Alumni and Alumnus get this letter from Denison House at Gallaudet University asking for their donation to show Gallaudet pride. Supposedly if James Denison is alive and sees this, how would he respond to toxicity on the Gallaudet campus?
Tag: 1880 Milan Resolution
Light a Candle Against Hate
Lit a candle has a good reason. Light a candle against hate.
It’s the day (September 7th) that changed the world of the Deaf in 1880, much dismay and disgusted with Oralism practice in Alexander Graham Bell’s America insulting ASL and Deaf people’s intelligence, too numerous to document each unbearable pain. The question, are we equally hurt in the making of cultural disrespect? If not, then are we at very best, in terms of reality, a hypocrite? Today is 2019.
While on a subject what hate is, this kind of hate incidents—Deaf people that do not rise to the level of punishable crime, the worst part that they had been dealing with a life-time psychological impact that is the greatest invisible hurt in Deaf community.
Is the stage of grief also invisible? We should focus on hate crimes, the outlook is hardly more difficult to fathom.
Deaf community, it is time to reclaim our pursuit of happiness.
That means rejecting the practice of hate that has been characterized by Deaf people too long. ASL and the Deaf community is rightly proud of its identity of a healthy human, a reputation that has been bullied by Alexander Graham Bell to destroy the stage of Deaf minds. The goal is to weaken the morale of the Deaf, and self-reflective of their own self-hate, such as the state of being Deaf, insulting cultural norms and values.
We start out with the hearing privilege is powerful in this underlying Audism Deaf people suffer from. One of my favorite books to read, George Orwell’s classic 1949 novel, 1984. In my 44 years on Mother Earth, the book is the greatest superpower left on the planet we live, breathe, and appreciate by protecting the principles of ASL and state of being Deaf, it is a superpower.
Hate is a slanderous and vicious personal attack that has damaged Deaf people’s personal reputation as a breach of human growth and negligence. Where are the rights of the Deaf to be protected from the society’s malicious images that are contributed to mental health injuries, and the greatest loss of repetitional damage?
Hate is a real mental health issue.
-JT
Copyright © 2019 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
The Long Silence of Forgotten Audism
Since Tom Humphries coined “Audism” in late ‘70s for his Ph.D., his vision of seeing a lot of Deaf people being oppressed so frightening that as Tom did not give any professional lectures about it. Almost four decades later, Humphries does not believe in it to pretend that Audism exist. Is Audism controversial? I remember reading a book, The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community that was published in 1992 while I was a sophomore in high school, I did not read the book until 1999.
Harlan Lane, Carl Schroeder and I had a private meeting in 2010. He signed the very same book I read in 1999.
There are millions of poor Deaf people, any kind of color in America that are suffering from pain and exploitation they all had in common, as a lover of freedom and liberty for all Deaf people to enjoy, I believe that efforts to build a law that recognizes Audism through stories, hard facts, and professional opinion, basic elements that are commonly missing when discussing “Audism” in the society.
If I coined a term whatever it is, I would make sure I educate the country, no matter what how long it is because it is my social responsibility and civil duty to continue educates Deaf people.
Let’s face up to it, Mr. Tom Humphries, there are millions of Deaf people who might look up on you, in a sphere of heavily steeped emotionalism, political struggle, power struggle, and human struggle that are completely ignored and continue to ignore Audism that exists today and tomorrow. I was one of them who look up to you. I own a painting of your face done by Nancy Rourke along with 12 faces in my personal space that was supposed to make all difference.
Is Tom Humphries still a scholar today? As in a book chapter called Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression by hearing chair of ASL and Deaf Studies department at Gallaudet University, H-Dirksen L. Bauman writes:
However, it is was not until 1975 when a Deaf scholar, Tom Humphries, decided it was time to name the discrimination against Deaf persons and to coin a term that would be part of the currency of discussions on human rights, deaf education, and employment.”
Audism did not discuss until 1992. Why long silence? Funny thing that I was struggling in schools, home life, and personal life because of long-silenced treatment that Audism exists. Talking about Audism has often occurred in the context of angry words, hostility, accusations, and divisiveness.
