Harry H. Laughlin’s Hatred of Deaf People

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Hearing supremacy is a hellavu drug. A mind filled with hatred speaks a sober heart. History did not teach us enough about haters that comes out of their mouth right into the public when they feel safe because of eugenics ideology. Not only that, but Whiteness is like a drug.

After I learned the history about Harry Hamiliton Laughlin, one of the staunchest supporters of eugenical research and policy in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, where Laughlin writes a letter to Professor Dr. Eugene Fischer, President of International Congress for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems in 1935, responsible for the sterilization of Deaf people where the Nazi party filled with white supremacy loved his idea and used his model in 1933 to verbally and physically assault Deaf people by sterilization.

If it was in 2019, would Harry Laughlin be prosecuted for a hate crime? Would that be a prosecutorial slam dunk……but white privilege gets in the way. Wasn’t he possibly suffering from a lithium imbalance? Isn’t paranoia approaching severe personality disorder characterized by a constant suspicion that Laughlin have sinister motives against Deaf people?

When I learned about the history about Harry Laughlin through Equal Justice Initiative, one of my favorite organization, commented: “On this day [December 2nd] in 1922, eugenicist Henry Laughlin published the “model sterilization law” which encouraged lawmakers to develop more effective and “constitutionally acceptable” sterilization laws.” and realized that he was public enemy number one influencing American eugenics policy. That was where Alexander Graham Bell loved his idea.

The anger, and the arrogance towards innocent Deaf people Harry Laughlin did not know, and cannot fathom to understand this hatred. The damage control has been done. Laughlin who went after Deaf subjects for eugenic sterilization of personal power and a higher degree of self-esteem because it demonstrates that one feels good enough about himself to demand something better or higher from the world.

Harry Laughlin knew who Alexander Graham Bell, the leading eugenicist in the Deaf community who would publish articles on hereditary ‘Deafness’, and they were responsible for the destruction of the Deaf community.

Imagine if Harry Laughlin and Alexander Graham Bell who sit together in order to spew hatred towards Deaf people. Wake up! Inside the media propaganda is yet another effort to dismantle the Deaf community. Or, another effort to deter intellectual freedom to all the Deaf?

Would they really understand the painful history what Harry Hamiliton Laughlin and Alexander Graham Bell had caused enough destruction in the Deaf community? Where is the mistrust of what we see on the news outlets about Harry H. Laughlin and Alexander Graham Bell?

The sterilization of the Deaf people is the worst of all. The Deaf community began to sense differently.

When I first learned about Charles Darwin back in 1988 in eighth grade after taking Biology class, my hearing teacher would speak highly of Darwin’s work, also learned about Francis Galton whom I had no idea he was related to Charles Darwin as half-cousins in college days and told a history lesson where eugenics were taught in schools across the country, only many years later after I read Paddy Ladd’s Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood:

“Against this background, Darwin’s initially explosive ideas on evolution served to reinforce the medical discourse. Deaf people and their languages were confirmed as akin to those of other savages, and an atavistic throwback who, like them, ‘may fancifully be called living fossils [and] will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of life’ ” (1859: 448)

That hit me hard. I had no idea until 2010 when I was 35. The book written by Paddy Ladd had changed my life completely. I feel the wind differently. I relate to the Deaf community and experience a bond with the Deaf community which clearly unknown to you.

Sociology had stolen my heart and became a student of Sociology, and learned that Harriet Martineau, the Mother of Sociology, Martineau was Deaf. I was surprised. I bet you do not know that either. Even my professor whom studied Martineau in graduate school had no idea that Martineau was Deaf.

Not even hearing professors ever mention anything about it. A pattern of ignorance? A certain weaving together of ignorance? Peace, freedom, and global health of the Deaf shall not be ignored.

Martineau was dating Charles Darwin’s older brother, Erasmus Alvey Darwin, and Darwin saw and grabbed the greatest ignorance, the slandering of Deaf people so great that not even an idea exists of what Darwin’s hatred should look like. Would it end all kinds of intellectual oppression? Darwin’s ideology rakes for the highest form of democracy in the broadest sense of hatred.

Despite the vast differences, would The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology, formerly American Eugenics Society apologize for Laughlin’s hatred of the Deaf people? Would they do so with a commitment to develop healthy task to overcome indifference, show of human compassion, that plagues the Deaf community?

Deaf people who lived in Hitler’s Europe, whom were targeted for the display of symbols of hate, thanks to Laughlin’s work. Dealing with the cultural differences, specifically, with the way of life of the ‘minorities’ who live in the society. After reading Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany by Horst Biesold, by cultural norms, in processing of a hate crime, and that becomes an issue that all hate crime sessions by Laughlin’s work, must tackle.

Isn’t hate crime by no means unique in the broadest respect of the Deaf people?

If The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology, formerly as American Eugenics Society, refuses to apologize for Laughlin’s action, why should Deaf people be punished more severely because of social and psychological pathology?

Laughlin as an American citizen who breeds in White Supremacy as he received an honorary degree from the Nazi-controlled, University of Heidelberg for the work of race-cleansing. Hate crime violates constitutional rights of the Deaf people, especially Deaf babies.

