Incestuous Relationships in the Deaf community?

And so I sat and observed, mostly, what people have said about the recent article "Deaf Identity Gone Wild" in various blogs and noted with amusement and some amount of wincing involved on how people continually misunderstood the word "incestuous" and "oxymoronic" in Charlotte Allen's article.

The role of bloodlines and pedigree in defining Deafness, along with the relatively small number of deaf people in the United States to begin with, helps explain the unusually active and even incestuous part that Gallaudet alumni, deaf parents, and even supposedly neutral organizations such as the National Association of the Deaf played in the battle against Fernandes.

Now, the word "incestuous" isn't used in the same context as "incest" like many people have complained rather wrongly recently about Allen's article. Even some well known blogs got this context horribly wrong. What Charlotte Allen wrote had nothing to do with incest. Rather she wrote it in the context of "improperly interconnected" like nepotism, cronyism (ie, Favoritism shown to old friends without regard for their qualifications) or a group that is more "clannish" than not. Only a few people were able to address this correctly in the context that Allen was presenting.

Even if people do complain, perhaps correctly so in some aspects, by saying that the Deaf community is not at all like that but have, ironically, instead slammed Gallaudet University (e.g. BoTs. et al) as being the "politically incestuous" university as it is/was/still ongoing.

By an accident of history, the Board is allowed to choose their own members (for now) and thus they have morphed over time into this mutant, politically incestuous, illegitimate entity.
Posted 10/1/2006 6:00 AM by brianriley1987gallygrad

So, it was ok for all to agree about the "politically incestuous" slander comment heaped at the BoTs but not so for Charlotte Allen's observation about the Deaf community which may or may not be true in parts or whole? Who is being intellectually honest here?

One deaf blogger in Belfast, Ireland sees cronyism in the Deaf community as a problem in Ireland. If it's a problem over there, then is it also a problem here in the United States and Canada, too?

Perhaps Charlotte Allen wasn't far off when she said that incestuous relationship is a work seen in many places in the Deaf community? In other words, the "good ole' boys" network type of thing?

So we ask this question.

How much is true about the Deaf community? Are they indeed clannish or, hence, overly protective? Are there nepotism involved? And that cronyism is also a part of their standard fare when it comes to hiring friends over qualifications instead in the Deaf community? How prevalent are these things anyways? And will we see some intellectually honest debates in all this after I'm done with this blog article?