The idea of campaign against hate and bigotry in the media and it starts with us, Deaf people and second, allies. We need them.

GEICO, an auto insurance company was producing a television commercial about Alexander Graham Bell’s legacy I saw the other day in late July 2018 and took a screenshot off YouTube. First of all, an auto insurance company should be all about honesty and respect. Imagine GEICO car insurance holders knowing that selling pays for your money hate speech by AGBell’s dark life.

It is a given fact that Deaf drivers are the best in the world. Why? The sociology of Deaf drivers has entered a stage of development. Will auto insurance company like GEICO to have a role in this fundamental transformation? Should GEICO strengthen respect to address the Deaf drivers everywhere? The Deaf driver I shall define and defend fiercely is that Deaf drivers do have a role to play in the society.

I am saddened that GEICO did not do their homework that Alexander Graham Bell truly oppressed Deaf people in the name of hate. Not only that but GEICO also failed its history lesson that in the United States Congress few years ago, Congress even acknowledged that Alexander Graham Bell is not the father of telephone idea because he was a patent thief. I have no idea if Alexander Graham Bell advocated the idea to deny Deaf people driving privileges. I have no idea. If anyone knows better idea, please let me know and I’d love to know about this.

GEICO spends how much on commercials makes “in 2013, GEICO raised it advertising budget from $1.12 billion to $1.18 billion, making them the fifth most advertised brand in any industry (in 2003, they were 87th).” [https://www.compare.com/compare-car-insurance/geico-ad-spend]

Should commercials use the image of Alexander Graham Bell to question whether Deaf people were stupid by nature or by social enactment? Shall Deaf community oblige with their rights by the social status quo? While the media—the image of Deaf people is not about the nature of our individual rights, it is about Alexander Graham Bell’s oppression of Deaf people in darkest life. So dark, that it is being written out, that AGBell continues to practice hate, like “1984” surveillance society in Deaf community.

I believe in early 1920s, for example, shall make Deaf drivers to define and delineate their right that can be tested and challenged in the eyes of society—all the way to honesty and respect. You know Deaf people won the right to drive in 1920s, it was a big step in the eyes of Deaf community and nothing can take it away from them.

As I was reading through Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America by Jack Gannon, writes in page 166: “Quite a number of deaf people in the state are the owners and drivers of autos today, I can check off as many as 35 on my fingers, and it is likely that there are anywhere between 50 and 100 deaf owners, drivers of cars in Minnesota.”

It is not enough for GEICO to be consistent and clear about Alexander Graham Bell’s legacy; AGBell must also have six-word points that are supposed by their own argument. That would be AUDISM. When Deaf drivers were discovered to be the best drivers on the planet;

Deaf is four-word phrase, I believe, and the object of this phrase is Language, modified by the noun, Sign, which, in turn, is modified by the other noun, American. Because it is used in the United States, this “the image of Deaf people” is so labeled that the American social and political processes sociologically influence it.

Most recently, few days ago in summer 2018, there was a video by Deaf man in state of Massachusetts shared his experience with blatant discrimination where he as a shopper was stalked and targeted by a grocery store worker and demanded that Deaf people should not drive and took his keys away. That was clearly a manipulation and being arrogant about Deaf people and inhibiting them into fear and silence.

Is it time for GEICO to apologize to use the image of Alexander Graham Bell’s legacy to oppress Deaf people daily now and then? I am strongly suggesting, of course, that the media, like a major television commercial acquire oppression first to supplement some explicit media oppression or performance of Deaf people. Oppressing Deaf people from Bell’s hate practices is not an intellectual act but the interference of Deaf people a much wider role in the media of knowledge than GEICO normally realize and recognize.

GEICO need to see the sad account of the way AGBell portrays Deaf people and sign language being bastardized for Oralism practices, “TALK! TALK! TALK” and well…start from there. See the picture above? “As long as people talk too”——cannot be more greater and powerful than George Veditz’s quote: “As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs” in old film, a 1913: Preservation of the Sign Language, nothing can beat that.

-JT

Copyright © 2018 Jason Tozier

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