Like I Knew I Would

MUMBAI: The government of New South Wales, Australia, recently announced a grant of $110,000 AUS for a centre in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. The voluntary organisation raises resources to provide costly…

Things that are awesome if the children decide they want them. 

deaf-aspie:

darthcuntasked you:
2011-08-29 08:19

many lols. many. many. lols. So here we go. I am swimming in privilege. Always the first to acknowledge that. White, middle class, hearing person. (Well, I’m actually partially deaf in my left ear) I am also queer and trans/genderqueer so there’s that. I understand oppression. My oppression is different than yours. However, I think it’s ridiculous to say that correcting your childs hearing is ableist. I’m not denying my privilege, I’m saying that’s ridiculous.

My two close friends are twins. They are both completely deaf. They can not afford implants, and their family has been struggling with this since they were born. It is ableist to say you are broken. You do not need to be fixed. But by giving your child the procedure, I refuse to believe there is anything inherently ableist or oppressive about that.

Also, assuming your talking about me, when did I call you a troll or call deaf culture bullshit? I said deeming parents giving their child hearing aides/impants ableist was bullshit. I fully recognize that deaf people face more issues in society than I can ever imagine. You’re very good at twisting words around.

 I put it all in one message to save time.

If you’re the first to acknowledge that, why didn’t you this time? EVERYONE’S oppression is different. Yours is no more special than mine is no more special than yours. The thing is, you’re explicitly saying that being deaf is to be BROKEN, and to imply so is to be ABLEIST. You said that being deaf does NOT mean you’re broken, but yet, you insist on correcting it….which means you must think it’s wrong or broken, since you can’t fix something that isn’t broken. These ideas are completely dichotomous and makes no logical sense. And since you insist on correcting it, and it means you think it’s broken, it means you’re ableist and audist. There is NO WAY AROUND THIS. You cannot say that you don’t need to be fixed and then say that it should be fixed. 

See, you really DO seem to be missing the point that, it’s not about giving the person the CI. If they’re an informed teen or adult, I have literally ZERO PROBLEM with it. If you’re going to raise your child in an environment where they are taught ASL alongside spoken english at home (and the parents should start learning it almost immediately to prevent language loss in the child if they don’t know it), given speech therapy, a supportive home and school environment (such as a school with mixed mainstream/Deaf attendance) and exposed equally to Deaf and mainstreamed culture, I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH IT. The ONLY excuse to give your child a CI and ignore all that is to somehow be completely socially isolated from all Deaf culture by geography, and somehow be able to get a CI and speech therapy without being able to afford ASL. Which is to say, there is almost no chance of that actually happening. Never said it would be easy, but what part of raising a child is? Which actually goes back to my point that fitting the CI is eventually a measure of convenience for the parents rather than the child…..

FYI, you called me a troll implicitly when you said:

“And judging by the shitstorm that this kid caused when the video was first posted, I’m SO not getting into this.”

Either you were calling me a troll or you were dismissing my opinion entirely, and since you completely ignored what I linked you to, 3 different, prominent Deaf bloggers who happen to agree with my stance on this, yeah, I think we can say that you’re calling it bullshit. 

“I said deeming parents giving their child hearing aides/impants ableist was bullshit.”

And if you would have read what I wrote, you’d see exactly how it IS ableist, since children who are born to hearing parents oftentimes get the CIs on the assumption that it will “cure” their deafness, when it does nothing of the sort, and the thought that the child needs to be “fixed” as I demonstrated firstly, is ABLEIST.

“I fully recognize that deaf people face more issues in society than I can ever imagine.”

 Then why are you refusing to admit that giving your child a CI against their will has intangible ramifications that will lessen the quality of their life if they are not given equal access to speech therapy, ASL and spoken language and Deaf/mainstreamed culture? There are various  social ramifications: glasses may be teased, but as they get older, they’re more socially acceptable, especially based on their proliferation. Hearing aids and CIs, not so much. So while the child is growing up and taking speech therapy classes, not only will he get teased for his big, obvious implant, but his weird speech sounds and the fact that he’s in a “remedial” speech therapy class. These are the intangibles that screw with this and probably make their life more miserable. 

And if you decide to respond to the above paragraph with, “But that didn’t happen to ME!”, then you are squarely in the minority, since the above happened to me, and pretty much every other Deaf person exposed to mainstream culture. But since you said you’re deaf too, and that you admit that we suffer unfairly, then well, you shouldn’t say this excuse. 

I also want to ask that, since you’re deaf, and your twin friends are completely deaf, why are you denying what is basically the default opinion of Deaf culture. While there indeed exists a schism between Deaf people among whether CIs are acceptable or not, universally, they agree that the child should make his own choice, which is the issue at stake. Personally, as I’ve state MULTIPLE TIMES, I have no problem with CIs: it’s the forced implantation of a child who has no consent. 

Furthermore, I would like to point out that you pretty much abuse the “my best friend/partner/family member is/has _____” fallacy. Just because my best friend is a latina or black doesn’t mean my opinion on those issues is right. It’s really just a variation of the “no true scotsman”.  

If this STILL doesn’t make sense to you, how it’s ableist, how it’s audist and how it’s privileged decision on the part of the parents with extremely short-sighted and un-researched mindsets, then you honestly just….narrow-minded. Every Deaf person I’ve asked agrees with you. Of course there will be some that disagree, like your twin friends who’ve already told me I’m a moron (unless there are OTHER deaf siblings on Tumblr who’ve seen my blog and find me idiotic), but I haven’t found them yet, and they’ve yet to do anything but sling shit at me. 

I hope this makes sense and if you still disagree, or at least still find me to be moronic, then oh, well. You’re the one ignoring Deaf culture. 

To recap:

• Even if you don’t think Deaf people need to be “fixed”, correcting it is still insinuating they’re broken, and is thus ableism.
• No matter what the situation, parents are still forcibly implanting a child against their will with an electrode in their brain which WON’T ALWAYS WORK.
• Because they want to “fix” their children, it’s still ableism.
• You abuse the “My friend/family/etc….” fallacy.
• There will be people who disagree with me within Deaf culture, but they’re clearly more educated than you are on the topic, so I can respect their opinion.