Why "Deaf" (big D) for all with hearing loss won't work

I want to add more on what I wrote earlier in my blog about what Don Grushkin said previously about changing the definition of the word "Deaf" with a capitalized letter 'd' to be reserved for all people with hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. I want to explain to the readers (and to Don Grushkin and everybody in his Deafhood Foundation circle) why this new definition of his will not work.

First off the definition of "Deaf" with the capitalized 'd' was made popular with the help of Padden and Humphries. The newly defined word has already entered into the collective conscious minds of people for almost three decades. They ran with it without even looking back. The d/D hole has already been dug and will continue grow and be divisive.

Who to blame? Well, we all know who.

Secondly, in the Google search you have nearly 15,000 searches that cover the meaning and definition of "D"eaf or "big D." You have About.com explaining the big 'D' and small 'd' in d/Deaf. You have Wikipedia doing the same thing. You have medical journals that discuss culturally deaf people and using the "big D" to explain the meaning of "Deaf."  In an ASL lesson website it explains the big 'D' and little 'd' in d/Deaf.  In other countries they recognize the big 'D' in Deaf on what it supposed to mean. It has entered in the glossary of disability groups or organizations.  Captioning services explain to people on the meaning of "D"eaf.  That definition is ensconced in the Federal government such as NIH.  And the examples go on and on.

The hole continues to go deeper and bigger.

The divisiveness will continue.

That strategy is no good to try and move the goal post in the hope it'll help the Deafhood Foundation or for any "Deafhood" followers with a capital "D" (as opposed to "deafhood") to try and get the new "Deaf" word out as to mean all inclusive for anybody with a hearing loss. That effort was tried once before in CAD who got caught with their pants down for violating the 501(c)(3) laws in their secretive attempt to change their own bylaws that went unnoticed for almost 6 years on inserting the word "D"eafhood.

The old CAD Bylaws in July 2005 was peppered with terms like "Deafhood" in place of "deaf" and "hard of hearing" and had a language written in such a way that supported profiling such as in Section 25.3 mentioning "Deafhood" as a requirement for running for office in the CAD organization.

Section 25.3 Nominations for office shall be those who are part of the Deafhood, a California resident and be active Association member for at least two years.

It wasn't an alternative or an option on the Deafhood requirement part because the word "shall" is a legally binding word and must be followed. No room there.

Back in October 2009, Barry Sewell produced a captioned video expressing concerns regarding what it appears to be profiling and discriminatory practices favoring "Deafhood" proponents or adherents.

Comparing the old from the new by-laws, one can see how much of the language and terms used were redacted. This change could be credited to Mr. Sewell for sending a letter to the California Department of Justice expressing concerns that the 2005 CAD bylaws are discriminatory that practices profiling. It took CAD 2 years to correct the language used in their by-laws noting the fact it had that discriminatory language in place for over 6 years.

But still left behind the "big D" Deaf in their bylaws language. Barry Sewell in his captioned video asked why it was left in without any definition or explanation for the "big D" Deaf.

Don't forget that important bit of history of subterfuge.

Bottom line, the "big D" and "little d" are already well ensconced into the collective minds of culturally deaf people.   They already developed manual signs to distinguish themselves from deaf people and that's simply a hole already dug, Don Grushkin.

Picture source. Left: Judy Gough; and Far Right: Ella Mae Lentz - board members of Deafhood Foundation. 

Don Grushkin on what you said about the d/D as being divisive.

I choose to capitalize "Deaf" for all Deaf (and Hard of Hearing) people, not to signify any cultural affiliation, but to emphasize the common ethnicity of Deaf people. I believe that the d/D distinction is unnecessarily divisive, cumbersome, and ultimately more trouble than it is worth, although it did serve an important purpose in its time. But using Deaf for all does not signify cultural membership, just as not all Black people are necessarily part of Black culture or all Jews are practicing religious Jews.

I agree, it's divisive. It's ego driven but the hole has already been dug and it continues to be dug. And to try and change the meaning (moving the goal post) of the word "Deaf" (big D) to the advantage of Deafhood Foundation, CAD bylaws or for Deafhood followers in the effort to try and capture a much larger deaf and hard of hearing population and appear neutral about it will not work. You have 30 years of the "big D" and "little d" definitions working against you.

Good luck on undoing all that.
 

Unapproachable Deaf People?

Are deaf and hard of hearing people really that "unapproachable" simply because they have a different way of communicating? In some ways I'd say "yes" and in some ways I'd say "no." That would depend on the context of a situation. Let me give you one "unapproachable" example and that would be the Deafhood Foundation organization.  On the outside they look to be very "approachable" but at closer inspection one would began to realize they are quite the opposite. The foundation's mission is:

"....dedicated to achieving economic and social justice for all Deaf people." 

 Now, note the capital letter "D"eaf in their mission statement as they are attempting to convey that word to mean all people with hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. But the problem is that the term "Deaf" with the upper case "D" has always denoted to mean culturally deaf people. According to Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, in Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture (1988) explains the meaning and difference between "D"eaf and "d"eaf:

We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the audiological condition of not hearing, and the uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of deaf people who share a language – American Sign Language (ASL) – and a culture. The members of this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a primary means of communication among themselves, and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their connection to the larger society. We distinguish them from, for example, those who find themselves losing their hearing because of illness, trauma or age; although these people share the condition of not hearing, they do not have access to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices that make up the culture of Deaf people.

