Because I lack the experience, knowledge and authority, I refuse to embed the term “au****” into the guidelines. Doing so would have significant impact on the deaf community and would not be able to bear the responsibility of forcing the wrong interpretation upon the community. Until there is greater consensus on “au****”, therefore having less room for it to be abused, the guidelines will protect DeafRead by the “excessive negativity” clause and DeafVIDEO.TV by the harassment rule. Following this fiasco in which au**** was exposed to be both widely misunderstood and abused, I retracted my committment to Patti to add it to the guidelines. As Patti and I agreed more recently, I will instead work with the DeafRead team to incorporate a broader term that will offer tighter protection than that of the “excessive negativity” clause.Note that I am censoring part of the "a" word in Tayler's comment in the above for my own personal reason. You can read here on why. I could've replaced it with "avdism" though but either way I'm making this known for you readers.
And because of Tayler's refusal to include such a word in the Deafread guidelines numerous Deaf bloggers decided to boycott Deafread and not have their blogs show up on Deafread. One of the blogger is Dr DonG where he explained why he boycotted Deafread.
I have long since been speaking against au****. I have taken a stand against a****. I believe that if you “talk the talk”, you must “walk the walk”. Au**** hurts, and it hurts worse when it comes from one of our own. But it hurts worst when one of our own allows it AND profits from it.
That is the reason that I feel I can no longer be involved in DVTV, if au**** is allowed to continue. I cannot let someone directly profit from au****. It’s bad enough when Hearing people, like at Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, profit from au****, but we Deaf should not allow it, we should not accept it.So, people boycotted Deafread because of the "rampant" avdism seen in the aggregator list linking to blogs with attidudes of "avdism"? Right? What about Deaf Village's aggregator site, too? Now, isn't avdism seen in majority of DV's submissions include lots of stuff about how wonderful hearing and speaking is for children, CIs and their marvelous results, all technically defined as the "A"-word in all its mutations If so then why is DonG's website listed on Deaf Village's aggregator site as seen on DV's blog contributors list? And yet the most recent submission of DonG's in DV was on September 10, 2010 with a total of 24 submissions ever since he boycotted DR over a year ago over a single word.
Regardless, I still think it's rather a petty and trivial thing to boycott over a word when Tayler made clear on why he is unable to institute such a word into Deafread's guidelines.
18 comments:
The word you're talking about is AUDISM. It affects all of us, even you, whenever someone denies us access to information or equality just because of our hearing.
It happily occurs less often now, but still appears in attitudes and makes things just a bit harder.
Tayler has his reasons, which I respect, and I'm willing for the word AUDISM to reach maturity, i.e. common agreement on its meaning, until he sees fit to include it in the guidelines of a social blogging aggregator.
Until then, all of us have a responsibility to correct those who misuse it or use it wrongly as a weapon against other d/Deaf people when simply disagreeing.
Just avoiding the use of the word, changing its spelling and ridiculing it isn't going to make the idea disappear. It is real. It hurts everyone. It prevents us from reaching our potential and enjoying our rights.
For example, the current 21st Century Communications Accessibility act had to be passed because audism in cyberspace would not go away otherwise. That fight still isn't over yet.
No ridiculing here. If DonG left DR for reasons of avdism then why is he allowing DV to accept his blog submissions when, according to definition DV is an example of avdism in practice.
Dianrez is correct. If you haven't seen Canadian Hearing Society's position paper on audism, I suggest you check it out.
I also vlogged and blogged on that topic several times. You' will see them on my website.
www.deafcanadian.com (Go to the Canadian Definition of Audism post)
Shel
If you recall the reason Don G posted to DV in the first place, it was to test your guidelines. At the time, there was a brouhaha in which you, Don G, I and many others were involved. It was the issue of double standards and linguicism (and yes, audism). Your guidelines required that vlogs be translated into English (subtitled or transcripted) while blogs weren't required, or even expected, to be translated into ASL. He was surprised to have it accepted as were many of us at the time.
If it's there, then it's likely because he didn't bother to go back to DV. It may be as simple as that.
Mispelling audism is quite ridiculous. It's like misspelling racism or sexism on purpose with the hopes they would go away. How effective is that?
I could spell rakism, and seckism. What purpose would that serve?
Audism is most definitely REAL. Accept it. Deal with it. Burying your head in the sand will not help. It would merely bite you in the butt as it sticks up high in the sky. OUCH.
Shel
Not sure what you're talking about regarding my "guidelines." I'm sure you meant to test DV's guidelines and not mine?
