Leader and a follower.......a short story.

A leader clears the path though a little slow here, be patient with the video.


Who is the leader and follower here?


The dancing begins. Figured out the leader yet? Hint: It's the lady god who pressed the buttons to get the robots moving after training them first.



Does any of that remind you of this whole "deafhood" mentality? No one defines anybody's journey. It's a deeply personal journey involving many aspects of your life into one big journey. It just so happens that hearing loss is one of those aspects.

ADDENDUM: Also, note in the Roomba dance video (the third one down) near the end of the video the lady god comes in yank away one of the Roomba robot for not properly following orders or maybe noticed a defect and retired that Roomba.  Hmmmm.

Maybe I need some Roombas for my house and help keep the floors clean and just watch them amble around for fun?

And, oh, as a bonus, we have this funny video where you have kittens having fun with a Roomba robot just following orders.

Yes, Ella, you are a leader in the eyes of your followers.

Back a few years ago in 2008 Ella first brought it up saying that she wasn't a leader but a "follower" and brought it up again in her recent vlog. Well, I don't know about that one since that's heck of a lot of people lining up behind her to do what she says. But that's rather strange because in 2007 there was an press release from the California School for the Deaf Fremont that mentioned her where she posted that article in her old blog.  CSDF described her as a "community leader."

A community leader and California Association of the Deaf Board member....

I certainly did not see her object to that description where she proudly displayed the press release on her own blog.

Not a leader? Um, right.

David Eberwein certainly didn't seem to mind being called as one of the Deaf leaders described by one follower/admirer.

#5. A Great Leader is always in high demand. Take Ella Mae Lentz, for example. Her personal and professional contribution, advocacy and stewardship of the language and culture of Deaf people in our world today has been profound. Yet, even after her retirement, Ella Mae continues to change the face of the Deaf World today with her contributions and discourse on empowering concepts, such as those ideas involved in the term Deafhood. And, she’s not alone. Deaf Leaders such as David Eberwein, Genie Gertz and many others also share such contemplative devotion. It’s an enviable gift. Focus and endurance are clearly the cornerstones of their creative genius and leadership.

David certainly didn't mind being seen as a Deaf leader if you read his comments. By de facto he approved LaRonda's blog piece which tells me that he agreed with her analysis that Ella is a leader, too, by basing on "specifically identified behaviors" on what makes her a leader.

Picking myself off the floor. What a great blog.

Yes - it is probably your best (so far), not because you named people, but because you SPECIFICALLY identified behaviors, ideas, etc

Not a leader? Not even one of the "deafhood" leaders? Um, sure!

From the mouth of an ex-founding DBC core member who identified Ella as one of the (top) DBC and "deafhood" leader

I’ve thought long and hard about this. I have encouraged DBC twice to become more transparent. I’ve asked two DBC leaders to vp with me, so we can discuss this further, but they both weren’t ‘available’. In e-mails, I asked them why they don’t want to acknowledge to the Deaf Community that they practice Deafhood heavily but received no response. Transparency and integrity are essential as these will benefit the organization and also the Deaf Community.

Since the top DBC leader, also the Deafhood leader, Ella Mae Lentz had accused me of assumption and confusion in the comment section of a vlog, I have no choice but to come forward. These are the facts.

I was one of the founding core members of DBC. When it started, we had a very simple mission: baby signs for deaf babies. Later it was expanded to include deaf babies and deaf children by several members. Two Deafhood leaders began to push Deafhood on us. The majority wasn’t comfortable with that as they only wanted to focus on Bilingualism and nothing further. However, these leaders persisted, ignoring the moderates’ objections. As Anne Marie Baer said, there was no voting or due process, including an election of DBC leaders, though we wanted to set up a formal system, etc. Finally two moderates, including me, resigned and four other moderates were pushed out summarily without notice afterwards. Then I found out two other leaders, including a strong Deafhood proponent, were appointed one month prior to my resignation and none of us knew about this new development. We went ahead and set up our organization which addresses to deaf bilingualism only. Some wanted to disclose to the public, but another former member and I asked them not to mention anything. We still want to see DBC succeed. Looking back, I wonder if that was a mistake keeping quiet as afterwards Dr Hocokan volunteered his hard labor for four months, believing in bilingualism only to find out the Deafhood agenda has been infiltrated into the organization. What Dr Hocokan had described so far, run parallel to what we experienced. Very recently, Dianrez and Anne Marie acknowledged being booted out without any notice.

Not a "deafhood" leader? Right. Right. Who was doing all the "deafhood" pushing again? Of course, she's not the only one doing that but people *are* certainly following her. Yet she says she's a "follower." So, who are those people following her? Man, that's a lot of followers following the "follower." 1150 subscribers to be exact. 

Heck, even one well known culturally deaf person, he who shall not be named, in his own right called Ella as a leader.

.....by bashing Deafhood/DBC leaders from day one. You see, Ella Mae Lentz, David Eberwein, Barb DiGiovanni and John Egbert made a lot of leaps and efforts to reach and educate people of social injustices upon Deaf individuals and communities.

Not..a...leader? He just made a ringing endorsement calling Ella, DE, Barb and John as "leaders."

BTW, Barb G. resigned from DBC. You could probably figure out why, too, if you study up a bit of history first.

There is no bashing here but simply pointing out the facts that perhaps the majority of culturally deaf people who know Ella already see her as a leader in their community, a leader of "deafhood" and a leader in DBC. For a follower, Ella sure act like a leader.