This coming Friday and Saturday, April 14th and April 15th, there will be rally sponsored by Audism Free America (AFA) celebrating 200 years of American Sign Language (ASL), Deaf Education and their stories through the power, freedom, and justice to fight against Audism to let the society know that it is a permanent movement.
Where is your empowerment, Humphries? That was 42 years ago—and Deaf people would be empowered by now instead of being in silence about it. Since 1880 Milan Resolution, Deaf people have been survivors of the longest hate crime in American history. We refuse to live in hearing superiority. They need to respect Deaf people—the more respect, less Audism. In Humphries’s words:
The notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears. It is the bias and prejudice of hearing people against deaf people, it is the bias and prejudice of some deaf people against other deaf people.”
Although, the society that I envision is one that maximizes freedom and liberties for ALL Deaf people coming from walk of life—the concept of ignorance is what completes the loop of full justice even at Gallaudet University.
Yet, Bauman writes, “The term now appears at all levels of the Deaf Studies curriculum at Gallaudet University, from Introduction to Deaf Studies to Deaf Cultural Studies.”
I was asked to give a lecture at Gallaudet University a month ago and found that Deaf students who comes from mainstreaming schools, some of them are juniors and sophomores at Gallaudet has no idea what Audism stands for or do not know who George Veditz is, or Alexander Graham Bell, even the story about Milan. It’s very serious problem. I call it “Social Problem 101”.
Gallaudet University needs to bring stronger ethics and require ALL Deaf students to take at least 12 credits in Deaf Studies and Deafhood courses even though if they are not ASL/Deaf Studies majors.
Perhaps we should re-frame the question: How can Audism protect Deaf people from future social problems? In this case, the answer probably lies in higher learning and lectures. How would you answer this, Tom Humphries? Deaf people who are survivors of Audism do not need to be forgotten even in long silence.
-JT
Copyright @ 2017 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
References:
Humphries, T. (1975). Audism: The Making of a Word. Unpublished essay.
Lane, H. (1992). The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community.
Bauman, H-Dirksen L. (2004). Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression.
Becoming a Better Student of Higher Learning
Why Not AGBell in the List of Hate Groups?
[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch]
There are now reported 21 hate groups in District of Columbia released by Southern Poverty Law Center’s HATEWATCH. The only missing group is Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. How come SPLC did not list AGBell in this group? Well, there are few reasons that I will do my best to write and explain why AGBell should be classified as a hate group. Perhaps SPLC would learn from this for a start and go from there.
First of all, it is a sound-oriented world and SPLC does not really understand what Deaf people had suffered in their lifetime experiencing hate. Bell’s action equaled “Audism” of denying the linguistic minority such as Deaf signers such privileges and societal rights to the use of “natural language” Audism should really a logical term to describe AGBell’s eugenics movement for imposing linguistic and cultural superiority and eradication upon Deaf American signers of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
More appropriate terms are linguistic imperialism or attempt to “linguicide” the sociocultural minority, ex. Deaf signers of the post-Milan Conference period from conveying and expressing their own thoughts in practical and efficient language usage. “Linguicism” could be also an acceptable term to describe AGBell’s misguided ideology of assimilating or centralizing the sociolinguistic minority into the society at large on so-called equal basis.
Deaf Americans and other Deaf people everywhere, could enact the strategic multilingualism policies to ensure the protection and preservation of our beloved and precious language (ASL, LSF, BSL, and many others) from possibility of linguistic extinction/loss and sociocultural genocide or undermine the existence of minority language usage. Deaf people everywhere ought to call for the non-intervention policy to make our natural language of the Deaf to the protected status to the listing of endangered language usage in the United States and other countries.
Beginning with the work of AGBell in the late 19th century, Deaf people have been frequent and prominent targets of the eugenics movement. It is not widely known by the general public that, in addition to his work as an inventor, Bell was also a leading figure in the education of the Deaf in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In order to put this issue into context, it is important to consider AGBell and the educational and social programs he promoted.
As it was indicated, the primary characteristic identifying a member of the Deaf community, as opposed to a hearing-impaired person, is the use of ASL. It is a matter of great importance to members of the Deaf community that AGBell was a leader of the movement to “all-oral” education of the Deaf, in which ASL was banned from the educational process and discouraged in ordinary social intercourse.