People have simply abused that word and secondly it's not an approved word in a dictionary.
You misunderstand for the change in the spelling of the A-word to mean I don't see the discrimination that have occurred and continues to occur. Where have I "buried my head in the sand"? I have not. I do not approve in the abuse of the word. I agree, discrimination exists. I've already linked to a previous blog explain why the spelling difference.
Shel, axdism is used frequently in the past two to three years. Out thre in the real world, deaf people do not use that term often.
We understand discrimination and we do understand oppression.
Pretty much everyone has experienced both.
I will check your site, but, that word has been abused badly to a point that it really loses its meaning.
All of a sudden there's a special word for discrimination/oppression for deaf people because discrimination and oppression isn't good enough. Talk about discrimination!
Don't worry, I will go check the link you provided.
Sigh.... I've been trying to put you on a starvation diet, but I'm finding it is quite inhumane to starve any living being, even rats, snakes and trolls.
If you will recall, when I originally submitted my blogsite to DV (see http://www.deafhooddiscourses.com/?p=20), I did so as a test of their willingness to accept a truly contrary point of view. What I submitted was an ABC story entitled "The Cochlear Slayer" (http://www.deafhooddiscourses.com/?p=19), which I was sure would be rejected due to its anti-CI POV. I was surprised, as many of us were, that it was accepted. That was the only reason why I submitted to DV. I never truly cared whether my site was in DV or not. After that, I basically put DV out of my mind -- indeed, I have never gone back there, and up until now, had pretty much forgotten that DV existed or that my blog was still running under there.
Feel free to tell the folks at DV that I say they can remove my site from their listing in order to maintain consistency. I have not had any active dealings with them over there, nor do I have any desire to now.
And by the way, I find it quite ridiculous that you continue to spell audism "avdism" or any other variation thereof. If you recognize that discrimination does occur against Deaf people, and you say you do, then you are recognizing audism exists. Has the term been "abused" by some? Perhaps. But that does not deny the reality it exists, whether you like it or not.
You tell them, DonG. You can't do that yourself or what? Why are you asking us to do the job for you? Not capable or what? Let your fingers do the walking and get some exercise for a change.
Surprised that they accepted your submission? Why would you be surprised? They're not a bunch of picky, sensitive group. You guys are for running away from DR over a single word. You want to talk petty? That would be it.
I recognize that there has been discrimination against people with hearing loss just as there has been discrimination against people with vision loss or other disabilities. But certainly I don't see Blind people go around and invent a bunch of new words like "caecusism" (caecus = blind in Latin) just as well.
Discrimination is discrimination. Why add new words? It's like hate a new word with "hate crime" like "deaf hate crime" or "blind hate crime" or "mental retardation hate crime." Just gets really silly.
Here we go again...
If discrimination is discrimination, then there's no need for words like racism or sexism, or even heterosexism. hmmm? Let's throw out racism and sexism too! Just call the above discrimination. That's it.
Riiight.
Racism, sexism and heterosexism have been abused before as well (of that you can be sure) and yet I don't see any of you going to ridiculous lengths to discredit those terms as you are with the word audism.
*shaking my head*
Shel
I reject audism outright, there is discrimination that's it. I don't know about the USA but not a single case has ever been brought to court regarding audism or indeed deaf hate here, much as there is ample proof of hate crime.
The term is so widely abused BY The deaf sector as to be meaningless in whatever its original context was. It is now a colloquial form of mutual abuse and rarely applies at all to mainstream.. they've just invented a new slang term.... like coconut ?
I prefer to use discrimination. I personally do not like the 'a' word. When I say it to others, they think I said, 'autism'.
If we need a specific word for discrimination for deaf people, why leave other people out? What about people who are discriminated against because of their short height? What about people who are discriminated against because of the inability to see? Do we need to come up with special terms for them? Why only deaf people?
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That DV accepted Don's blog might be a fluke; or maybe not as I have seen other ASL-centric blogs there since. Perhaps DV is going in the same direction as DR: becoming a potpourri of diversity.
Naming something is the beginning of recognition that a problem exists. AUDISM is useful in that respect.
Little People have their word HEIGHTISM in recognizing that they experience prejudice because of shortness. They have statistics to prove that the more short they are, the less money they earn.
Deaf people are able to demonstrate the same thing: the less hearing they have, the less likely they are to be promoted on the job.
Name it and the problem becomes more clearly in focus--and it is AUDISM. Only then can people act on it.
No, how about this one -- ocular stimulus deprivare ?
