Who the hell turned him in? If it was a student, there should be a conversation.
If it was another staff person, that person should* be fired.
*Should in the sense of justice in the world, not in the sense that weaponizing anti-racism efforts against POC would actually be legal grounds to fire someone in 2019 America.
My, my, it has been a longtime since I have been so politely dismissed. Excellent work. Thank you for not saying “bless your heart.” But really, I was at best indirectly defending him. I was trying, hopefully politely disagree with the assertion that only one class of people, presumably the one with the lesser amount of power, should have absolute control of what is bigotry against them.
I think reducing or defining a person or a whole set of people by a single characteristic is not only dangerous, and insulting, it is folly. I am not defined by my deafness. It is a aspect of mine, which has influenced my entire life, but it is not me. It does not change the fact that I am a human being with all the complexity, strengths and weakness, virtues and flaws of one.
And I do not get the exclusive right, nor should I, on deciding if some is being a bigot towards me. Fortunately, almost everyone, once they realize that I cannot hear well even with my hearing aids, are politeness personified, regardless of position, class, or race, because, whatever else, obviously it is a condition beyond my complete control. Yet, I have had people insist, insist that the reason I did not respond, after they talked to the back of my head, sometimes for several minutes, which is embarrassing, was because of my being rude, stupid, or racist.
Now, I could be any or all of these things, but they were talking to the back of my head, and I was concentrating on doing something, or in a noisy environment, or just flat out too exhausted. I did not hear them. I would show them my two aids, and you could listen to my fairly flat voice, and apologies, but they would not, or could not, change their minds. They had reduced me to a single characteristic. A characteristic that made anything else irrelevant, or worse, non-existent.
Now, I have also had people who were bigoted towards me, because I am deaf, too. Those people are easy to dismiss. I can happily tell them to kindly drop dead. However, do I get angry or dismissive with someone who is uncomfortable with me because I am deaf. They do not think that I am lesser, so they are not bigoted, but some differences can make people very uncomfortable, often subconsciously, and it takes time, sometimes a lot of time to change that. I suppose I could declare them bigoted in someway, because in an unconscious, often unwilling way, they could be, but what would that serve? That is besides dismissing their humanity and probably their good faith efforts at not being bigoted.
It would be so, so, very easy to take all my anger, my rage, at being hurt, misunderstood, even abused at times over decades call it all bigotry and fling it into the whole world. There have been times that I have wanted to do that very fucking strongly. However, all the abusive bigots, the mistaken people, those obsessed with respect, intelligence, racism, perhaps even class, and the merely uncomfortable react often in similar fashion, because after all they believe, at least at first, that they are not doing anything deliberately wrong. Frustration, uncomfortableness, even mere misunderstanding often cause the same reactions. Some with hearing loss do do that as do others with their own disability; however, what does that serve and is it even true to label everything that causes misunderstanding, discomfort, even pain as bigotry or hate or cluelessness?
And yet, on very rare occasions, I have had not taken good care of my hearing aids, or even just not wear them, because it can be so frustrating and exhausting to interact with the hearing world. The clueless, the stupid, the bigoted. It is like please go away and leave me the fuck alone. When someone becomes frustrated, even mean towards me, because I could not understand them especially if they know about my actions, were they being bigoted, or were they right to be so? I could claim that they were because after all their actions mimic the truly bigoted at the times my aids are fine and I am trying my best.
So I ask that you not reduce everything to a single dimension, much like zero tolerance does. I suspect that the power relationship is what is what is really being discussed here, but again reducing everything to balances of power is merely another form of zero tolerance. Just like as if I, as a socialist, insisted on reducing everything to class, which some want to do especially communists. A reductio ad absurdum of taking an aspect of life and making it everything.
Racism and other forms of bigotry are entangled with censorship. The defenders of the status quo are quite often bigoted and want to remain so. Then there are those who want to change that. Censorship is often used by the combatants to control the flow of ideas. It is hard to change something without having a label for it. This is why when racism is talked about censorship comes out. It came out in the South before the Civil War when abolitionists newspapers were around. The thing is censorship often becomes a weapon wielded all sides. it becomes a means of control rather than of protection. You said a word or have a thought we think is bad, goodbye. No appeal, no explanation, no thought, no forgiveness, just goodbye.
