So apparently the new deaf president at Gallaudet University wasn’t deaf enough? WTF? Can someone educate me on why the student body shouldn’t stfu and gbtw, why it makes sense to them to measure a person’s worth based on when they first started using sign language or learned to speak or whatever? Educate me!
Because they really seam like entitled assholes imho atm.
Gallaudet has been a pretty extremist campus for a long time. When I lived in DC in the early 80’s it was undergoing some big upheaval that nobody understood, either. I can’t remember what it was but I do remember thinking that the students were nuts. And I was on the left of liberal at the time, as I still am. The Washington Post did an editorial a little while back, opposing what the board did today, which was fire the new incoming pres before arrival.
You can find a bunch of stories in the Post about it, but you have to register. And you won’t find a good reason for it.
The hell? Do you have to abbreviate everything you write? This isn’t a chat room, you know.
But to get back on topic, yes, the students are being assholes. It seems like people who are used to be excluded and marginalized would be the least likely to discriminate.
My apologies, which one didn’t you understand?
From my limited interactions, I have noticed that deaf culture can be at times incredibly elitist - a lot of the time looking down on the hearing, those who became deaf later in life, and especially heaping derision on those who choose to get cochlear implants. Also, some think of themselves not as being hearing impaired, but as the rest of the world being deaf impaired.
Hopefully a Doper more in the know about deaf culture will chime in.
I had a girlfriend way back in high school. She wasn’t deaf but when she was young had some deaf friends and learned how to sign. She made a career (in her youth. I don’t know what she’s doing now) as both a translator and advocate for the deaf. But on the Gallaudet campus she was continually ostracized because, while she could sign with the best on them (in a few different types of sign which I admit I didn’t bother to learn anything about being more concerned with her skivvies than skills, if you get me), she wasn’t actually hearing impaired. That somehow made her some sort of carpetbagger or something. She went on to do other things.
So, yes, Gallaudet has, to me at least, a history of being a hard place to work with.
Apology accepted. I hope I don’t seem like those mean students, judging you because of your communication style. 
What does “gbtw”? Grabbing big tits and wangs? And what do automatic teller machines gotta do with the deaf folks?*
*I actually just deciphered this as “at this moment”…although I could be wrong.
If I’m understanding the argument correctly, it’s a lot like a white guy becoming president of an historically black university. Or, perhaps, someone who learned Spanish at college becoming president of a historically Latino university.
Good? Bad? Who knows. I guess I figure the people paying tuition are the ones who should decide who’s in charge.
That’s IT! That’s what they were protesting 20 years ago – the FDA okayed implants as a treatment for deafness and removed its experimental status.
My guess is “gbtw” means “get back to work”.
On the subject, I have an LJ friend who’s working on his post-grad at Gallaudet and has been journalling the whole thing. While I haven’t actually posted any replies about it to his LJ (because I don’t want to step in a landmine that I didn’t know was there) it occurred to me that Gallaudet students are possibly the most entitled, most easily outrage, most militantly stressful student body in the last 30 years. I read about Fernandes being let go before she even started and thought, “You just reinforced the idea that the Board will roll over the second a student signs ‘No’.” I can’t figure out how Gallaudet has managed to maintain any kind of academic standard if the whole school bends over every time the student body gets an itch…
Actually, the 1988 protests were about a new administrator also. Elizabeth Zinser (hearing) was chosen, and the students protested. The Board rolled over and appointed King Jordan (deaf, maybe Deaf…the deep conspiracy people don’t consider him deaf enough, either).
I don’t think it’s that obvious, as the incoming president was deaf, so reimagining your analagies it’s a lot like a deaf guy becomeing president of an historically deaf university. Or, perhaps, someone who learned sign language at college becoming president of a historically deaf university. Get my point?
I actually stayed in a dorm there for a few days in – must have been 83 or 84. They rented part of the campus out during the summer break as a conference center. There were enough students still around giving us angry looks to make it an uncomfortanble few days.
