levels of hearing loss in the United States and an entire ninety percent of deaf kids are born to two fully hearing parents. (NIDCD) Therefore, it may be possible that a large portion of society views deafness as a disability due to the lack of background knowledge on Deaf culture.
Deaf and hearing impaired individuals are know longer an out cast group. They now have there own deaf community. Deaf individuals do not consider themselves having an impairment, handicap, or any type of disability. They believe that through the use of sign language, other communication skills, and technology that there deafness is the way they are supposed to be. Many people who have perfect hearing can not understand deaf people and why they embrace there deafness instead of trying to receive hearing and get rid of there handicap. However not all deaf people have th...
Many Deaf people are opposed to the use of cochlear implants because it’s like not accepting themselves. They need to embrace who they are and cope with the tools they have without doing any surgery. In order for them to have the cochlear implant they need to go through surgery. Deaf people are opposed to other member getting the cochlear implant because it’s like if they were ashamed to be born Deaf. They believed that they want to change who they are to try to fit into the rest of the society. Although, most common people around are hearing people that does not mean other need to go through a surgery in order to fit in and not be discriminate. Society needs to
The documentary of “Through Deaf Eyes” has open my eyes to the deaf culture. The movie has made it “click” that deaf people are just that people and individuals like me. Deaf community has its struggles just like everyone else. They struggle with growing into who they are as a person, harmful situations, and feeling a sense of belonging. They just speak a different language like Italians and Hispanics. Communicating with a different language does not make them lesser than a hearing person. When able to learn to communicate, the deaf are able to learn and gain knowledge just like a hearing person. The only difference is they have to learn more and work harder to achieve their goals and gain knowledge, which a hearing person learns just by hearing their surroundings.
The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to an online transcript,“Through Deaf Eyes” (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007) there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing. Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents (Halpern, C., 1996). Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class” (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007). The deaf culture and hard of hearing have plenty of arguments and divisions with living in a hearing world without sound however, that absence will be a starting point of an identity within their culture as well as the hearing culture (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007).
In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at first, to learn of the existence of Deaf culture. To me deafness is not a defect but a source of connection. Imagine yourself deaf, growing up with a beautiful language, visual literature, humor, and theater. Imagine taking pride in your identity without any desire to become a member of the majority culture. For many deaf people, their community is a comforting relief from the isolation and condescension of the hearing world. However the Deaf community is far more than a support group for people who share a physical characteristic. Members of the Deaf community may have hearing levels that range from profoundly deaf to slightly hard-of-hearing. But no members of the Deaf community are "hearing impaired." Inside this community, deaf people become Deaf, proudly capitalizing their culture. Hearing people suddenly find that they are handicapped: "Deaf-impaired."
Deaf Culture is often misunderstood because the hearing world thinks of deafness as a handicap. The Deaf are not given enough credit for their disabilities even though they are unable to hear. Being misunderstood is the biggest reason why they are not accepted in the world of hearing. The learning process for them may be slower and more difficult to learn, but they are still very bright individuals. The problem at hand is the controversy of trying to “fix” the Deaf when they may or may not want to be “fixed”. The hearing world should give Deaf people a chance to show their true talents and abilities of intelligence before rushing to assumptions, such as hearing aids will fix all Deaf people, because Deaf are dumb, have social problems, and