There are plenty of writers today that can give their experiences of racism from a personal perspective. Mark Twain is an excellent example of people not seeing the forest for the trees, though; from the first printing, over a hundred and thirty years ago, of * The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* censors have tried to remove the book because of the n-word or at least have it bowdlerized. They conflate Twain’s attack on racism as racism. He was attacked in part because he dared to bring up racism. How uncouth of him People also thought his use of the icky vernacular of that place and time including the n-word would corrupt the American youth, pollute their delicate young minds, instead of “proper” English, which would be uplifting. That is nuts, but that is what they thought.
Often people think censorship, thoughtless, automatic elimination of “bad words” makes the world a better place. Creating “safe spaces” only leads to the topic of the article and the example in the comments. Further, the efforts at combating bigotry through censorship or forms of zero tolerance usually does not actually fight the bigotry, but just drives it underground. It does however lead to censorship of the mind and gives power to those who want to control the mind. And once censorship starts, just where does it end? You can always find words inappropriate, eliminate or create words to supposedly protect people.
Nah, I don’t want to be protected from the bad words, the bad thoughts of those who would hate me for being different. I want my bigots’ out in the open, loud, free, and proud where we can discuss our differences. Preferable by words, or if they insist, by my fists. Who knows, maybe open dialog will change their minds. It does happen occasionally.
Let’s review.
Deafness is a condition, not a culture (as a signifier, a la Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness).
Nobody sought to profit from the enslavement of the physically challenged to build out the infrastructure of a nation, nor used something like deafness as a marker of subhumanity to justify their enslavement.
While it’s true that the physically challenged have been irrationally lumped in with the mentally ill or mentally challenged in the past, they don’t generally experience “gatekeeping”, “redlining”, lynching, forced sterilization for no imagined beneficial reason, hyper-vigilant observation, or any number of things which stem from a skin color which in reality is not a disability in any shape or form.
I think your heart’s in the right place but…
Deafness can be a culture, and for many people right now it is, and there’s a great history of deaf culture activism that should absolutely not be dismissed.
Comparing them generally is just Oppression Olympics, and no one wins that, because it’s different struggles.
I think the more important point is that I don’t think that translates to deaf people (or any number of other kinds of people) being in a position to tell people how they should feel about the N-word, or a completely different oppression, either.
This is what I was trying to point out. I’m meaning culture as signifier. That’s why I alluded to Heart of Darkness. Clarification inserted.
The main point being missed here is that skin color is not considered a disability, and we’ve built an entire nation based upon this fallacy.
I’m just saying some Deaf people live deafness as a signifier, not just a condition. I don’t know if this commenter feels that way but Deaf Politics gets pretty deep, pretty quick.
Something like this line is going to be super offensive to a lot of people:
nor used something like deafness as a marker of subhumanity to justify their enslavement.
Historially, deaf people were deprived of lifelong liberty based on their Deafness. I’m absolutely not saying experiences are equivalent, but you’re inviting a lot of argument there.
We’re still struggling with this in the current day, with homosexuality, transgender, and similar things being viewed as abominations, rather than common instances in nature. Eugenics was a thing, but equally a bad rationalization.
Institutional Racism is a much larger beast to contend with.
And not to mention;
INTERSECTIONALITY IS A THING.
It’s possible to belong to more than one marginalized group at a time, and to be subject to all the issues and problems that come from being Other, simultaneously.
I’m all for that, but the singular reason it’s wrong is that (white) Deaf people can’t speak to Black experience.
That’s why it’s wrong. Full stop.
Comparing experiences is the actual part that is not helpful, and I wasn’t the one doing that.
A post outlining how being Deaf isn’t as bad as being Black, is the part that people could take reasonable offence to, and that’s what I was objecting to.
It’s downright genocidal, but please stop comparing it directly to other oppressions, because it’s possible to say why people shouldn’t use the N-word without making it sound like you think deaf people have an “easier ride”. That’s beside the point.
I’m saying this with respect.
To be clear, I’m saying they are two different experiences, but I am most definitely NOT saying that being deaf is easier.
Also: “forced sterilization for no imagined beneficial reason”…edited for clarification.
Fair enough.
I concur.
All discrimination and bigotry is wrong, and fighting one kind does not render one ‘incapable’ of fighting others.
No, you were absolutely not.
To be clear on my end, I don’t think the original poster should have used their deafness as a substitute for Black experience, as I also don’t think anyone else should assume their experience is a substitute for Deaf experience.