AGBell and other oralists seem to have been motivated by two major beliefs. First was a belief in the “progressive” idea that American should have a single “official” language, spoken English, and that everyone should acquire in the same way. Signing was thought to result in the failure to have an adequate command of English, which would condemn the Deaf person to a life of poverty and impaired intellect. The use of ASL in the educational process was felt to impede the development not only of speaking and lip-reading but also reading and writing.
The second motivation for the oralists was eugenic in nature and had to do with the supposed genetic bases of the state of being Deaf. The reasoning went like this: AGBell, in an influential monograph titled Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, asserted that sign language and those residential schools where it was used led to the formation of a separate Deaf community.
He noted, further, that the state of being Deaf is primarily heredity and that if Deaf people congregate and intermarry, the state of being Deaf, seen as a severe disability, will increase in the general population. Both of these lines of reasoning are know known to the without foundation-sign language has never been shown to interfere with the acquisition of spoken English skills, and, as is known to all of you, the state of being Deaf has many causes, generic and nongerietic.
In fact, most Deaf couple have hearing children (Lane, 1999) this can be attributed to a wider social awareness of other cultures in general in the United States. Even though awareness of Deaf culture has been perpetuated, the knowledge of the condition is not wholly agreed on by individuals in the hearing community, as evidenced by the results of the true or false portion of community how they view of Deaf people.
That is one of many reasons why SPLC did not really understand how much pain Deaf community has gone through the series of hatred. One day, AGBell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing will be recognized as a hate group. Time will come.
-JT
Copyright @ 2017 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
References:
Lane, Harlan (1992). The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community. Dawn Sign Press. 1999.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Memoir-formation-variety-human-race/dp/B000J0OV24
Oralism Survivors: Strength is Great!
The heat of the night burns so vividly that Oralism survivors feel their strength and their destroyer fighting for the soul like the Deaf people later in life, they are the divided sea, they are the freed people. They are the middle ground watching, waiting, painting, loving, and dying. They are here to live. They are here for death. Today, September 11th—136 years ago in 1880, Milano, Italy began to ban signed languages around the world for the sake of Oralism.
The death of signed language tormented by the serpent and his leeches that leech upon their insides like a heart in love with another that loves it. Deaf people are the life of a whole that they will never fully comprehend until they live no more. They are the cold of the dawn. They are the skin from a disgusting scar, picked off by a sharp infected nail. They are the nails. They are the eye that sees you and feel strength. They are the mind that the greatest have questioned and tested for years. They are the great that questions and tests.
Are Deaf people or even American Sign Language the question? That is a test. They are the wind that blows so fiercely now and is completely absent!
Now they are the last beat of your heart. Your heat is the only filth keeping Deaf community alive. Your heart is the key to the strength. The strength has been here before. They have been here before. Nothing new is under the sun. They are above and beyond the sun, in the brightness of the Deaf community and the darkness of the cosmos.
Waiting for the real Big Bang. The collide of Deaf community so immense that they all could never explain, so small that they will never truly feel it. They know that it is there; they know that it is coming. Are they coming?
They are coming! They are the climax of a passionate protector amongst the AGBell beasts the society created from dirt, water, and soul. They are the rib from that reason. They are the day, night, water, and air that the reason Deaf community was created days before something created them. They are a flame. They shine a light whose worth is only appreciated in the darkness. Own it up, AGBell! Remember your STRENGTH!
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
Dear Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC): Please Understand The Threat in Deaf Community
Hello Fellows! The United States Constitution in First Amendment where Deaf community have the right to free speech also known as receiving subtitles because it is part of free speech and we need to stop suffering language hegemony. We are tired of being under-minded.
Earlier this Noon, I received a magazine from Intelligence Report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC]. The magazine is published two times a year by the Intelligence Report Project.
I am a staunch believer and a donor for SPLC, with few reasons: stop hate crime in Deaf community, and with the approval of the board and Deaf community, classifying Alexander Graham Bell Association for Deaf and Hard of Hearing a hate group.
