FWIW: I think there is a difference between capital-D Deaf (as in, culturally Deaf) and lowercase-d deaf (as in, a description of one’s hearing condition). Cochlear implants absolutely have value and purpose, especially when people are older, as you mention; forcing it on a child is where I think some people take issue with it. (Though I know some folks who identify as Deaf who have no issue with the cochlear implants they received as children, and actually think it gives them access to “code switch” between cultures as it were.)
My wife’s done a lot of theatre work with the Deaf community. She’s worked on the show Tribes a number of times, which is basically about a 20-something who went deaf as a child, and is finally fed up with the fact that his family never bothered learning sign language, or trying to communicate with him in any other way. So when he discovers that there’s a community of Deaf people who embrace his condition, and can fluently communicate without conforming, he’s even more pissed at his family, and removes his cochlear implants until they meet him at his level.
Allow me to second this. What understanding I have of the Deaf community is largely based on reading that chapter in this book. Very thought provoking.
I looked that up before I posted my stat because I figured there was probably racism in skin cancer diagnosis. Going pretty far off topic here* but I think (someone who knows better can correct me) that the CDC sheet is still correct.
The problem with underdiagnosis of skin cancer in people with dark skin is that people don’t realize they have cancer at as early a stage and therefore it is more deadly. .But in the end the total number of cases is probably correct, because those undiagnosed cancers eventually kill people, at which point the cases become hard to miss. So “black people don’t get skin cancer” is a dangerous myth that kills black people, but the higher rate that white people get skin cancer is a fact.
[And a bit of levity: One day my four- or five-year-old kid said to me, “White people have strong, strong, [me, thinking, what the fuck?!?] sunscreen.”]
* Although only sort of, I assume people with dwarfism also face significant under-diagnosis of various issues by doctors who are like, “enh, it’s probably the dwarfism”
