Warning: Documentary is tough to watch
Recently, I attended the International Deaf History conference in Toronto. There were over 325 participants and they all represented 25 different countries. Most (if not all) participants were all Deaf or Hard of Hearing with their own signed languages. I had an excellent time communicating especially with those who spoke French including from Martinique, Nigeria and France (When I told them I know a little Quebecois sign language and they all exclaimed "ugh, pussies. the lots of them" ). The workshops were brilliant because there were different interpreters for different people -- there were international signed languages, french sign language, swedish sign language, british sign language -- all standing up on the stage for specific categories of people learning about a particular subject.
Unfortunately, despite the good time, I was perturbed because we were being told that we needed to continually record our experiences as a Deaf person because there's a chance that we will cease to exist.
A documentary was shown about the holocaust and Deaf individuals. The problem with the documentary is that the history of sterilization and eradication of Deaf people or those with physical/mental disabilities seem to be repeating itself in some forms.
For instance: Cochlear implants, stem cells research, designer babies.
Furthermore, other evidences of possible eradiction in the future including those who are resistant to providing access/accommodations for the Deaf. There are also employers who think Deaf people are "retarded" and cannot work. When this situation happen and the Deaf individuals are unable to find employment, they are forced to go on welfare. Once they are on welfare, the hearing community get pissed about those "damn retards" and demand changes.
Interestingly enough; there are new statistics that are showing that the number of deaf people on welfare are increasing. At the same time, there are evidence showing the same number are getting cochlear implants, raised in a hearing/mainstream environment, learning speech instead of signed language. The illusion is that when one could 'speak', they could get jobs. The statistics says otherwise.
Whenever I visit new mothers with their deaf babies. Often they would confide in me and admit that if they had known their babies were deaf before birth, they would've aborted it. That kind of admission depressed the hell out of me because often when I say "Well, um. I'm Deaf and I'm happy. I don't see a problem with being the way I am". Most of the mothers would retreat and say "I don't mean YOU! I mean, y'know...I want my child to have a normal life".
I'm not normal? What is the definition of being normal? Are we all normal?
Documentary is subtitled. You will notice different signed languages in the video -- which might be interesting to some of my readers.
Click to view