Deaf people being an Ethnic group of their own

Mysticvean

What do you think of the concept of Deaf people being an ethnic group of their own?

For the purposes of this thread, Deaf (with a capital letter D) refers to people who are culturally Deaf, and hearing loss is irrelevant, and are comfortable conversing in their sign language,

and

Hard of Hearing people (or deaf, with a lower case d) referring to people with ANY degree of hearing loss, and they sometimes feel this loss keenly, and the vast majority of hard of hearing people do not sign. Nor do they really want to, for the most part.

We are talking about Deaf people in the Deaf community.

http://www.bu.edu/today/node/12696

They have their own languages

They have their own culture.

They have their own humour.

Deaf people have a very high rate of marrying within the community. (By this, I mean, Deaf tend to marry other Deaf people, or enter into relationships with other Deaf people, as opposed to marrying hearing people.) Cross-cultural relationships and marriages between Deaf and hearing people do happen, but this is the exception rather than the norm.

Many Deaf people do NOT see themselves as Disabled at all.

Yet the media insists on perpetuating stereotypes that run counter to how Deaf people see themselves.

I'm wondering how the good people of Boards.ie view Deaf people? Disabled? Members of an ethnic minority? Would you be open to the idea of them being an ethnic minority?

Here are some good arguments for and against in this article http://www.bu.edu/today/node/12696

looksee

I can't really see how making Deaf people a separate ethnic group is going to help anything. What then? What would be the practical results? Surely it would creat more separation between them and the hearing population.

I can see how people who sign are more likely to socialise together, and consequently marry someone who can communicate with them in a natural manner. I really doubt that Deaf people marry because they are deaf, but rather because they have more chance to meet and communicate.

I think the articles are manipulating facts to push a rather overstated agenda on the part of the author. I suspect this is someone looking for academic aggrandisement rather than offering genuinely helpful solutions to a grouping of which he doesn't appear to be a member.

Mythyka29

Looksee, I'm curious, when you say that "I suspect this is someone looking for academic aggrandisement rather than offering genuinely helpful solutions to a grouping of which he doesn't appear to be a member", what is it you imagine the 'problem' to be that we need to find 'solutions' for?

looksee

Mythyka29 wrote: »

Looksee, I'm curious, when you say that "I suspect this is someone looking for academic aggrandisement rather than offering genuinely helpful solutions to a grouping of which he doesn't appear to be a member", what is it you imagine the 'problem' to be that we need to find 'solutions' for?

He is the one who is suggesting there are problems by suggesting ethnic minority grouping. He is the one who seems to think there is a problem and I am suggesting that his is not a solution. If there isn't a problem why bring the subject up in the first place? I am asking what an ethnic grouping would achieve. It ain't broke, according to you, so why fix it?

Mysticvean

Since there is no response from him, here is one from me.

So you know where i am coming from: I speak from the perspective of a person who grew up wearing hearing aids, and speaks with most people, and signs with members of the Deaf community. Thus I have the lived in experience of life in the 20th/21st centuries as someone in this position.)

The main problems here I see are the following:
1. If I say I have one of the following conditions:
- Hearing loss
- Hearing impaired
- Hearing problems
- Hearing difficulties
- Hard of Hearing
- Partially Hearing
I get a lot more respect and taken more seriously by doctors and other professionals than if I use the following words
- Deaf
- Profoundly Deaf
- Partially Deaf
- Severely Deaf.

You'll notice the usage of the word HEARING as opposed to the word DEAF.

When I asked around with members from the Deaf community, others have exactly the same experience. So in order to get what we need we sometimes have to lie and say 'I'm hard of hearing, so please look at me when you're addressing me', instead of telling them the truth 'I'm Deaf, so please look at me when you're addressing me.'

Most of the time, when we use the first sentence business is done, no problems at all. However, interestingly, people just don't panic the same way they do if the dreaded word is used. It seems that the word DEAF is ugly to hearing people.

Yet the crux of the issue here is that members of the DEAF community simply do not see themselves as hearing people with hearing difficulties. They are DEAF. Members of a linguistic and cultural minority. Once this is recognised, language rights follow.

