All The Young Dudes

The Tower Of Babble: Opinions, Opinions, And More Opinions!

The thing that shits me the most, in the threads mentioned in the previous post [and discussions like that], is the reduction of the Deaf identity, as in D with a big Fucking D, to the same status as the deaf with a teenie weenie d.

I am well aware of the ignorance that abounds on this topic, and how many people just can’t grasp the differences between Deaf and deaf people. I am well aware that some people will just never grasp the differences. But to wilfully reduce to the lowest common denominator, the status of Deaf to that of deaf, is an insult.

How is it an insult, some may ask?

Well, it’s in the manner you discuss the subject. Take the BSL Act thread [link in previous post], many of the participants used a reductionist method to argue against the validity of Deaf Culture [or, by extension, that a Deaf culture exists] and BSL [and again, by association, Auslan, ASL, et al] as a fully fledged language. They don’t always come right out and say it [many of the participants at the Tower Of Babble have a history, and they can be found at various deaf forums], and rather than face questions head on, a lot of avoidance tactics are used.

Take for example, the discussion of access using BSL [British Sign Language; and if you are really interested, you can read up on Auslan, my sign language] is always centred around its value as a communication method, never a language. It gets really shrill, when it comes up in debates about access to services, education, employment, and social life.

At a superficial level, yes, BSL [Auslan] is a communication method. A method of communication that arose out of the need for those who don’t hear, or whose hearing is impaired for communication. A visual compensation for the loss of an audio response, if you like. However, sign language has evolved to meet the challenge of deeper communication and expression. Unlike English, you can say that Sign language is a method and language; English is a language quite separate from the means used to convey it, i.e. speech, writing, aural….

Anyway, I digress. The point being that the deeper issues are not acknowledged.

Again the same happens when discussing the Deaf identity. The obvious fact that Deaf and deaf people share a hearing loss, is used to demonstrate that we are all the same really. Then, when an attempt is made to show how the groups are different - out comes dictionary definitions to prove otherwise, or to show how elusive the concept is. More than this, they will trot out examples of bad behaviour and lack of statistics as proof that there is no Deaf culture.

Activism and activists are reduced to dirty words, when discussing Deaf people and Deaf Culture. The fact that some of us have grown up oral, and grown into a positive Deaf identity, cuts no ice. It’s like we are deluding ourselves.

Depending on you you discuss these themes with, it can end up a screaming match, throwing rocks over the fence, sarcasm, put downs, et al…which does no one any favours really. However, it gets more stupid when someone with sane and reasoned voice pipes in, only to get trampled in the rush to continue the tit for tat, not giving an inch, I am right arguements.

There seems to be a morbid fear, that if the Deaf identity was accepted, Deaf culture was valid, and that Sign Language is a language, they would lose something. It’s very much like their identity rests on proving that we are all the same and any deviation from their perception of the norm, is threatening.

I leave you now with a question. Are the Black Americans the same people as the Black British?

Sphere: Related Content

The Tower Of Babble The Theory Of Rational Thought

I really don’t know what I keep frequenting The Tower Of Babble, I guess, like all good, upstanding and decent citizens, I like to know what the goss is on the other side of the pond.

Now The Tower Of Babble is a pretty staid place as far as forums go, and for as long as I have known it, it was, well, staid. Excitement was hardly a buzzword on these pages. In fact, visit many Deaf/ deaf forums, and staidness is a way of life. You know, perhaps my time would be better spent masturbating, than perusing the crap that passes for informed opinion?

I have yet to engage in a forum that actually engages in “intellectual” debate. What passes for debate at The Tower Of Babble is embarrassing to say the least. However, it is been shaken out of its current stupor by a number of threads revolving around BSL [The BSL Act, a BSL Act, the mere threat of a BSL Act makes MM and his fan club foam at the mouth].

Let’s see, Why hostility against a BSL Act?, My Suggestion For A BSL Act - Copyright Reserved, and Press: Poster Protester Calls For Sign Language Help.

Like I said, The Tower Of Babble is a staid place, currently being shaken of of its stupor by the buzzword, BSL. Further, to the ensuing shenanigans, the buzzwords sectarianism, divisiveness, exclusivity, etc, etc, etc, and what about fucking me?

