ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy P2
It’s hard not to repeat oneself, but the many of the responses are so cliched and one dimensional, raising more questions than they answer. Then again, some of the responses found in the following post, Is Being Deaf Or Blind A Disability?, are quite heartening. Perhaps the world is not so jaundiced?
Such as the following is a brilliant quote taken from Is being deaf or blind a disability?:
It is difficult for those who can hear and see to judge what is a disability. I think we create “disability” by not integrating the disabled into society, rather we relegate them to an inferior status and manage their lives like a disease…… disgraceful
or, from the same blog:
Of course deafness is a disability. Deaf people are unable to hear, lack of ability is, by the definition of the word, a disability. People deny they have disabilities because the word carries connotations of inferiority and inequality. People need to realize that having a disability neither makes a person inferior nor unequal to others without the disability. All people have their unique strengths and weaknesses, abilities and disabilities. But the sum of any one person’s strengths and weaknesses is the same as the sum of someone else with different strengths and weaknesses. The two people are equal.
Maybe human beings aren’t too bad after all?
But one of the most amazing interviews I have read, and appeals to my FU@ attitude, is the radio broadcast that featured our very own Deaf Doctor. Dr Steve Emery, who has his own blog, Tiger Deafie, was invited to participate on BBC Radio 4’s, The Moral Maze, and featuring Michael Portillo, a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative party politician and Cabinet Minister. I have only linked to the transcript provided by STOP EUGENICS, since the hearing media has been by and large, rather lax in providing access.
Reading the transcript of The Moral Maze, I swear I could read Dr Steve Emery wanting to spit some poison in Mr Portillo’s direction. Mr Portillo was clearly irritated by the questions, and Dr Steve was having none of his prima donna turns. About frigging time a [former] pollie [politician] was the target of some well deserved rebukes.
I should point out, that the problem of discussing deafness on an aural medium such as radio:
The problem with having this debate on the radio is that it is not a medium that profoundly deaf people use, so we are missing out on much of their vital input to this argument.
What is important about this interview/debate, is the exposure of an intelligent Deaf person who actually knew what the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was about. An intelligent Deaf person who understood the intentions of the bill, and who understood the implications of Clause 14 (4) (9).Then there is Mike Gulliver who has been engaging in the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Bill, with some insight and intelligence. He severely rebukes the media for their handling of the whole debate. In The lie of ‘of course deaf is wrong’, he points out how some of the press is many of the comments submitted by Deaf people. You can read more of his posts at his blog, or mine the the following posts Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2 and Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage for direct linx to the posts he published.
Contrary to what hearing, and so called able bodied people think, disability - is not an absolute. It is relative. Context is everything. Disability is value judgment imposed by human beings on other human beings, according to prescribed criteria. The fact that disability exists, is a challenge to that definition. The fact that people with disabilities flout these rules, and live quite productive lives, probably causes them to chafe a bit at the seams.
Refusing to be relegated to an inferior status and manage their lives like a disease!
If you think hard enough about it, the value of our lives is forever being determined by someone else’s edicts. This is done in various ways, both covert and overt. Some is rather obvious, such as peer pressure, or familial demands, and others are subliminal such as advertising. Those who dare to challenge these edicts are labelled trouble makers, ratbags, rebels, activists and militants.
What is often ignored in discussions about deafness and disability, is the hearing and the able bodied’s, own complicity in the way deafness and disability affects people. Not just, how the Deaf, deaf and disabled can grow, learn and become autonomous like their able bodied brethren, but also the attitudes and judgments impose don’t on them by a society that has only a superficial understanding of disability.
So, perhaps the poster of this comment, is on to something:
It is difficult for those who can hear and see to judge what is a disability. I think we create “disability” by not integrating the
disabled into society, rather we relegate them to an inferior status and manage their lives like a disease.
Further Reading:
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: A Cacophonous Din of Ignorance & A Sane Voice [More Linx]