Revised Lecture Notes: Deaf Hate Speech

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings,

whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex,

national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or

any other status. We are all equally entitled

to our human rights without discrimination.

These rights are all interrelated,

interdependent and indivisible.

—www.ohchr.org

When you lose your language,…

you exclude yourself from your past.

—Johan Van Hoorde, 1998,

Let Dutch Die?

Ignorance often leads to hate speech. People who are ignorant of the language and culture of the deaf think we shouldn’t care about American Sign Language (ASL). There is a widely held and popular—but nonetheless misconceived—belief that deaf children can be made “to listen and talk,” and that this anti-signing oppression is not a tragedy at all. The following are discriminatory language statements quoted from various institutes.

Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center:

CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) is a school where children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to listen, talk and read without using sign language.

DePaul School for Hearing and Speech:

We teach children from birth to age 14 to listen, to speak and to learn without using sign language.

Memphis Oral School for the Deaf:

…NO SIGN LANGUAGE is used, instead using speech and language therapies and audiological services in conjunction with our preschool classes to help profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages birth to six years old.

St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf:

Individual sessions with deaf education therapists, who specialize in early intervention, help you understand the emotional and educational effects of your child’s hearing loss and teach you strategies to help your child develop spoken language without sign language through the auditory-oral method.

Tucker-Maxon School:

Students with hearing loss do not use sign language; instead, with the help of assistive technologies and trained professionals, they listen, talk and learn like their typical hearing peers.

These above illustrative examples are contemporary. Deaf hate speech begins with language intimidation and intolerance, both of which are not considered distinct in any substantial way from other acts of prejudice and discrimination against the Deaf. It is important to keep in mind that deaf hate speech has a long historical lineage. The contemporary dynamics of sign-language-hate-motivated prejudice and discrimination have their origins in historical conditions.

About 2,400 years ago, in ancient Greece, Aristotle, in his attempt to refute Socrates’ question, in Plato’s Cratylus (Reeve, 1998: 67), whether signs by the mutes be equal with spoken words, asserted that an inability of deaf people to repeat the same sounds implies that they are senseless and worthless of human intelligence. As expressions of deaf hate, such acts of sign language intimidation, “involve the assertion of selves over others constituted as Other”(Goldberg, 1995: 270), where the self is thought to constitute an ability “to listen and talk.” Even with a normal hearing listening is always probable and talking may be just babbling.

The burning question then, when one tries to understand the dynamics of deaf hate speech, Why is it so easy for individuals and institutes to dismiss sign language? Is ASL a human right? Is being deaf also a human right? Will ASL die?

A document prepared by the International PEN Club’s Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee and the Escarre International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations has presented and remarked:

The paradoxical situation is that languages will certainly die unless we do something; but, the reality is that they may also die even if we do something. Therefore, what do we do?

The top priority, it would appear, is to raise awareness to stop hate speech against the Deaf. Although ASL is at risk of being described in another language, it is plain from the above “no sign language” statements that ASL remains in the state of endangerment.

Many people are unaware of a language bigotry that needs to be dispelled, in order to foster the right climate for sign language maintenance. It has to do with teaching ASL to deaf children. There is a widespread belief, even in colleges and universities, that being deaf is an automatic qualification for being a good instructor. Another myth has to do with learning. Because ASL can be learned naturally, people readily assume that they can acquire ASL from the Internet.

All in all, it is by no means easy to help people see the consequences of negative attitudes towards ASL, or the consequence to eradicate ASL. To deny deaf children sign language is to exclude them from the history. Language denial and discrimination are therefore a social injustice.

Carl N. Schroeder, M.Ed.

The Mermaid Soap Opera

 

http://www.rnw.nl/english/node/876604

Giving Goma a voice, words not needed

Published on : 23 January 2013 - 10:30am | By RNW Africa Desk ((C) Gaïus Kowene)

More about: 

Meschack Kadima’s aim is to give voice to the voiceless. It’s a real challenge for the young illustrator in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, living in a society he feels is too repressed to speak out about the troubling political situation.
By Gaïus Kowene, Goma
Kadima uses a pencil, ordinary and coloured, to put his thoughts down on paper. The war and the suppression of freedom of expression it has brought with it supply plenty of artistic fodder. And, when Kadima saw two deaf people using sign language, he realised he could reach out to the world with his art. Inspired by how the deaf communicated without using spoken words, he decided to try and express the collective emotions of people around him.
“I noticed that here, in the east where all sorts of crimes are committed, there are many mute people who cannot express what they feel,” the artist explains, referring to those who are silenced for political reasons. “As their brother, I decided to speak on their behalf.” Kadima tries to do just that through his drawings, which he publishes on Facebook and occasionally makes on commission.
Africa’s heart
Among Kadima’s signature drawings is that of a man’s head, accented in the colours of the DRC flag. His face is filled in with pencil and a red stream flows down its left side.
“It’s the face of an injured Congolese man who cries every day,” says the Goma-based artist. “He fears that speaking the truth will get him killed. That’s why the truth is written on his face – so anyone who sees him knows what’s going on in his country.”
The face symbolises the DRC. The left eye crying blood represents those who have died in the east of the country. The other eye, crying normal tears, represents those who mourn in its western region.