Well, when attempting to have rational discourse with the people of the little d, deafies, about the merits of BSL and Sign language and Deaf have a viable culture on par with Hearing Culture, it’s like a banshee wail of denial and ill informed refutation. While criticising the people of the big D for being exclusive and sectarianist, they pull rank by using nationalism to question why some one such as I, an Aussie, would be so interested in the UK Deaf affairs. Stupid question innit?

Let’s take the concept of the BSL Act. The very idea has put MM, Jippers, WirralBagpuss, Tim and some others noses out of joint because it’s not inclusive, its divisive, it’s it’s…… Then there is further elaboration as to why it won’t work. But what gets them upset, is that it does not include them.

Well, why the fuck should it?

If you read the threads [links posted above] don’t take as gospel, the ideas expressed by drwhofanpeter, as that’s not what the BSL Act is meant to be [at least according to the research I have seen in the past], but the important thing is that such as act would validate BSL as a language and help to enshrine in law it’s place, and further ensure that it gets the funding and support for access services for those who sign [use BSL].

So it doesn’t include the people of the little d. Big fucking whoop! It’s not meant to. Nor it is it intended that it displace the various other acts [and legislation] created to address various needs. It is meant to address a specific need, not at the expense of, but in tandem with!

That concept is a little too hard for people like WirralBagpuss, who proudly proclaims she doesn’t sign and has no intention of doing so, and frequently regaling us with stories of how well she speaks and passes for a hearing person. Big deal. So do I! Speak well that is. I give good blow jobs too, so being an oral deafie isn’t all that bad!

MM wades into this morass, with flippant responses and complete lack of scruples in his quotations. He has his own blog, that promotes his particular brand of bullshit [and bullshit is what it is]. Now to be fair, he does have some valid points, but he spends so much time dishing dirt on BSL [consistent Pavlovian responses], dismissing the validity of Deaf culture and consistently interprets every action by Deaf for the betterment of themselves, their culture and language as divisive and exclusive.

MM, is registered at Deaf Read - The Best Of Deaf Blogs, and my jaw dropped. Of course the only comments he allows through are those praising him and his virtues [whatever they are]. My first thought was, “Are the Yanks really that Stupid?” MM provides thought provoking entries all right, but quality content? And there is a graphic in his 19/01/07 entry, with the slogan NO SINGULAR ASL CAMPAIGNS ALLOWED..so now he is qualified to comment on the affairs of other Deaf Communities?

I would be more inclined to give MM and other people of the little d [that is, his fan club] their due, if he [they] weren’t so dishonest in their interpretations and opinions. The problem is, every time, some one of the Big D, makes a point, the little d’s pavlovian responses are to twist, ignore and deny.

Greta [a friend of mine] made many valid [but NO, derogatory or dismissive] points, and got met with a barrage of opinions that did not address any of the points she made. Not only that, another poster, Ruthie [amazing how she maintains such a good sense of humour in the ensuing onslaught] contributes many positive posts, that make perfectly valid points, only to be given short shrift!

I admit I don’t help matters much [as much as I would like to], and going on to start threads such as this, Deaf vs Hearing Impaired, farmed by the question: “I am having a party. Only BSL users or people who can sign are invited. Is this discrimination?”, and with the intention of scattering a cat among the pigeons. Of course, the usual suspects didn’t take the bait, save for one, but no one saw the facetiousness of the question.

I did mean it to be thought provoking, though. Seriously!

Anyway, at the end of the day, the BSL threads saw some of the most active postings since the hey day of Deaf UK. Of course, Savva, who posted as banoral, and upsetting some of the people of the little d in the process [but I read that soy-den-noom, as banal!], had to go and embarrass himself in his attempt at being inclusive by suggesting a brainstorm as to what a BSL Act would include.

How did he do this?

By profferring a list of suggestions and saying they are copyrighted, and that if we were to sue them, we must acknowledge the source, namely him. Go and have a read for yourselves, My Suggestion For A BSL Act - Copyright Reserved. Gimme a break, he has a law degree and he suggest that his opinions are copyrighted. Yeah right, as if he himself hasn’t formed his opinions, by reading other people’s opinions. Besides his suggestions are that, suggestions. Furthermore, you can’t copyright an idea, only the expression of an idea: that is, story [book], article, song, etc.

Anyway. nuff said. I’ve vented my spleen for the moment. Until the next time>

Sphere: Related Content

V For Vindication

Was surfing deaf-blogs.com, when I happened upon our good friend, Joe, whose recent entry included a link on his blog to a DEAF RAPPER. Check it out.

