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: Milan 1880
AGBell: Friday the 13th
Is Alexander Graham Bell the reason he brought a curse to the Deaf community on Friday the 13th?
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.
LEAD-K Open Video: Will AGBell Ever Condemn Hate?
Remembering Milan 1880: Light a Candle Against Hate
September 7, 1880—has addressed the Deaf community worldwide—before I get into the urgent necessity of this post. Let’s start with some painful memories. Imagine the day after September 7th, let’s think about Deaf children’s skills to use sign language as human right, they would have been great leaders—to embark on journey through uncharted territory, and to change the image of Deaf people within painful energy into the world that sees before us.
It was not long though, before Deaf people were pounded with human threat, and deal with Oralism from every direction—slammed doors and angry looks wherever they use sign language. That’s hate crime, folks.
Today, the surge of Oralism, for example, listening and speaking, Cued Speech, and cochlear implants, Deaf children are forced to face with a world that feels extremely fragmented and hostile as much as possible. That is not the way of a human life that was supposed to be safe.
The challenges Deaf people face are far—the rise of bigotry and hate crimes, and the huge gap between the richest and poorest are just the tip of the iceberg and that is even scary part.
Do not be intimidated by power. Deaf community is in the making—and stop in the name of hate! We need to resist in the age of hate crime. Imagine how Deaf community felt the day after September 7th, 1880. It’s just mind-boggling. We, the Deaf people have the power to make a change—and start off by digging deep into our identity as the state of being of Deaf.
Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”
There are plenty of Deaf people who survived who dealt with Oralism ideology, they are also humans, who got the same number of hours each day as others on Earth—we must continue to resist against Alexander Graham Bell’s hate practices.
-JT
Copyright © 2018 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
Happy National Beer Day!
Ryder wants to taste my beer! Nice try! Today is National Beer Day. Appreciate the innovators of beer in the past and present. In my personal opinion, the genius of beer would be Arthur Guinness, the owner of Guinness in Ireland.
-JT
Copyright @ 2017 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message
Deafhood Discussions: The Oralist Response 1980 to Date, Part 3 (p.160-161)
David Kerr explains in this video from Paddy Ladd’s book–thanks, David for your civic duty as well as Deafhood Discussions to support for the video presentation.
http://www.deafhood.us/wp/archives/2365
-JT
Oralism: The Harvest of Empire
As I write my story sharing my thoughts about the L’Abbe Charles-Michel de L’Epee—who claimed to be the “father of sign language” which I have my doubts. If Socrates said in a book, Cratylus—Deaf people are intelligent because of sign language. Who was the father of sign language back then? That was 2,400 years’ way before L’Epee claimed to be the father of sign language. The only reason that L’Epee established the first free public school for the Deaf in Paris making him also the father of Deaf Education.
How can it be possible? I mean, who taught Deaf people sign language that time in Ancient Greece? There must be someone who looked up to the person who considered to be father of sign language. L’Epee was born in 1712—the dark hours of wars going on in other parts of world. For example, 1712 Huilliche Rebellion, New York Slave Revolt of 1712, Toggenburg War, and First Fox War—that’s a lot of wars that year!
The Era of Sign Language brought about many changes: economic shifts, the changes of roles concerning Deaf people in society: This was a very difficult time in Deaf world, and is disputed by many historians or is it not? Many changes came into effect. The importance of sign language left out a very important perspective: that of the freedom of using sign language by Deaf person anywhere in the world. Also, this limited view was based on the concept that Deaf people do not deserve political power, and were faced with ignorance from their hearing peers or—hearing supremacists.
Changes in this distorted historical account was made in 1880 Milan Resolution where Deaf survivors from that era started feeling the greatest pain of all through writings. In 1890s, the earlier prejudiced view of history was totally changed, and was improved to include the views of Deaf people thanks to Alexander Graham Bell known as AGBell who advocated Oralism in America.
How does AGBell connect or reflect the addressment of the subject or connected subject? The improved views of history that includes all bigotry, hatred, and language belittlement, not just the hearing supremacists that encouraged hate crimes after AGBell’s death in 1922, even today in 2016, hate crimes in Deaf community has surfaced—year after year thanks to Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, yet, it has became invisible to our eyes—is something Deaf people deal with growing pains every day, and how important it is to analyze history with a critical eye.
There are plenty of bigotry going on today and tomorrow—how much the Era of Sign Language changed the lives of Deaf people, and how important this political and social change was to history, even though sign language and the abolition of 1880 Milan Resolution did not solve the debate over the meaning of freedom in American life.
-JT
Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
David Call’s Art Masterpiece
In The Crucifixion of Sign Language, David Call’s work manifests the faults with not only religious aversion itself, but also the ethic moral value system inherited from it. This artwork I consider a further development, his ideas concerning religion, particularly the idea that be presented in language morality that is the inversion of a true, noble language resurrection. One of the most important of his ideas is that 85% of people (delegates) who have voted to kill sign language are religious and have made Deaf people nihilistic and feebleminded and mocked their inherent rights to sign language. Crucifixion symbolizes resurrection; The Crucifixion of Sign Language symbolizes the language and culture resurrection.
I was really intrigued by how David Call, in this artwork, is able to show the tension in traditional values of the Deaf people amidst a time of cultural and historical change. The artwork illustrates this time of great cultural change of the Deaf people in its depiction of The Crucifixion of Sign Language coming into Deafhood—the cultural resurrection—and finding their social place within their sign language. Not only that, but also Deaf people’s rights to sign language as their language are recognized as the rewards in the Deafhood, leading to their resurrection in personal and cultural levels. David Call illustrates the life of the sign language through art and storytelling.
After the 1880 Milan Resolution forcing all the Deaf people to learn oral articulation and banning their hands to manipulate instead, it is clearly the symbol of a political and power-playing that has steeped into the consciousness of the Deaf people who struggles to survive. As Deaf people are suddenly faced by the language “massacre” by the international invasion of oral education. Deaf people have dealt with the language crucifixion; however, it is not out of hatred or decadence, but for a good reason: to resurrect themselves.
The Deaf people’s will for survival is, as Call asserts in his masterpiece, the most powerful “vital energy” in history, and I am sure Call has admired those who struggled mightily to survive and prevail. The values which ultimately matter are not a prestigious and personal honor but rather a collective responsibility, survival, and preservation of the old ways in ever-changing political and cultural climates.
All those who wish not to renounce life, but to affirm it, all who seek to proclaim a triumphant “yes” to the resurrection of human prosperity, knowledge, and happiness, will find in The Crucifixion of Sign Language an invaluable insights into how the resurrection can be achieved—and into what stands in the way of their being Deaf. Thank you, David Call for providing a thought-provoking art masterpiece. It is not what I have expected, and I continue to be extremely challenged by much of this artwork which is very engaging.
-JT
Copyright © Jason Tozier
This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.
...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. 
You must be logged in to post a comment.