• Drawing by Meschack Kadima
  © (C) Meschack Kadima - http://www.rnw.nl
• Drawing by Meschack Kadima
  © (C) Meschack Kadima - http://www.rnw.nl

• 
• 

In another drawing, Kadima addresses the underdevelopment of the continent as a whole. The young artist turns the map of Africa into the head of a woman. Her eyes closed, she is contemplative, if not downtrodden. She wears the Congolese flag as a headscarf.
About this piece, Kadima says: “The Bible says that he who finds a wife finds happiness. But if a man finds a woman who has been raped, he will never be happy. And Africa will continue to cry because the DRC is its heart. As long as Congolese women continue to be raped, the DRC and Africa will not prosper.”
Waking up
Despite his sombre drawings, the artist remains optimistic about his country’s future. “We are still hopeful that in 20 years, there will be some change. The Congolese people are waking up. If we become more socially conscious, there will be no more conflict and the DRC will become the world’s El Dorado in 20 years,” he predicts.
Kadima encourages his peers to work and, in so doing, to be patriotic. “We inherited a country in ruins from our grandparents,” he says. “It is up to us to rebuild it. Let’s step up; let’s love our country and work for it.”

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Today's Lecture: Deaf Hate Speech in Deaf Schools

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings,

whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex,

national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or

any other status. We are all equally entitled

to our human rights without discrimination.

These rights are all interrelated,

interdependent and indivisible.

—www.ohchr.org

When you lose your language,…

you exclude yourself from your past.

—Johan Van Hoorde, 1998,

Let Dutch Die?

Ignorance often leads to hate speech. People who are ignorant of the language and culture of the deaf think we shouldn’t care about American Sign Language (ASL). There is a widely held and popular—but nonetheless misconceived—belief that deaf children can be made “to listen and talk,” and that this anti-signing oppression is not a tragedy at all. The following are discriminatory language statements quoted from various institutes.

Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center:

CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) is a school where children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to listen, talk and read without using sign language.

DePaul School for Hearing and Speech:

We teach children from birth to age 14 to listen, to speak and to learn without using sign language.

Memphis Oral School for the Deaf:

…NO SIGN LANGUAGE is used, instead using speech and language therapies and audiological services in conjunction with our preschool classes to help profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages birth to six years old.

St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf:

Individual sessions with deaf education therapists, who specialize in early intervention, help you understand the emotional and educational effects of your child’s hearing loss and teach you strategies to help your child develop spoken language without sign language through the auditory-oral method.

Tucker-Maxon School:

Students with hearing loss do not use sign language; instead, with the help of assistive technologies and trained professionals, they listen, talk and learn like their typical hearing peers.

The burning question then, when one tries to understand the dynamics of deaf hate speech, Why is it so easy for individuals and institutes to dismiss sign language? Is ASL a human right? Is being deaf also a human right? Will ASL die?

A document prepared by the International PEN Club’s Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee and the Escarre International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations has presented and remarked:

The paradoxical situation is that languages will certainly die unless we do something; but, the reality is that they may also die even if we do something. Therefore, what do we do?

The top priority, it would appear, is to raise awareness stop hate speech against the Deaf. Although ASL is at risk of being described in another language, it is plain from the above “no sign language” statements that ASL remains in the state of endangerment.

Many people are unaware of a language bigotry that needs to be dispelled, in order to foster the right climate for sign language maintenance. It has to do with teaching ASL to deaf children. There is a widespread belief, even in colleges and universities, that being deaf is an automatic qualification for being a good instructor. Another myth has to do with learning. Because ASLcan be learned naturally, people readily assume that they can acquire ASL from the Internet.

All in all, it is by no means easy to help people see the consequences of negative attitudes towards ASL, or the consequence to eradicate ASL. To deny deaf children sign language is to exclude them from the history. Language denial is therefore a social injustice.