The magazine offered a Special DVD enclosed, Understanding the Threat: AntiGovernment Extremists and hoped they would offer subtitles for Deaf people, I am disheartened to see that they choose not to subtitle again. The first one I got from a special event Hate in America last May, where I got invited to give my support for SPLC. The event gave away special DVD as well, Hate in America, again, no subtitles.
For the whole time, I learned about SPLC back in 2007, I was taught that SPLC was the innovation of higher learning to promote United States Constitution for humanity, compassion and stop hate. I was surprised, in 2016, that SPLC ignore its own compassion, by not putting subtitles for Deaf people. They have all the fundamental rights to know what is going on.
In the same magazine, in page 14, Hate in the Race with the image of Donald Trump, I have to agree with that! In the second paragraph of the opening article, June 2015: “Members of the White Genocide Project, which promotes the myth that white people worldwide are being subjected to mass murder, started a petition to honor Trump for opposing white genocide.” exactly what we need to bring up an academic challenge that Alexander Graham Bell (AGBell) was the head of the Deaf Genocide Project when he did his infamous speech in 1883.
With the words he presented, did the hate begin right there in the room? Did he support genocide, no? If so, in an American room, on the very same land to allow colonization, how can AGBell recognized as a hate group in America?
Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race.
Perfect ending just like Trump, Hate in the Race! It would be even cooler if it has titled, “Memoir Upon the Hate of Deaf Genocide Project in Human Race” because with the ‘upon’ the hate in Deaf community where they have been targeted ever since has become a hate memoir from Alexander Graham Bell. He was the threat. Please understand the threat about AGBell.
Please with consideration, the Deaf community needs SPLC’s help to put subtitles in DVDs and it is about educating ALL AMERICANS, no matter what and makes our lives safer. SPLC would be surprised to see how much AGBell has actually done collateral damage in the human race. Please listen to us, Deaf community. Really….Donald Trump is like Alexander Graham Bell. Race….Race. Thank you!
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
My First Linocut Art!
I am a great believer in numbers, my first love in education was math. So, I developed my first linocut art to show that the numbers are critical to us, recollection and validation of their lives in Deaf community how much American sign Language and Signed Languages around the world–that the effect of 1880 has shown Oralism a validity of lies.
MDCXX= 1620 and that was the year where a ‘proclamation compelled Juan Pablo de Bonet to create and publish the first book on sign language in 1620’ (Butterworth & Flodin, 1995)
CCLX= 260 years later…….
MDCCCLXXX= 1880: All in the mirrors Deaf community wake up in the morning on second Saturday of September to experience the mother of language hegemony: bigotry destroyed their sign languages for political gain. Soon, I will present another linocut art (Deaf theme) that will present in a math sequence. Hopefully I will make it more interesting! I love art therapy! Even a year later today would tell a lot.
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
In Our Own Eyes: Under the Moons of Phobos and Deimos
Champ Art by Mbalenhle!
Apologies for any evening ruined, did you know that Alexander Graham Bell (AGBell) became the biggest political contributor to develop a secret patent to demonize Deaf people? As I write, the post of AGBell’s bones unfurled before me and stretched since his death appears in the same year, 1922 when Ireland signed a treaty to an agreement about peace and created a national flag, and it has revealed itself to be more than writing. His death in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a small island in Eastern Canada, has sparked the finest educational oppression establishments in America and its neighbor, Canada to make so sure that Deaf people are forgotten.
AGBell do not want you to know about his other hobby. I have written it because I believe the truth is necessary to stop his hate practices towards Deaf people today. He was deeply troubled for writing Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race in 1883 and had profoundly caused serious problems with human dignity, mortality, adherence to ethnical standards, and professionalism.
In that infamous speech in 1883, when AGBell found a way to destroy the life of Deaf people into the land of America, his theories had been riddled with problems.
Let’s follow with history what happened today on August 11th almost 140 year ago. “In 1877, the two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos.” (link: http://www.on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/aug11.htm)
Asaph Hall was father for one of the last babies for Percival Hall who later become president of Gallaudet University. Percival was an important figure in Gallaudet’s moons; he knew that the moons were taught to protect Deaf people for its exceptional education—especially at Gallaudet University. “Phobos is named after the Greek god, Phobos, a son of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus) which was the personification of Horror.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)]
The personification of Horror reminds me of AGBell whose its soul appearing on Mother Earth into darkness of his words, “the idea they [deaf people] are dangerous, morose, ill-tempered…he is sometimes looked upon as a sort of monstrosity, to be stared at and avoided” [Bell, Memoir, 43.] meets the twin brother of Phobos: Deimos.
