Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!26!Jack.O'keeffe.Of.129/26
From: Jack.O'keeffe.Of.129/26@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Jack O'keeffe Of 129/26)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Hearing
Message-ID: <9691@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jan 90 21:03:42 GMT
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Index Number: 6339

 AS> People should not be very judgmental, especially the deaf
 AS> people who do not try to meet someone else halfway.

This is one time I'll be judgemental, Ann, even tho I know better.

 AS> People are not really being rude

The hell they are not!  Maybe not intentionally, but rude nevertheless.
And I could make the case that thoughtless unintentional rudeness is
worse than purposeful deliberate rudeness.  It can do more harm, and
the perpetraitor doesn't even realize what he is doing.

No other culture, with the possible exception of the French, is so
intolerant and unforgiving of "outsiders" sincerely trying to reach
out to them in their own language as the Deaf culture.  I think the
Deaf culture is probably worse than the French.  Maybe this is what
people really mean when they refer to Deaf and  D U M B.  The label
sorta fits, doesn't it :-)

 AS> we should educate them without those of us who are HI
 AS> spurning them with attitude problems.  It's well worth the
 AS> effort to do so in my opinion.

I would like to believe this was a possibility, Ann.  But is it?
Realistically?  I find it hard to believe they will ever change
until the last Deaf school is closed, paved over with concrete,
and converted into a parking lot.

Of course, this is terribly unfair.  I know some truly beautiful
people who are part of Deaf culture.  Its just that there are
more than a few with the attitude problem that gives the entire
culture - and all of us - an undeserved bad rep.

Jack.

... Huh?

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