Hate Speech at Gallaudet University

Carl N. Schroeder

102 Tribbett Court

Dayton, Oregon 97114

cschroeder@clackamas.edu

January 14, 2013

The Honorable Senator Ron Wyden

221 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

                                                                                    Re: Hate Speech at Gallaudet University

Dear Senator Wyden,

Deaf Hate Crime (DHC) is a grassroots watchdog group that identifies hate speech, whether that hate speech be directed directly against Deaf people, or designed to belittle the status of our language, which is American Sign Language (ASL)—our form of speech—here in the United States.  As a former Student Body Government President, Student Congress Speaker, SBG Academic Affairs Director, and 1983 Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Fellow, I am writing this letter with grave concerns about certain incidents of hate speech that are occurring at my alma mater, Gallaudet University, the nation’s only liberal arts university of, by, and for the Deaf in Washington, D.C.  As you know, most of Gallaudet’s budget is provided for by a line-item in the Federal budget, being annually appropriated by acts of Congress.  This letter also requests for a full investigation into the matter of the abusive and oppressive atmosphere at Gallaudet created by the hate-oriented speech.

“Sociology of Deafness and Deaf People” (SOC 225/255) is a course that was offered at Gallaudet University last fall that was taught by Professor Thomas Horejes. One of the clear effects of the course was the attempted inculcation and indoctrination of students toward a philosophy that promulgates hate speech against deaf people.  The course taught (1) that deaf people typically marry with each other without love, (2) that deafness can be best “cured” with cochlear implants, (3) that the statements “I-CANNOT-HEAR” and “I-CANNOT-TALK” imply the nonexistence of American Sign Language, (4) that deaf people are synonymously comparable to black people, and (5) that the students should be labeled gay, bisexual or heterosexual not for reasons of psychological and cultural identity, but instead due to students’ patterns of thought and thought processes.  The First Amendment rights to free speech and expression notwithstanding, these aspects of the class were so unconstitutional, nonacademic and inappropriate as to warrant an investigation: What do we, the Deaf, to quote Barbara Perry in a Native American question, “define as necessary to minimize the impact and the incidences of hate crime?”

Hate speech is a hideous injustice.  Hate speech at Gallaudet University starts with language, and its amelioration is always an uphill battle. The language battle continues there, being waged both in ASL, as well as spoken English and its counterpart, written English, the two-to-one prestige ratio of language infighting. I am copying this letter to various individuals and organizations, and it is our DHC group’s earnest hope that the investigation will result in measures taken to promote mutual respect, a bias-free environment, as well as academic integrity.

Thank you,

Carl N. Schroeder

Deaf Hate Crime Group

 

CC:      Alan Hurwitz, President, Gallaudet University

            Sharon Barnartt, Sociology Department Chair, Gallaudet University

Thomas Horejes, Sociology Department Assistant Professor, Gallaudet University

Angela McCaskill, Chief Diversity, Gallaudet University

Jane Dillehay, University Faculty Chair, Gallaudet University

American Civil Liberties Union

American Sociological Association

Coalition Against Hate Crime

Congress Members

Deaf Hate Crime Group

Gallaudet University Alumni Association

Human Rights Campaign

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association of the Deaf

            National Black Deaf Advocates

            Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf

            Southern Poverty Law Center

Student Body Government

            The Buff & Blue Newspaper

            The Chronicle of Higher Education

            The Washington Post

Describe These LEGO Minifigures

In Holland, We Celebrate St. Nicholas Day Today

 

Sinterklaas in LEGO!

 

 

Sinterklaas Visits Schools.

 

 

Sinterklaas, Zwarte Piet and me.

 

 

 

Sinterklaas Rides on Annie (?)

 

 

Sinterklaas is so different from Santa Claus

 

Sinterklaas and

Zwarte Piets (Black Peters)

 





Criticism of Dutch fictional holiday figure "Black Pete" grows amid immigration debate

By Toby Sterling, The Associated Press | Associated Press – Tue, Dec 4, 2012

AMSTERDAM - Foreigners visiting the Netherlands in winter are often surprised to see that the Dutch version of St. Nicholas' helpers have their faces painted black, wear Afro wigs and have thick red lips — in short, a racist caricature of a black person.

 

The overwhelming majority of Dutch are fiercely devoted to the holiday tradition of "Zwarte Piet" — whose name means "Black Pete" — and insist he's a harmless fictional figure who doesn't represent any race. But a growing number are questioning whether "Zwarte Piet" should be given a makeover or banished from the holiday scene, seeing him as a blight on the nation's image as a bulwark of tolerance.

"There is more opposition to Zwarte Piet than you might think," says Jessica Silversmith, director of the regional Anti-Discrimination Bureau for Amsterdam. She said that historically her office received only one or two complaints per year, but the number jumped to more than 100 last year, and will escalate much further this year.

"It's not only Antilleans or Surinamers who are complaining," she said, referring to people descended from the former Dutch colonies that once traded in slavery. "It's all kinds of Dutch people."
There are various versions of the history of St. Nicholas — "Sinterklaas" in Dutch — and of Zwarte Piet, who made his debut as an African servant in an 1850 book.