In a definition about Deimos, “In Greek, Deimos was the twin brother of Phobos and personified terror. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deimos_(moon)] The personification of Terror. AGBell terrorize Deaf community by greatest language bigotry possible and tricked them well for the last 100 years+ making him the world’s worse terrorist ever. The same year, Asaph discovered those moons, “Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated how to call long-distance by calling The Boston Globe.” in 1877.[http://www.poynter.org/2015/today-in-media-history-in-1877-alexander-graham-bell-made-the-first-long-distance-phone-call-to-the-boston-globe/319227/] a first long distance call.
I wonder if there are any one who worked for Boston Globe had personal connections with AGBell that time and helped spread lies about Deaf people in Bostonian newspaper for political favors.
As In this American society, it is time to be aware of his proclivities. The silence in Deaf community has been a tradition for so long that needs to be broken at all costs. Hate crimes is here to stop and would need your help as part of community accountability. Is hate crimes driving Deaf community apart? Why or why not?
These days, Deaf community struggle to each other a lot with their hands—mashing out over 136 years ago from infamous 1880 Milan Resolution. Are Hate crimes not the first human oppression blamed for ruining personal discourse and common courtesy among Deaf people today? A British newspaper, Chambers’s Journal quoted in 1899, “It does not improve the temper, and it engenders a feverishness in the ordinary concerns of life which does not make for domestic happiness and comfort.”
Is it time for Gallaudet University to tell Alexander Graham Bell Association for Deaf and Hard of Hearing to move away from Deaf people ——very long distance call…..leave them and let them heal from educational oppression they had endured. The moons are our shadows and we are no longer known as ‘long distance call’ to AGBell’s headquarters anymore. Lies, enough, lies.
With the discovery of Phobos and Deimos, words have such power that they can bring respect or they can bring disrespect, as is shown by AGBell that has referred himself as a terrorist and had alienated Deaf people, and his words could never help us concentrate on our own nature. His words are associated with the charging of ongoing oppression.
This is another crucial point to make about words, which we do not wish to talk about? However, we need to talk about our nature of being Deaf. What is wrong with that? One of the reasons we need to focus our nature of being Deaf and believe in—even when it has been demonstrated to us—is that AGBell made it happen by losing our connection to the nature of being Deaf. The words of AGBell’s expressed enough hate, would be unlikely to hold true for most Deaf people today, even at Gallaudet University, for the way we think of nature has changed.
After reading the book, In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History 1780-1970 by co-editors, Brian H. Greenwald and Joseph J. Murray, I decided to share my thoughts what I had read one of the chapters that caught my eyes, Revisiting Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race: Alexander Graham Bell and Deaf Autonomy by its own editor and an author, Brian H. Greenwald. I respectfully disagreed with his views that AGBell was a good man with strong morals and a “life savior” for Deaf community.
This post is dedicated to Mr. Greenwald and remind him to revisit the growing pains what AGBell actually left Deaf people intellectually alone for the rest of their lives. Did AGBell deserve as an icon the way he cared about Deaf community? Perhaps, it is time to think of nature as the state of being Deaf as something outside and separate from AGBell’s lies. With AGBell’s hearing tests, his practices are not conductive to understand Deaf people’s pursuit of happiness.
The moons, any word that is connected to it should be Greek. Thank you, Phobos and Deimos, to understand who AGBell is really about. We will carry on and be strong to remember our state of being Deaf and no more to be living in horror under the terrorist, AGBell— celebrate Phobos and Deimos’s birthday behind our eyes and our mind, ASL seems dreams of other—Deaf and no longer lost people!
AGBell—a secret society established with intention of slaying ASL is not welcomed anymore. We grow in size, strength, political clout, and wealth of ASL and……overcome hate. The burning question, what are the Deaf community perceptions of the climate and the motivations that facilitate hate crimes?
