Why Deaf People Should Boycott Jerrys Telethon
September 3, 2007
Every year at around this time, Jerry comes along to do a telethon
about his kids. Meaning, all children with muscular dystrophy.
Jerry wants, most earnestly, to find a cure for them.
Today, disabled bloggers and other sympathizers from across the
blogosphere are blogging against Jerrys telethon. (Go to this site
and follow the links to some of the excellently written blog posts on
this subject. Even if it means you miss the rest of mine. Seriously.
Or if youre still wondering why you should bother, then read on.)
You may be wondering two things. One, why would people who themselves
(in many, not all cases) use wheelchairs, or even people who have
muscular dystrophy themselves, object to a telethon meant to help
them? And, two, why do I say that Deaf people should care?
Let me tell you a story that I hope might help.
A few years ago, I started experiencing some mysterious pain in the
heel of my right foot that made it nearly impossible to walk. Every
time I put weight on it, the pain was excruciating. I could only
barely bring myself to walk the two blocks to and from the metro; the
idea of going any further than that was unbearable.
Yes, of course, I went to the hospital to check it out, and got a
referral to a foot specialist, and made an appointment to see him as
well. But in the mean time, my mobility was drastically constricted.
I knew that if I didnt do something IMMEDIATELY, my life would be
restricted. Without some form of accommodation, I wouldnt be able to
face up to the idea of hopping out the door to go a few blocks to
nearby restaurants I enjoyed at lunch time. Side trips after work to
go to restaurants or stores would be simply out of the quesiton. Even
going to the cafeteria in my building at work would have been agony.
So I brought out an old pair of crutches and started using it. Presto
chango the pain, of course, did not go away. I still had my new,
temporary mobility impairment. But at least now I was no longer
restricted by it, or at least not in the same way. True, using
crutches makes it cumbersome to carry other things or deal with
doors. And too much crutch-walking made my hands tired. But at least
now I could walk about as far as I liked without having to count my
steps and decide how much pain I could take before I started.
Crutches gave me an astounding degree of freedom.
Doctor appointment day rolled around. I went to see the foot
specialist. If it matters, it turns out I had something called
plantar fascia. But the relevant bit is how the doctor reacted to the
idea of my using crutches.
You dont need them, he said.
I explained I found mobility easier with them. I didnt go into all
the details. I didnt point out, for example, that as someone who
does not drive, the inability to bring myself to walk more than a
block or two at a time is a MAJOR limitation on my ability to go
ANYwhere AT ALL. But given that this doctor, as a specialist, had to
know just how much pain I was in or how much it limited the walking I
could do, you would think that I shouldnt need to go into that level
of detail. But no. You dont need them, he said again. And, if I
recall, again. He just could not seem to process the idea that, for
me, crutches were not a sign of infirmity to be abandoned at the
first chance. For me, at that time, crutches represented freedom.
Is my point clear yet?
Do you see a parallel, for example, between this doctors attitude
toward my use of crutches and the attitude of some doctors and
parents toward the use of sign language with deaf children? Some
people see sign language as, roughly, the Deaf persons equivalent of
crutches. For them, sign language just isnt as good as the real
thingwhich, for them, is spoken language. Sign language is a sign
of infirmity, to be abandoned at the first chance.
Spoken languageor mobility without crutches, or mobility without a
wheelchairis just inherently better. Even if it consumes all your
psychic energy and concentration, even if it imposes massive
restrictions on the range of choices you can make in your life, its
just inherently better to be normal. Or, if you flunk normality,
then its still just self-evident that its automatically better if
you can at least manage to convincingly FAKE being normal, no
matter what cost you have to pay for succeeding. As long as youre
the only person who has to pay that cost, as long as other people
dont have to look at discomforting reminders that they themselves
could someday become disabled as they age (crutches, wheelchair,
hearing aids, sign language, all create the idea that Wow, *I* could
someday need these things if I live long enough), thenisnt that
just OBVIOUSLY BETTER? Doesnt it make you happy to know that you are
no longer contributing to other people feeling mildly discomfited for
a moment or two each day? Isnt that enough by itself to make it
worth all the enormous moment-to-moment sacrifices you have to make
in order to save others that transitory twinge of discomfit?
Of course not.
But dont forget the next tactic that hearing, temporarily
able-bodied people use to save themselves discomfit: THE CURE. People
want to cure deafness. And, of course, people want to cure muscular
dystrophy.
Now, muscular dystrophy is different from being Deaf. There isnt all
the cultural baggage and identity baggage that goes with it. Some
types of muscular dystrophy can limit the life span. That alone makes
it worth a cure. You probably wouldnt find nearly as many people with
muscular dystrophy who would reject a cure as you would find in the
culturally Deaf community.