Shel, then you also agree that very every condition that people have where they were discriminated against should also have a special word made up to go with it, too. For people who stutters and get discriminated, let's have a special word for that. For people who cannot hear or hear very well and get discriminated, let's have a special word for that. For people who are not pretty and get discriminated for it, let's get a special word for that. People who are overweight and get discriminated for that, let's get a special word for that. People who cannot walk get discriminated, let's get a special word for that. Each and every one of them ripe for abuse use of the word. It never ends.
What makes deaf/hh people so "special" and why should people have to accept that new special word? They don't have to. That's the point. Not accepting has nothing to do with not recognizing that discimination exists. Rather many people recognized the fact that that "a"-word is easily and constantly abused.
It's really funny how some people accuse people of "burying their heads in the sand" just because they don't accept the use of the "a" - word even though we all recognize that discrimination exists. An attempt to use guilt on people is not only disengenious but also not justified. Rather it's about control, pushing ideology over people using sleight of hand trick there.
The thing is, many of us do not want have anything to do with the "a"-word. It has worn out its welcome. Just like "deafhood." Out the window, folks.
I wonder why some deaf people avoid using a term, audism. Out of a sense of guilt? I have yet to see any commenter in the media, ask, "Stop using a term, racism, or distort the spelling of "rAcism" into "rVcism."
Why?
Simply put, discrimination is such a general word that you would, therefore, have to spell out a plethora of oppressive forms. When you are asked for a specific oppressive form of discrimination, you would, therefore, have to spell out a name of one of the oppressive forms -- anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, ageism, intolerance
about religion, ad infinitum.
In 1930s, Hirschfield, aggravated by Hitler's discrimination against Jews, black people, and other peoples, invented a term, RACISM. Since Germany refused to publish him because he was a Jew, he had to move to France where he would be published. A new term, racism, was born in France in 1933 -- stay with me:
BUT:
The United States of America would not buy Mr. Hirschfield's term and remained using a term, "slavery". Of course, both black and white Amerians were in the oblivion about Mr. Hirschfield's coined term, "racism," until Martin L. King, Jr. (MLK) became a public speaker.
The same is true with the DPN (Deaf speakers who made a rude awakening to the deaf world. After they shouted, "Paternalism," "Plantation Mentality," Harlan Lane decided TO PUBLISH Dr. Tom Humphries's unpublished termn, AUDISM.
I do not understand why there is too much ado over nothing because Shakespeare himself invented over 10,000 terms -- for convenient reasons -- readily rubber-stamped by people around the world. Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook invented not long two terms, "defriend" and "unfriend" as verbs (the latter was immediately accepted by dictionary makers who WILL publish it in dictionaries.
I wonder why some deaf people avoid using a term, audism. Out of a sense of guilt? I have yet to see any commenter in the media, ask, "Stop using a term, racism, or distort the spelling of "rAcism" into "rVcism."
Why?
Simply put, discrimination is such a general word that you would, therefore, have to spell out a plethora of oppressive forms. When you are asked for a specific oppressive form of discrimination, you would, therefore, have to spell out a name of one of the oppressive forms -- anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, ageism, intolerance
about religion, ad infinitum.
In 1930s, Hirschfield, aggravated by Hitler's discrimination against Jews, black people, and other peoples, invented a term, RACISM. Since Germany refused to publish him because he was a Jew, he had to move to France where he would be published. A new term, racism, was born in France in 1933 -- stay with me:
BUT:
The United States of America would not buy Mr. Hirschfield's term and remained using a term, "slavery". Of course, both black and white Amerians were in the oblivion about Mr. Hirschfield's coined term, "racism," until Martin L. King, Jr. (MLK) became a public speaker.
The same is true with the DPN (Deaf speakers who made a rude awakening to the deaf world. After they shouted, "Paternalism," "Plantation Mentality," Harlan Lane decided TO PUBLISH Dr. Tom Humphries's unpublished termn, AUDISM.
I do not understand why there is too much ado over nothing because Shakespeare himself invented over 10,000 terms -- for convenient reasons -- readily rubber-stamped by people around the world. Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook invented not long two terms, "defriend" and "unfriend" as verbs (the latter was immediately accepted by dictionary makers who WILL publish it in dictionaries.
Periscope..
Because it has been ABUSED to a point where it is being used as a weapon against others.
Mike is right, we all are not denying that discrimination exists.
Candy, racism and other isms have been used and abused as well. Yet you don't see others refusing to use the other terms.
By the way, Mike, you might want to check my blog for my response to your comment at 9:40.
(Myth Busting Time: Discrimination Name Game)
Shel
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