It was a public radio conference, and we were all about “good sound” and “better sound”. Nobody on our end who booked the conference there had any idea of the poitical implications of us being there.
There were no incidents, though. Merely a good deal of tension in the air.
There’s a write up on wikipedia: Gallaudet University - Wikipedia
If you don’t mind some anecdotal speculation and uncited memories: A deaf lecturer came to speak at my high school during th 1988 Gallaudet debacle. She explained that the language you use to communicate dictates your thinking style and how you relate to the people and the world around you. The idea is that language is the first form of logic we ever learn, and it colors all subsequent disciplines we learn.
There’s a lot written about this in the psychology and sociology books so I won’t dive into it - suffice to say that she’s right, someone who grows up speaking Cantonese will have a different fundamental approach to thinking than someone who grows up speaking French. Language dictates culture to a large degree.
The deaf who grow up communicating through ASL have a different communication style than any of us. It goes beyond the simple physical differences - there’s a different grammar, a different order of thought. Here’s the example the lecturer gave us of the way a hearing person expresses an idea vs the literal translation of a deaf person expressing the same idea in ASL:
Hearing person: “I’m going to see a movie.”
Deaf person (in ASL): “Movie me go.”
You can understand how someone who communicates in the ASL style may feel no relation whatsoever someone who speaks as the hearing do. I don’t pretend to understand deaf culture, but the fact that they have a distinctly different way of grasping the world and relating to each other is clear.
Their problem with this last candidate wasn’t that she was poor at ASL or wasn’t deaf enough - it’s that she was not part of deaf culture. I can see their point, although I disagree that this disqualifies her as a president.
To broaden the analogy a bit more, it would be like if a black person raised by white parents became president of a historically black college. Or a transgendered woman (M-to-F) becoming a president of a women’s college.
It both cases, it would stupid and wrong to discriminate. The great thing about culture is that one doesn’t have to brought up into it to appreciate it, learn it, and become a member of it.
Why in hell would a “good sound or better sound” conference be booked at such a school? Kind of in their face, no?
As to this controversy–I confess I don’t get it. There is a difference between being deaf and being Deaf. Apparently (I read this in TIME or Newsweek-one of them had an article) there are even some member of the Deaf community who are outraged when parents of newborns opt for cochlear implants for their deaf infants. They take this personally as an affront and a loss to the Deaf community.<shrugs>
I think that like a lot of communities, there are extremes–and right now it would seem that the most militant have the floor.
Not part of deaf culture? Have you not read her wiki bio? What does she have to do to become a part of it?
Of course, you are correct, which is my point, the student body is apparently comprised of idiots.
This part
Because they really seam like entitled assholes imho atm.
Translates to:
“Because they really seem like entitled assholes in my humble opinion Auotmatic Teller Machine”
:dubious: I don’t get it.
Most HBCU presidents, especially during the inception period, were White. Heck, there are even predominantly White historically Black colleges…
(with White presidents)
I dropped by the Gallaudet protest when it was still just a lock-down of their main academic building. I’m not deaf, but I’d heard from NPR that there were allegations of excessive force by the security people trying to break it up, so I thought I’d go see what was going on. (Man, I love living in this city.)
I can’t speak to the merits of the students’ gripe, but a friend and I were let inside to look around. A few observations:
1.) These kids were organized. Keeping in touch via sidekicks, people on all the doors, and a well-equiped media/PR center set up near one of the doors. I was impressed.
2.) Everyone I spoke to (or wrote notes to) seemed very nice, and not at all like an entitled asshole. Certainly, no one gave my friend or I a hard time because we weren’t deaf - a lot of people thanked us for dropping by.
3.) Most of the people I conversed with said that the issue wasn’t so much a deaf/not Deaf issue, but irritation at the perceived lack of student input into the Presidential selection process. They claimed to want more of a chance to weigh in.
A little bit of a hijack - sorry. But I’d be glad to answer any questions about the bit of the protest that I saw.