We must always remind ourselves as well as all others how our Declaration of Independence makes our country different from any other nation around the world. The Declaration proclaims that we have inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

American Eugenics Society, under the establishment of Harry H. Laughlin in 1926 who was served as the Superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office, probably the best known, if not the most oppressive, White supremacist in America–all but faded into culture of hate.

Will Deaf people ever get a formal apology from The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology?

-JT

Copyright © 2019 Jason Tozier

This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.

Laurent Clerc Would Be Disheartened by Cochlear Implants

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Laurent Clerc. Gallaudet University.

Deaf people are one of America’s most important symbols because it identifies the moment at which the nation was born and, in effective yet complex language, describes the reason for its 200 years anniversary of Laurent Clerc’s arrival. America was only 40 years old when Clerc arrived on an American soil.

If you are offended by the cochlear implant industries that are attempting to take over Deaf community and want to understand how the lies on Earth can allow liars to escape from the truth, profit over Deaf people, while maintaining the highest rate of myths among Deaf children in the industrialized world. 

If you are alarmed that our planet will soon be inhospitable for civilization at the rate that they are attempting to wipe Deaf culture out and wants to know the steps we can take to reserve that trend. 

If you are concerned that the Deaf people soon at the brink of extinction because of cochlear implant industries, taking away the pursuit of happiness from them who need it most and that Deaf people are limited and the right to take their lives over. 

If you are agree that the deadly cochlear implant industries actions of industrialized, corrupt, and Audist forces go unchecked…

There was a five minutes movie on YouTube called Deaf Culture: VICE News Tonight on HBO [Full Segment] that was published on February 8th, 2017. Since the cochlear implant industries has closed people’s eyes to who is really profiting from lies, manipulating stocks, controlling Deaf people on earth, enslaving Deaf children, pulling strings in order to plump up their stock portfolios at your expense and mine.

If Clerc were alive today, he would fight for the voice of Deaf people for a powerful and passionate movement how to fight back for the human rights. For example, take cochlear implant companies debacle–there is an insurance company tactic called “rescission”–where sick policyholders were routinely dumped even if they never missed a premium payment. And while the cochlear implant industries has spread the lies to the millions of people, Deaf people has not been shy about airing the truth;

That America can do better, and, under insurance companies that become greedy and got too good to set up a deal. Let’s face it. The cochlear implant industries makes for comfortable armchair reading. That is because going into the backroom, the boardroom, and the cloakrooms to uncover for you the hard truths about who really controls power in Deaf community can be scary and infuriating.

But the cochlear implant industries refuse to regret knowing what they know now. Because once you’ve had the blinders removed, you’ll never want to be hoodwinked by their lies and sandbagged by the mainstream media, and snookered by powerful corporate interests feeding Alexander Graham Bell board members bullshit flaking for their profit or dirty or even blood money over Deaf people.

Fact. There is the smoke and mirrors you get from the most of the media today, and there is stronghold of Deaf people who fights against cochlear implant industries for the truth. Every step is a splash of cold water on the face.

Together today, we will fight for our democracy and human rights for Deaf people and American Sign Language (ASL), too. I am pretty sure that Laurent Clerc would do the same thing. 200 years later after Clerc’s historic arrival, Deaf Culture: VICE News Tonight on HBO [Full Segment] wrote in summary,

“Today, more than 40 percent of American children born deaf receive cochlear implants. The technology effectively restores hearing by bypassing the ear and delivering audio information directly to the brain. The vast majority of deaf children who are implanted develop hearing and speaking skills comparable to their hearing peers, thus allowing them the option to “mainstream” into normal schools.

Deaf education in the U.S. has gone through many phases. American Sign Language (ASL) is currently the dominant mode of instruction in deaf schools, but there have been periods where ASL was banned and students were forced to speak and lip-read, an ineffective approach known as oralism. ASL has now gained legitimacy and been shown to include the deep grammar and syntax found in spoken languages. It is also the wellspring of deaf culture, a proud community wary of historical attempts to assimilate them into a hearing world.

As more parents opt for cochlear implants, VICE News explores their impact on the medical condition that gave rise to a cultural identity.”

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Artwork done by Joseph N. Artino

When the Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, Hitler was obsessed with racial purity with the idea that nature had created a superior Aryan race. There was 17,000 Deaf people were sterilized between 1933 and 1945. The youngest was nine years old. Deaf people in Hitler’s Europe were among those who were killed by the Nazis during the time because they were Jews, others because as congenitally Deaf people that they were considered ‘defective’ and ‘biologically inferior’ [Gilbert, 1998]

As a Deaf person and Deaf people I know, we have long suffered in silence enduring verbal attacks, physical attacks, and harassment why they and I did not get cochlear implant. As a result, hate crimes against Deaf people are largely under reported. Many Deaf people did not report crimes because of fear of being misunderstood. Deaf people face stigma daily, ASL is one tool, which may help them overcome communication issues but may not erase stigmatization.

A knowledge of history is extremely useful; it lays before our eyes the great picture of the generations that have preceded us; and in relating the events which passed in their time..it lays before us the precepts of the wise…of all ages…”- Laurent Clerc

Today, Laurent Clerc would be horrified by the attacks of cochlear implants.

-JT

Copyright @ 2017 Jason Tozier

This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.

References: Gilbert, Jean (1998). Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe. Gallaudet Today. September 1998.