#gallaudetuniversity #robertacordano #tedbaran #nbda

As a White and Indigenous Deaf Alumnus at Gallaudet University, I am writing on my behalf to support National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) to call for designated President Roberta Cordano to resign from Gallaudet University.

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students, faculty, and staff throughout history, globally and in the United States, have been stigmatized and discriminated against for generations and generations. The social position of BIPOC at Gallaudet University has been on shaky ground for ignoring Racism, and then it is a good time to clean up the corruption and white silencing.

How different history might have been if systemic racism reflects the country’s constitutional painful lessons and community accountability? The systemic racism provides a comfortable supply to all White people, Deaf or Hearing. Everyone gets a trophy, and everyone deserves to be praised for his or her White privileges.

That should evaluate the use of force under the Eighth Amendment, which governs “cruel and unusual punishment” — the attitude of how systemic racism came to be, and the history of practicing racial profiling and oppression.

We can debate how much truth is here. White privileges turn into a comfortable zone, a sense of human entitlement—lacking any basis in reality. The incidence of racial profiling has been in the White system for years and years at Gallaudet University who has a deep and profound impact on Black Deaf Community, making them fearful and vulnerable.

Something should be examined on how hard they’ve avoided the full responsibility and how well they’ve mastered the White denial.

The inability to merge these forgotten identities is difficult to understand how they did not realize when the melting pot was still as simmer as opposed to roiling boil mixing American population today. In any situation with stereotypes at its center, the question becomes how the disillusioned can identify with the majority for survival.

In the wake of the practice of systemic racism at Gallaudet University and the “nadir of American race relations” better to keep the status quo than be subject to violence while harboring “the hope of a higher synthesis of civilization and humanity.”

What happens to the true value that originates from authenticity? The nonchalant disregard of culture was pandemic as is evident in the history of Gallaudet and its interactions. Even all-former Gallaudet presidents were comfortable sharing their prejudices but not learning from them in public. Their effective social bungling consistently affected the lives of the BIPOC Deaf Community.

While Gallaudet University, unlike other minority arenas, waxed with social change and devoid of violence, the practice of Racism was admitted at the request of White privileges. This effectively orphaned them. While inappropriate today, this has been uncontested the whole time. Distinctions were made between White privileges and racial hatred. Again, the politically correct values of today are not reflected.

When that happens, one thing becomes clear: White supremacy does not match the reality of their performance and can draw classic denial into annoying confrontations—or ignore the mechanics of unpacking White privileges. Fear becomes invisible but makes no mistake. It is also, truthfully, that White supremacy is made invisible. Hate crime is invisible to the population of the Deaf community.

Gallaudet University is being reviewed by the Middle States Commission of Higher Education (MSCHE)—with recent campus upheavals that dismantled not only systemic racism and oppression of the BIPOC Deaf community, President Roberta Cordano attempted to do strategic plans that ignore the growing pains of systemic racism, its “diversity, and inclusiveness” farce.

Not only just President Cordano, but as for Mr. Theodore Baran as Director for Department of Public Safety (DPS) raises a big concern, creating a series of false images, by failing to provide a haven for BIPOC Deaf community, consists of cruelty, psychological as well as physical, and teach DPS to humiliate, so injured to actual human-to-human cruelty by the graphic and White ignorance.

President Cordano and DPS Director Baran were wrong to think whether or not history forgives us. They do not understand their history, but do we understand ourselves? Mr. Baran also needs to resign or terminate immediately.

Those who seek to understand systemic racism should consider that the knowledge of BIPOC Deaf community is not lost, but by working together we can preserve of the past and move together into a future where there are still learning and healing for the society to experience, where we can have a more meaningful experience, knowing both the land of their home place and the BIPOC Deaf people who have brought them into being.

How deadly silent the stories have been for decades and decades, considering the lack of society’s accountability and the values of the BIPOC Deaf community, no matter the cost to the public’s trust?

With probing intelligence and humanist concern, it is without question, a systemic failure that the BIPOC Deaf community continues to be at the forefront of the struggle to bring the voices of past and present within seeing and learning distance of the rest of the Deaf community.

As the only hate crime researcher in the Deaf community, I would unequivocally recommend agreeing without any reservation whatsoever that President Roberta Cordano and DPS Director Theodore Baran is no longer trustworthy. DPS needs a major clean-up.

The system failed all of us. It is an epic failure.

In Solidarity.

Respectfully,

Jason “JT” Tozier