"Nobody is against the Sinterklaas celebration or is calling people who celebrate it racist," said Silversmith. "But it is time to consider whether this is offensive, whether there actually are racist ideas underlying Zwarte Piet."

The debate comes after a decade in which the Dutch have rolled back many aspects of their famed tolerance policies, and in which anti-immigrant sentiment has risen sharply. Zwarte Piet is frequently defended as part of Dutch cultural heritage, and those who don't like it are often bluntly invited to leave the country. Many Dutch say Pete's black face derives from the soot he picked up climbing down chimneys to deliver presents — although that hardly explains the frizzy hair and big lips.
A sea-change may have occurred during last year's festivities, when four men were arrested for wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "Zwarte Piet is Racism" outside a store during an appearance of Sinterklaas — and charged with protesting without a permit.

Police threw one, Quinsy Gario, to the ground, and kneed him in the back repeatedly as they dragged him away, though he offered no resistance. A video of the incident was placed on YouTube, and the slogan began trending.

Although police were later found to have acted wrongly, many parents still felt that it was inappropriate to protest during the holiday or when children were present. Gario responds that Dutch people won't discuss the matter the rest of the year, so his protest was the only way to broach the subject.

This year the debate has clearly escalated.

For the first time, a white politician has openly challenged the tradition: "The Sinterklaas celebration once began without Zwarte Piet," Amsterdam councilwoman Andree van Es said in an interview with newspaper Het Parool this week. "It's time it continues without Zwarte Piet."

Two major chains of stores, Blokker and V&D, now use images of kids with ash-smudged cheeks in their sales catalogues, rather than Petes with black faces. And in a first this weekend, a documentary laying out arguments against Zwarte Piet aired on national television.

The county's most widely read news blog, "GeenStijl" launched a blistering campaign against Black Pete— surprising because GeenStijl prides itself on being tasteless and politically incorrect, and had mocked Gario after the 2011 incident.

"Zwarte Piet is nothing more than a repulsive parody of a slave, fine-tuned to indoctrinate schoolchildren into the finer points of racism," it wrote in its first posting in a series. "The sooner we get rid of Zwarte Piet, the sooner we won't look like idiots to the rest of the world."

While the author, who uses the pen name Johnny Quid, uses the satirical blog also to skewer Black Pete opponents, he has deeply antagonized the blog's mostly conservative-leaning reader base.
Despite the growing anti-Pete movement, the tradition finds a strong bedrock of support in mainstream Dutch society, meaning it's unlikely to disappear any time soon.

In 2008, a Museum in Eindhoven called off an anti-Pete exhibition after protests. The foreign artists received death threats. And when Victoria's Secret model Doutzen Kroes said on national television in 2009 that Zwarte Piet is the one thing that has ever made her feel ashamed of being Dutch, the studio audience laughed at her.

Jan Pronk, a leftist politician who once served as the U.N. envoy to Sudan, dismissed her viewpoint on the show. "These are very old traditions," he said, "I don't think it's so bad."

A Facebook page with the slogan "Zwarte Piet is Racism" has become a major platform for debate this year, though moderators have begun removing hate speech and personal threats.

One organization reinforcing the Zwarte Piet image is educational broadcaster NTR, which also airs "Sesame Street" in the Netherlands. It has developed a popular fake news program for kids, devoted to the doings of the wise white Sinterklaas and his many bumbling Petes, all with the traditional blackface look.

The program starts in early November and airs nightly until kids open their presents on Dec. 5. (Although the Dutch Sinterklaas is the source of the American Santa Claus, Christmas is a separate holiday in the Netherlands, where the present-opening tradition happens three weeks earlier.) The show draws more than a million viewers in a country of 16 million, and its spokeswoman, Helen Albada, said she was unaware of any complaints about its depiction of Zwarte Piet.

Several years ago, the broadcaster experimented with a story line in which the Petes were turned different colours after sailing through a magical rainbow. That drew thousands of complaints, in part because the backlash against immigration was cresting at the time: Fans said changing Pete was sacrificing Dutch cultural heritage to the forces of multiculturalism.

"We didn't intend that either," Albada said. "Kids don't see Pete as black, it's the adults that give it a racial meaning."

In a recent editorial, one columnist for the NRC Handelsblad newspaper questioned whether the country really is as tolerant as it likes to style itself. He deplored the fact that even as the U.S. has re-elected a black president, not a single member of the Netherlands' new Cabinet is of non-Dutch ancestry.

"That's because we, unlike other countries, have become completely colorblind," Bas Heijne wrote ironically. "We don't need a black minister, let alone a black prime minister: We have Zwarte Piet."