Some organizations even attempted to change that very definition by inserting "Deaf" into their own bylaws without giving any real definition to it and could easily be construed to mean only culturally deaf people. Over the last three decades Deaf (culturally deaf) people have made it a point that they "own" that word and for it to mean explicitly one thing, a group that uses ASL and have a culture. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But what is obvious here is that 98% of the deaf and hard of hearing population who do not know sign language, who are not affiliated with Deaf culture, and have other preferred means to communicate such as speaking, using Cued speech, listening and speaking, or preferring the use of Signing Exact English, for example. We still have an extremely large majority deaf and hard of hearing population that simply do not sign and they certainly are not "Deaf" people.

Deafhood Foundation is far from approachable because on their main web page it may look inviting except that their Gratitude video is only limited to those who know sign language which leaves the rest of  99.96% of the U.S. population out. So much for "social justice" when they've been demanding that "hearing people" ought to include captioning in their speaking videos. The irony is palpable here. With a signing video there is no way to approach the remaining U.S. audience if captioning isn't being used to convey their message. Not some social gabbing amongst Deaf people but a message they are trying to convey and put out for all to see.  Their own message largely resonates only to those within their own Deaf group rather than to the rest of the 98% of the population of people with hearing loss which numbers around 36,000,000 people. That's a lot of people to ignore when trying to put out a message of unity, acceptance and communication accessibility.


As for "approachable" deaf and hard of hearing people (i.e.. everybody with a hearing loss), they are increasingly using technology to allow themselves to become more approachable by giving them the ability to converse and interact with hearing people in a variety of ways.  Lately I have noticed that more and more deaf/hh people are using captioning technology to include with their own personal videos, this is true among a rising number of Deaf people taking advantage of that technology to spread their message to the rest of the English using U.S. population by using the captioned English language.  A good example of that (i.e. signing deaf) is Barry Sewell's latest video about John Yeh on conveying his message to the rest of the U.S. audience. Another approachable example would be the people who run HLAA whose own donation had already hit the million dollar mark last month since starting in January.

It's not just captioning technology but other technologies like face to face communication technology, and internet relay technology. Something that would allow the ability to interact easily with people and make them approachable. It's not about the competition of ideologies but about acceptance and understanding when it comes to accessible communication for all.

In the end the question becomes are you Frieda, the lovable, vain, unapproachable perhaps angry deaf person or are you one of those people who find a way to make themselves approachable as possible without the need to be so ungainly politically correct?

Professionalism or name calling?

When you are tied to name product, service or an organization where the community sees you as a "leader" you are an extension of that name recognition. Abusing that name recognition does not help. Going onto a public (as opposed to private) online discussion group (e.g. Facebook, YouTube comments, discussion groups, etc) and addressing people you do not agree or don't like you call them names instead. As leaders or "leaders" as in this case, such attitudes WILL reflect poorly on a product, service or organization as a whole. And in this case, I call on the poor professionalism on some of the "leaders" in Deafhood Foundation. If they are unable to address people by their proper names then it's best to say those things in private and not online in full public view for all to see.

Transparency and honesty in a non-profit organization

Here's something I found a bit odd and just noticed this discrepancy after I checked the DH Foundation 2010 donors page. On the main page on Deafhood Foundation page you will see a thermometer bar graph where it looks like its about 2/3 the way to $50,000 (between $10,000 to $50,000). In other words, they're saying they've collected about $35,000 to date since 2010 when the organization first started. If this is accurate then congratulations! Great! However, I am questioning whether their thermometer donation bar graph is accurate on amount shown.

Allow me to elaborate here.

Let's assume that each donor donated the maximum amount in each of the donated category amount. Adding up all of the donors in 2010 would turn out to be $18,137 on maximum amount of money donated in each donation category ($1 - $99, $100 - $499, $500 - $999, and $1000 - $2,499 with none donated higher than $2,500) while at a minimum it would be $4,242 in total. The amount donated for 2010 would fall between $4,242 to $18,137. Unfortunately, their donors page do not state specifically the total amount donated in 2010.

I took the liberty of screen capturing the main page with the thermometer donation bar graph on January 25, 2011 and added separation notches between $10,000 to $50,000 in $10,000 equal increments. 

From what it looks like the amount donated to date (January 25, 2011) is about $35,000 since starting last year (see their 1 year anniversary announcement) when they officially became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in their first tax year of 2010.

If the thermometer donation bar graph is accurate assuming they used equal increments of $10,000 between $10,000 and $50,000 then that means from January 1 - 25, 2011 they appeared to have collected an additional $17,000 to $31,000 if you take into consideration last year's donation amount between minimum to maximum amount donated ($35,000 - $18,137 = around $17,000, and $35,000 - $4,242 = around $31,000).  I sincerely hope that thermometer bar graph is correct. Did the DH Foundation collect between an additional $17,000 to $31,000 on donated money over the last 25 days in 2011? Yes, I'm questioning the validity of that amount.  Is the graph accurate on total donated amount since 2010 at around $35,000, currently shown?

Yes or no?

Just as I have questioned DBC's website (NOT a 501(c)3 non-profit organization) about their hit counter showing 2.4 million hits (currently it is at 2.6 million hits four months later) making it look like people are flocking to it in large numbers, I feel it's appropriate to ask about the accuracy of that thermometer bar graph.

For any 501(c) non-profit organizations transparency and honesty are expected from them. This organization made that clear on their status seen at the bottom of their website:

The Deafhood Foundation is a non-profit community foundation incorporated in the state of California with 501(c)3 tax exempt status. Tax identification number 26-2603125.

Transparency and honesty.

ADDENDUM: In December of 2010 they were able to raise over $12,000. But that is not shown in the 2010 tax year Donors page .

ADDENDUM II:  Here's a PDF file of Deafhood Foundation's 2009 tax year return where it shows a $6,400 worth of contribution(s) for 2009 tax year. You can access any non-profit 501(c)3 organization's tax filings through Guidestar and you can get information on the organization's business and taxes.