Opinion, provocative, editorial, perspective, call-to-action, soapbox, pet peeves, prescriptive…
This article by deaf lawyer Kelby Brick is the most succinctly and eloquently written synopsis of the Gallaudet protest I’ve seen to date — and it puts the hearing media’s coverage of the event to shame!
I first saw a link to this article on ridorlive.com.
Thanks to my friend and colleague who tipped me off to this poll and its accompanying article: Gallaudet Dumps Incoming President – AOL News
After my friend voted today shortly after noon, he wrote:
What do you think of the school’s decision to fire its incoming president?
It seems unfair 46%
It seems fair 30%
Not sure 24%
Total Votes: 13,115OK, so again, not a scientific poll and most of these people responding are, of course, hearing and have little to no knowledge of Deaf culture. Just thought I’d share the thoughts of a few (thousand) others.
I was one of the 30% who said is seems fair, though I wish they had a column that said, “Just but long overdue.”
I just voted now after 6 PM MST (“It seems fair,” of course) and sadly, the results were still exactly the same: (more…)
I have been an ASL interpreter since 1990 and have trusted NPR as my primary news source for more than a decade. Sadly, you shook my faith in your reporting last night when you made ostensibly “factual” statements about Jane K. Fernandes that sounded like they came right out of her administration’s Public Relations Office.
Dr. Fernandes couldn’t have described herself better than you did when you said, “She’s deaf, but some protesters don’t like that she grew up speaking and reading lips, before she learned sign language.”
Contrary to what Dr. Fernandes would like the world to believe, her late ASL acquisition is not what the protesters don’t like about her. Shame on you for being a mouthpiece for Fernandes! You should have done your homework and read that blog you reported about: ridorlive.com. Or, for primary source material, you could have read the many statements and open letters at gufssa.org. Read those, along with the blog entries syndicated at deafread.com, and then you will be qualified to report on what Gallaudet University faculty, staff, students, and alumni don’t like about Fernandes.
The statement, “Others resent the tough decisions she’s made as a long-time administrator,” sounds just like Fernandes, too. (more…)
The “attitude” of an interpreter toward ASL and Deaf Culture is highly valued by the deaf consumers we serve. Hence, an ASL ITP should teach the attitudes and cultural values that are desired by deaf consumers. Some say that one way to weed out “unsuitable types” from ITP’s and from the interpreting field is to pre-screen candidates to ITP’s to check for personality suitability. I disagree with this. I believe it is prejudiced and discriminating to disallow students to enter an ITP based on some personality inventory delivered and interpreted by people who are not licensed psychologists. For that matter, even if one brought in licensed psychologists to “pre-screen” candidates, I would be offended.
Some people claim that deaf consumers “used to” naturally select interpreters who were suitable and weed out those who are not, but “so much has changed in the last several years” that the deaf culture is no longer fulfilling this function and that it now must be taken up by college faculty. For one thing, where is the evidence that the deaf community no longer weeds out unsuitable interpreters? There are still many processes by which deaf consumers can assert control over who interprets for them. If enough deaf consumers refuse to work with an interpreter, that interpreter will not work. There are grievance processes in place. I would bet that most ITP’s don’t even have the luxury of turning away students because not that many people are clamoring to become ASL interpreters. If you teach in a community that really has that many people who want to become ASL interpreters, why not allow them into the program, teach them what they need to know, send them on their way, and let the free market sort them out? (more…)
A fellow interpreter tipped me off to a bizarre website the other day called signchido.com. The website is a sort of “infomercial” for an inspirational form of “moving prayer” that attempts to incorporate ASL into Tai Kwan Do Tai Chi. The woman who invented it says she is a doctor who designed Sign Chi Do to help patients “synchronize body, heart, and mind.” I suppose one could argue that anything that helps people heal is a good thing — and they may have a point — but there is something so “infomercial-ly” about this whole scheme, and I don’t believe anyone should profit from ASL at the expense of the American deaf community and their language.
I would not take issue with Sign Chi Do if it incorporated ASL in a way that would make sense to a person who relies on ASL for communication, if all of the videos on the website were captioned, and if even one of the three “testimonial” videos featured a deaf person!
Unfortunately, the whole scheme seems to be a concoction of someone who has co-opted the language of a people without involving the people she took the language from, and no attempt seems to have been made to reach out to the very people who created the language in the first place. It all appears to be a feel-good entertainment for hearing people who have never met a deaf person nor taken a sign language class.
For the benefit of people who cannot hear the singing on the videos, as well as for the benefit of people who don’t know ASL, I have watched and listened to the introductory video, transcribed the song lyrics, and translated (or back-translated, if you will) the “ASL” (if you can call it that).
Daniel Greene 