The book was worth reading and I encourage you to buy and read. Any moon is in our own eyes and reading is in our own hands.
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
References are above.
In The Times of Butterflies: Deaf People Are Important, Too!
In a world of great creedal and human diversity, first of all, I would like to explain what creedal means. It is a noun: any system, doctrine, or formula of religious belief, as of a denomination (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/creedal). There are a great many different views about the meaning and social significance of Deaf people and butterflies.
In this post, we need to approach the sociological study of politics. We also need to approach the sociological study of Deaf people and butterflies through a conscientious effort to engage perspectives from politics and from studies based in diverse parts of the planet. In this post, it would require history, philosophy, political economy, culture studies, anthropology, politics, social ethics, Deaf studies and other fields related to the sociology of Deaf people and butterflies today and tomorrow.
Through the truth cannot do justice to the rich variety necessary for a comprehensive global approach to the topic, we need to focus on contextual ideal always in mind: endeavor to study Deaf people and butterflies in global perspective. The key is to try to include a wide scope and to remember that our own social locations influence our understandings—including the limits of our understandings and consciousness.
We have much to gain by studying why the butterflies are disappearing around mother Earth. Please note that the butterflies are also Deaf. Yes, they are all Deaf! Having living in Deaf community, remembering experiences studying Deaf discourses, recalling adventures in American Sign Language (ASL) across America and Canada, thinking about Deaf people how important they are to us today including my beloved Pacific Northwest (e.g. the notion of “salmon people”) and being deeply interested in ASL and Deaf Studies, I have strong awareness of the global reach involved in questions about the role of genocide in Deaf community today.
ASL is being marginalized in favor of Oralism and cochlear implant spearheaded by AGBell ideology, making the meaning state of being Deaf disappeared and no, it is no funny business. What happened to what we learn about Deaf Studies and analytical approaches of Deaf people, offers us the opportunity to appreciate the variety of ways that “all knowledge may be shaped by the social context of the knower”—our goal is to enrich our understandings of the social phenomenon of Deaf people. Now to the butterflies, I remember living in country in a rural Washington States on 400 acres, I would see hundreds of butterflies everywhere—they were one of the most beautiful creatures you could imagine—all in colors. I did not realize they were Deaf until my adult life—damn for hiding the truth!
The sad part is that the butterflies are not appearing in our backyards or even front yards anymore—it is not there. What happened to the complex webs of meaning and action? Nature vs. Nurture or Nature vs. Man-Made? Now above the opening paragraph: the meaning of creedal—any system, doctrine, or formula of religious belief, as of a denomination. Any system: man-made cochlear implants, oralism, or even doctrine as in oralism in religious discourses that believes that Deaf people should be part of formula of religious belief to wipe out ASL and Deaf Culture and turn into hearing-dominated system.
I mean, look at this bigger picture, folks, how Oralism, cochlear implant industries and hearing-dominated society relate to: economic systems, social institutions, cultural patterns, moral arguments, divergent world-views and the collective psyches of Deaf people. We need to challenge and become stronger to do so by examining and discussing: the parallel between butterflies and Deaf people being slaughtered into human pleasure.
Now point out to the religious believers: they believe that Deaf people need to be wiped out, for example, EPHPHATHA— becoming so passionately held points of view (various creeds and the voices of their believers), poignant personal stories that connect Deaf people into cosmic, and sociological (cross-disciplinary often) analyses of genocide and society—with a particular eye for comparative and global perspectives.
The butterflies and Deaf people—in America I live, Deaf people I know in Canada, and other parts of world, their spirit of freedom is fast becoming as blinkered as the oppressors by politics and fear. We all should not live like this—ever. From my Sociology background, I have learned to simply protect Deaf community—the one I live in. Their reactions by attempting to kill the butterflies and Deaf people are understandable since they suffer the NIMB (Not in my Backyard) syndrome—an element of the oppressed.
As I argue in my blog post, certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. In fact, respect for evidence and rational argument is what makes peaceful cooperation possible. As human beings, Deaf people are human beings, not human doings, we live in a perpetual choice between conversation and violence; what, apart from a fundamental willingness to be reasonable, can guarantee that we will keeping to one another?
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. 
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