There is a further link to SIGNMARK, the rapper in question, personal website.

It really made made my day, or should I say, capped my evening with a much needed smile, as I was still stewing over ButtFace’s puerile dismissiveness of Deaf Talent.

To really make my day, would be to have 1000 Deaf Rappers crowding around …

Sphere: Related Content

The Tower of Babble: Deaf Soapie

Why are people so fucking obtuse? I have done my best to ignore the braying at the Tower Of Babble, but after reading this thread, I’m not biting my tongue. To hell with respecting personal opinion, especially those that are informed by nothing but its own fetid imagination [or lack thereof]!

The thread posed a simple desire, “To see a reflection of Deafies on television, on a regular basis, in a soapie format”, and immediately gets shot down by the doyen of intellectual virtuosity, whose reasoning consists of a hatchet job of what passes for personal opinion.

I’m not gonna reiterate the negatives raised, nor am I gonna address them point by point. It would take too long. Besides, it’s the end of the working week, and my intellectual prowess is begging to be bedded for 8 hours.

But I would like to address these points:

1. “I don’t think the deaf community has the actors or writers to produce anything weekly..” on what basis has MM made this judgement? Just because he hasn’t got any talent, no need to lump us all into the same basket! Though, the Yanks think he has, but that’s another story.

2. “Better you ask the ACTORS do they WANT to do a strictly deaf Soap?..” MM makes the assumption that a Deaf Soapie would revolve purely around the Deafies, and automatically exclude anything to do with Hearing. Well, I don;t know nay Deafie who lives a life that is totally cut off from the Hearing world. Do you? After all, we do have hearing families, we go to work in the hearing world, we even have hearing lovers [so we don;t hear their grunts, but they can hear ours - how unfair is that?]

3. “There is an issue of a BSL ’soap’ too, it isn’t reflective of most of us…” Chee, some of us do talk you know, as well as sign. So I imagine that a Deaf soapie would show this too?

4. “We live in a mainstream world amongst mainstream people everyday, we can’t exclude ourselves into a tiny bubble, its hardly being realistic is it?..” more twaddle that reinforces the attendant assumptions in point 3.

5. “It relies on people skills, through and through. Just what most deaf people don’t have…” then the Mensa aspirant wades in with this observation. Chee, we are a crappy lot aren’t we. He must know, he has met us all, so this judgement is actually quite well informed.

6. “Deaf writers write for a specific and MINORITY Market..” well, MM, you can go fuck yourself with this observation. How do you derive at this assumption. I write, and you haven’t read anything of mine, save for my blogs and forum responses… but if you have paid attention to any of the stuff I have written on my blogs, you would see quite clearly that my terms of reference are quite varied, but like a scratched record, you just get stuck on my so called offensive posts, and blithely ignore anything else. In fact, I have written songs [you know those words set to music, that people like to listen and sing to?]…. then MM, just keeps piling on the shit with: “…..it hasn’t even broad appeal amongst the deaf here, again because they haven’t the ability to write inclusive material.” and “…. even IF they were inclusive, the content is an issue with deaf writing, it hasn’t ‘hearing’ appeal, and it doesn’t include either so fails on two fronts.” As if MM writes about anything resembling inclusivity, or something appeals to the hearing, or even mainstream. But then again, wanking is as mainstream as you can get.

7. “deaf=sign that’s it..” it does. My viewing gives me the impression that, ” deaf = oral/ hearing-impaired/ learn to speak/ get cochlear implant/ missing out on a lot…” especially, if you are going to use TV/ Film as a barometer of Deaf images..and even in the mainstream world, this view is very prevalent.

8. “I personally don’t think there will ever be a possibility of having a deaf soap, it just wouldn’t work!” the question is why wouldn’t it work?…”There are so many identities in the deaf community all shouting for awareness that you couldn’t possibly cover it in a soap nor could you generalise on a few, as it would rake in complaints…” and the point is? The hearing world has exactly this problem, and it doesn’t stop them from creating a world that: assumes all people are white, not disabled, middle class, hear, talk, look gorgeous and so on…as far removed from reality as you can get.

Really, this thread begs the question, why do Deaf people keep getting beaten up for exhibiting behaviour that is common amongst hearing people: insular, exclusive, ghetto,…perhaps we should just quit trying, and face the reality that we are a totally hopeless lot?

Sphere: Related Content