This month, October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Deaf returning citizens or returnee(s) who have experienced may be more prone to ostracization from the society than other groups, not all the people may not agree with this statement, but would they really understand the ostracization as a way of social status in stages of stigmatization?
The style of draconian practice has deprived from Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for creating the most cruel laws.
However, those Deaf returnees without a supporting system, can we discuss atrocity, the state of bullying? Recognizing that might be a strong, emotionally-charged word, and should be used with care.
Confucius: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
Deaf returnees among the banned people because they are really “dangerous” because it deals with subversive topics: ostracization, injustice, and deprivation from freedom. The root of the problem is IGNORANCE. Deaf returnees deal with this every day with every ounce of their strength. Another problem they deal with, from within the Deaf community, is HATRED. Lecture on that reality, no?
For example, Deaf returnees, who are covered by the The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA, still encounter difficulties in trying to secure employment, have not benefited as much as non-returnees. However, it is a great achievement to get the ADA passed with strong bipartisan support, and fixing the criminal-justice system is an huge ongoing challenge, as anyone in the legal system could tell you. Because Deaf returnees are continually bullied.
And, the “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” prescription is widely misunderstood. It did not mean tit-for-tat revenge, but applied to financial hardships they face daily. The old justice might not be a cruel system, but the current injustice is a cruel system today; it was far more compassionate and merciful than the savage British system that prevailed for centuries and influenced American jurisprudence.
The abolition of bullying Deaf returnees makes the point that it is more costly, in economic terms alone, to shame a Deaf returnee than to implement life imprisonment of public shaming. The society makes rules to protect what they see as law and order, and to prevent violence, abuse, etc.
For example, Chen et al (2008) writes that people can relive and re-experience social pain more easily than physical pain and that the emotions they feel are more intense and painful than the experience of physical pain. “Physical pain is short-lived, whereas social pain can last a lifetime.”
If there is a rule against teaching tolerance, that affects the zero-tolerance policy. Then again, why should society bother with a criminal? Who is going to support an Deaf returnee? So let them take their punishment. Eighty-six that thought. Let’s go party!
Deaf returnees ultimately are going to get released and will be back in the society as a more-or-less free person. What are we doing to ensure a decent post-release life for a Deaf returnee? Sure, there would be people who say, “we don’t want someone like him or her in the Deaf community!” but the Deaf community contains some people who are, to put it mildly, not good citizens or decent people. We do not see anyone sending out lynching parties after them.
Deaf returnees have a right to live in society freely and be treated fairly and how often the second chances have changed their lives around, whether from expediency or honest conviction. On the value of civil rights, as best as much publicized in media, publicly espoused the civil rights movements movement, desegregation, and voters’ rights.
Public shaming Deaf returnees would publicize the “dangers” and would deplore the current tendency towards bowelderizing the past. When people start taking down their struggles, where do they stop? Those experiences should have given them empathy for others who have gone through the same experience. Life is about loss as much as it is about gain. Their long-suppressed pain is forgotten.
Deaf returnees have much harder access to employment and higher education so they could turn their lives around. Dealing with stigma being associated with a criminal record, it is like the subject of being labeled, if stigma encourages aggression even in a human space, how much worse might it affect mental health in a fashion, particularly when growing pain is involved? Helping Deaf returnees find jobs is much difficult more than people really understand;
Higher education [learning] is the gateway to transform in its social, economic, and human change, and many Deaf returnees struggle on the spot. When conflict and rejection of higher education applications, Deaf returnees are neglected. Irish poet W.B. Yeats once said, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/are full of passionate intensity.”
The reality is that Deaf returnees who share their pain deal with a spectrum of hate and overcome the hostile environment that continues on the brink of fear, paranoia, and bullying. The beauty of higher education is that it is about healing and learning. They can make all the difference in society.
Yehuda Berg writes: “When you fight through difficulties, you reveal your greatness. And since we have all had to fight through challenges at some point in our lives, we all have greatness inside of us. The measure of one’s greatness is found in the size of the challenges overcome.”
We can discuss how to stop bullying whose views are not in accordance with today’s and to put their hatred into the proper historical context, without engaging in censorship, whitewashing or hearingwashing. The political storms generated by corruption and bullying develop a plan and lead to a human abandonment of strategies in favor of an idea to “dehumanize” that relies on hate.
Speak up. Ostracization is part of direct bullying, indirect bullying, physical bullying, and verbal bullying, does not make YOU a better person.
A vision of justice and repairs decades and even years of violence has been forgotten upon Deaf returnees even if ever ‘Deaf returning citizen nor returnee’ was punished in modern times and all who have been systematically rejected out of the society.
-JT
Copyright © 2020 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. 