Ireland is not as advanced in America. American Deaf people have what are called 'Deaf days', where they CELEBRATE the diagnosis of Deafhood of a baby.

Yes. Deafhood, not Deafness.

Get me? It's a totally different mindset.

At the moment, many people in Ireland, who do not hear as you do, do not have fluency in English, and struggle with the language. This is because English is not their first language, but Irish Sign Language is, and yet it is not truly recognised as a language.

People assume that it is sufficient to ask them to lipread, (It's not the same as listening.) or sufficient to read/write in order to get business done. No. Yet, as an example, would they expect the same from someone who is from a different country? Of course not, they would try to get an interpreter.

The situation facing Deaf people, and foreign people in Ireland who are not exactly fluent in English, is exactly the same when it comes to communication challenges.

Yet... think about it.

So there IS a problem, only it's not readily apparent to hearing people, who think solely of listening difficulties. There's a lot more to it than that.

Hope it helps.

BoySnowie

Alvean,

As you know, it is not easy to get hearies to see our world, full of colour, flying hands and our transnational cultures that links to deaf communities across the world.

They want to see what is wrong with our ears, rather than focusing on the better things we have. I look at myself and my two hearing brothers. I realise that my two hearing brothers will never get to lead such a fascinating, interesting life I get to live. They can't understand how I get to have friends in every port.

Ach, "foooo" them! :-)

Shane

Cossax

I haven't read the linked article yet but surely you'd have to redefine 'ethnicity' if you were to include deaf/Deaf people as their own ethnic group.
I mean, in Ireland we don't recognise Travellers as an ethnic group despite them having a genuine claim to it while deaf/Deaf people are missing a few of the criteria (common ancestry for one, common heritage for another and probably a few more if you were to get out a full list).

jigital

I do not see deaf people as essentially disabled, as they may have or acquire other abilities that can compensate for it, such as the ability to read and write, but it is surely still a disability. It is the absence of a sense that has been naturally selected throughout our evolutionary past. I don't see how a disability could be considered ethnic. It could be considered socially significant if deaf people are excluded from group activities that require hearing or if they choose for themselves to mix primarily with other deaf people.

If deaf people that are deaf because of genetic causes choose to propagate only with the same kind, then, eventually, it could become ethnic, I suppose. Hopefully this isn't something that will be necessitated by exclusionary behaviour from the rest of us.

Torakx

I used to work alongside a deaf guy who i got on really well with.
I didnt treat him any different except i needed to face him to communicate.
We still used to chat away through our whole lunch break about alot of things.
I guess i was one of the few in the job that really got along with him though,so i do undersand the point of this thread.
"Sheeple" fear change or anything thats different.They are very skittish creatures and will tend to flock together once they recognise each other as fellow sheeple lol
Or stand infront of a mirror for a similar effect "hey you look like me!, i feel a bit more secure now,lets be friends"

If anything i would see the deaf people as functional and the sheeple as dysfunctional and possibly socially handicapped.For the above reasonsand also because being different forces you to consider social protocol quite alot,i have experience in this myself.
But i must say i have nothing against the handicapped in this regard, it is just how it is.

Also there are more people who are lip-reading disabled than there are deaf or mute, so who is really handicapped or who really is not?
Both can communicate and if person who lip reads has binoculars then my puny voice is no match!

ps, sorry i dont know if people find handicapped insulting or not, if so replace it with disabled.Silly to say but people can be people.

deafnicity

The answer is yes. See may article at http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/4/317.full

jill_valentine

I learned some ISL for a bit back in school, and it was an eye opener. Hearing folks like myself tend to think of it as just some kind of semaphore for the alphabet and vocabulary we're familiar with, or as though it's like learning a kind of French or something that just happens to be spoken visually.

It's not, it's just not. It did feel very much like the product of a society and "way of thinking" that was far more alien to me than something which was simply from another country. I found that fascinating, don't get me wrong, but I do think I get why the Deaf Community sees itself as distinct, there's no question it has a culture of its own that most hearing people - myself included - aren't really privy to or familiar with.

It's not simply a question of running into a load of other deaf people and marrying one of them, that cultural and social shared wavelength is pretty important.