But, nevertheless. People with muscular dystrophy, and people with
disabilities in general, may not always necessarily reject medical
research or cures but they DO object to HOW people raise the money
for them. What they object to is the premise on which Jerrys whole
telethon is based. The premise here is, Oh, these poor poor children
are in wheelchairs, how horrible. They are CONFINED to wheelchairs,
how horrible. We have to rescue them from this tragic fate, the fate
of the WHEELCHAIR.
But, using a wheelchair is no more terrible than using sign language.
True, it doesnt create the same sense of cultural identity and
community solidarity that any language, by its nature, is bound to
create. But, the mere fact of using a wheelchair is not, in and of
itself, tragic, any more than it is tragic that some people find sign
language to be a far easier mode of communication than speech. A
wheelchair is not even confining. As I found first hand, mobility
aids in general can be immensely liberating.
Wheelchair users object to phrases like confined to a wheelchair,
in part because it is just plain offensive. How would you feel if
someone characterized you as being confined to communicating only
through sign language as if this were, in and of itself, something
to be mourned? Instead of celebrating that so many alternatives exist
for communicating? Or, in the case of people with mobility
impariments, for mobility? But there is another reason to object to
phrases like confined to a wheelchair. And that reason is that the
phrase just point blank makes no sense. If I hadnt picked up a pair
of crutches, then my life would have been limited to the commute
between work and home, home and work, and that would have been it for
the weeks it took to completely heal my plantar fascia. I was not, by
any means, confined to crutches, any more than a person who cannot
walk is confined to their wheelchair. I was FREED by my crutches,
just as any person in a wheelchair is clearly FREED by (never
confined to!) their wheelchair.
But the idea that wheelchair is a confinement, that a wheelchair or
any other kind of accommodation to any kind of disability (crutches,
a TTY or video phone, closed captions, Braille, anything) is itself
inherently tragic because they (to hearing able-bodied people)
symbolize and represent the disability that is also tragic
All of this is the kind of attitude and perceptionconveyed each year
through Jerrys telethon. The telethon presents temporarily
able-bodied hearing people with yet more images of people with
disabilities as objects of pity and as people to cry over. Jerrys
telethon reinforces the idea that any person who walks, talks,
thinks, hears, sees, moves, or DOES things differently is a person we
want to help not because they are human beings who deserve more
options in life but simply because they are inherently tragic figures
who ought to bewell, more human. Human here being equated to
normal. Normal meaning able to walk, talk, etc., like normal
people are supposed to. Because if you dont do these things, then
you arent really human. Youre just something to be pitied, an
object that sits there passively waiting for other people to come
help you. Your sole purpose in life is to give other people a chance
to show how generous and kind they can be. You have no real purpose
of your own.
That is why Deaf people should care when any hearing, temporarily
able-bodied person depicts any person with a disability as being
inherently tragic just for existing, or confined to the very
tools that free them. These kinds of images hurt us too, even when
there isnt a Deaf person anywhere in sight.
Whether or not you consider Deaf to be a disability, were still in
the same boat. Whether or not you ever wanted to be in the same boat
with those hearing people with disabilities, whether or not it was
ever your choice, here we are. And well not get out of it until we
work together in solidarity. Well not get out until ALL Deaf people,
and ALL people with ALL disabilities, are able to work together to
teach the rest of the world that there is nothing tragic about us
merely by fact of our existence. Because those people arent
those. By whatever labels we choose to wear or choose to reject
were all us, riding the same boat in a sea of myths and
misunderstanding. Its time to start paddling in the same direction.
Perhaps youre thinking we shouldnt support hearing disabled people
because, after all, theyre *hearing.* Or because theyre more
tragic than us because they dont have a culture and language and
we do. Or perhaps youre thinking hearing disabled people just dont
get Deaf culture, so why should we bother learning from them if they
wont learn from us? Or you might be thinking that Deaf people are
just inherently different from people with disabilities, so there
cant possibly be anything we share in common. (Or by different did
you REALLY mean better? In which case, how are you better than any
hearing person who looks down upon US?)
If youre thinking any of these things, then just follow the link to
http://www.karasheridan.com/ and give it a chance. Read a few posts.
You may come across some posts that surprise you a great deal.
Link:
http://reunifygally.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/why-deaf-people-should-boycott-jerrys-telethon/
—
BETTER IP RELAY – EVERYWHERE! i711.com makes all your relay calls better.
Better web calls. Better wireless calls. Better AIM calls. Why settle for
ordinary IP relay? Go beyond! Try http://www.i711.com for free today!
NOTE: deafnetwork.com does not endorse any of the products, vendors,
consultants, or documentation referenced in this message or. Any mention of
vendors, products, or services is for informational purposes only.
Powered by http://www.CrazyWebHosting.com