The documentary film, The End was released seven years ago and this is the first time I’ve seen this last night. It blew my mind away. You can click this link below the post to see this film for free. 23 minutes with captions. I am fascinated with numbers. I thought why not check out “23” and found some interesting stuff. Before I share my thoughts, this film is seriously a critical examination to discuss at this point. Time to examine and have discussion over. Certainly, this one was really heart-wrenching.

The movie, Russell Crowe plays as John Forbes Nash, “A Beautiful Mind”—a mathematical genius. That movie was a classic. Nash in his real life was obsessed with number 23. Also, he published 23 scientific articles. Remember Charles Darwin who published “Origin of Species” in 1859? Yeah, the same Darwin, his brother was dating Harriet Martineau, who was Deaf, and the mother of Sociology or the first female sociologist.

I remember when I discovered Martineau who was Deaf, and discussed with my Sociology professor whom studied Martineau numerous of times during university days in Georgia. None of his professors even once informed that Martineau’s state of being Deaf. That raised a red flag. Why silence? Not giving enough credit to Deaf people for changing the world?

Paddy Ladd writes in his book, Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, page 172:

“If Deaf people appear like ‘savages’, then like the so-called savages, they too must have a culture, however primitive. As we have seen, however, this kind of internal discourse has been augmented by the rise of Social Darwinist science-worship leading to oralism’s own media-disseminated ideology, that one can ‘rise above’, ‘leave behind’, or ‘conquer deafness’, just as those ‘savages are expected to reject their own culture for the superior one embodied by the White Man.”

Darwin’s book was published in 1859: 1+8+5+9=23. Ladd said it all. In math world, we should know that 23 is the most commonly cited primate number because it is the only number that is divided by itself and one.

ONE: No one would savage Deaf community away. No ONE. Deaf community will always stand with ONE GOAL: Safeguard the terminology of Deaf. The biology of Deaf people cannot be replaced.

I’d like to share book articles that were written in page 23 in each book that should be read to the world that they genuinely care about Deaf community, culture, and language.

Introduction to American Deaf Culture by Thomas K. Holcomb:

“A final example of individualism in American life involves different perspectives on discriminatory practices. In America, any form of discrimination is theoretically unacceptable.”

The Deaf Experience: Classics in Language and Education by Harlan Lane:

“It is accurate to say about the education of deaf people, or of hearing people, that when it comes to conceptualizing—particularly about intellectual, abstract, and general matters”

Deaf Empowerment: Emergence, Struggle, & Rhetoric by Katherine A. Jankowski:

“The reformers also sought to eradicate sign language, since it was the binding force of the Deaf community, and, they believed, isolated the community from the speaking world.”

The Politics of Deafness by Owen Wrigley:

“The Deaf community continues to be amazed by this thought. How is it that hearing people, who have no particular barriers between them in their own spoken communication but are unable to accept one single international language, still somehow expect deaf people either to do so or to accept a constructed language imposed by someone wishing to “create” one for their “benefit”? It is familiar arrogance by which difference is “silenced”.”

Deaf Identities in the Making by Jan-Kare Breivik:

“Gradually, I discovered that something was fundamentally wrong, even if I tried hard to integrate in the hearing environment. I was never going to be a hearing person!……..And gradually I acquired a sense of pride for being deaf. Being able to communicate freely inspired me.”

Let’s look at alphabet number: 23.

“W” is the 23^rd letter of the Latin alphabet. When I learned about this in my hate crime and bias class, we were instructed to read and understand white supremacy as my professor explained that they use ‘23’ to present “W” as the sign of racial superiority because it has two points down and three points up. “W” See that?

 

Deaf people will never be wiped off Mother Earth to represent the hearing superiority as in white superiority just like Ladd writes, “own culture for the superior one embodied by the White Man.”

As this book may not written about Deaf life, but it has the same path what Deaf people are going through at this stage in their lives, in a book:

‘Silent Victims: Hate Crimes Against Native Americans’—-again, in page 23: “to understand the specificity of the experience of hate crime for American Indians; it will open the door for the emergence of additional literature on this unexplored dimension of racially motivated violence;”

In this free documentary, The End, did the film show any sign of hate crime, hate literature, or hate speech with the goal to eradicate Deaf people by hearing superiority (AGBell, Cochlear Implant Industries, Oralism, etc)? Look at words carefully.

Can we understand the specificity of the experience of hate crime where Deaf people experienced by bullying, and the lies about the wonder of cochlear implants and stem cell? Near at the end of the documentary, it hits really hard. Is that hard enough to understand sociologically motivated violence in human behavior targeting Deaf children every day for profits?

No Deaf human being will ever hacked off the Earth. Not in year 2046 either. The Futurism of Deaf Human evolution will continue.

“It is familiar arrogance by which difference is silenced.”

(WARNING: This film may be sensitive to viewers)

Free documentary: https://vimeo.com/24804168

-JT

Copyright © 2018 Jason Tozier

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