I think you’re good.
ETA: I have to go on record that forced sterilization of deaf people was always eugenics, even if people imagined it was for a good reason. “Good intentions” were also a part of a lot of stupid eugenic projects.
is not a disability in any shape or form. A mere physical difficulty, really?
My apologies here. I am going to be blunt and a bit angry. Probably rude and unfair. Claiming it is not a disability especially before the end of the 20th century is at best naiveté or worse callous indifference. I’ll be charitable and think it an honest lack of knowledge.
I am just old enough to have been possibly institutionalized and/or sterilized by the great state of California. It was a “progressive” idea starting at the turn of the 20th century to sterilize poor whites, minorities, the disabled, and felons. Also to institutionalize anyone deemed defective, which was a very, very broad category that just happened to almost never include white, middle class, Anglo-Saxon protestants The Nazis got their inspiration from the Americans after all for their ethnic cleansing and the getting rid of undesirables. My institutionalization was recommended to my parents. Fortunately, they declined the offer. That did not mean my school years were all fun and games for this “retard.” Race or class meant nothing as they all found me entertaining.
So, while I find the Victim Olympics silly, for we all have difficulties and many have had lives that make mine look heavenly; there is always someone who has it worse than you, trust me on that. I still am going to take issue with those claiming that having a particular whatever makes them protected from criticism. People are people and assholes and saints exist in every conceivable race, class, and creed.
The onus is not on the oppressed, but on the oppressor. White people absolutely invented racism as a tool for exploitation.
The issue with skin color being a deficiency is that that idea is completely arbitrary.
A less comedic take:
One can not directly compare bigotry or oppression of two different kinds. We are all unique… However, we can only interpret what others are saying, expressing, feeling, experiencing, through our own experiences. A pain from a shattered knee might be different than pain from being shot, but unless I get myself broken the same way as the other person, I will only be able to indirectly compare pain. The same goes for anyone. Often the only way to communicate is by comparisons
The problem I have is that too often people engage in the Reverse Victim Olympics in that their oppression, suffering, and pain makes the other person’s oppression unimportant. There are a few deaf people who would take any hearing person complaint as not that important because they are not deaf. Just like I have talked with some who have skirted with the idea that my being white diminishes my being hard of hearing and poor. Both is just crazy, but a life of pain can twist a person. Being unable to communicate and being considered less than, perhaps more of an animal than a human can do that to a person, oh yes, it can. But pain is pain and we are all human no matter what. So can being seen as dangerous for the color of your skin.
I do not think that we will all come to a consensus. Somehow I will be found unappreciative of racism and I will be annoyed at what I perceive as facile arguments. That is okay. People disagree.
NO ONE HERE SAID OR EVEN IMPLIED THAT, THOUGH.
And that’s where you are being disingenuous, as well as off topic.
You claim you are deaf. (Sorry, I don’t know you and can’t verify the veracity of your statement, so it’s just that; a claim.)
If true, that means that you are allowed to determine for yourself what is offensive to you as a deaf person, and people who can hear don’t get define, marginalize or negate your lived
experience.
You claim to find ‘the Victim Olympics’ “silly,” yet your very first comment in this thread glibly dismissed the agency of various persecuted groups to determine their own feelings and perceptions for themselves, then you finished by making it all about yourself.
But that’s exactly what you did, ‘Blanche’; in your very first lengthy-ass comment.
And who claims the status of the oppressed? Among the people delighting themselves with my abuse were black. They could hear fine and communicate with others just fine. Yet, I am a white American, poor and disabled, and according to some an oppressor from the oppressor class. Does that mean I should lump all hearing people as members of the oppressor class? I could. I have said the race, class, or religion did not really make much of difference. Shall I tell my family, all hearing, that they are my oppressors? If they were preventing me from getting the help I needed, or if they abused me because of my condition, of course, but that would be from what they are doing, not from what they physically are.
Aside from the Victim Olympics, it is the use of an accident of birth to determine a person’s worth. I was born deaf and white. I was not asked if I wanted to be either and I should not penalized. However, my actions are of my own choosing. What I say or do matters. Not whatever my presumed connection to whatever other person or group. Otherwise, it is failing back into a form of bigotry. Perhaps a form of original sin, of inherited sin or even virtue.
