Survival – …And the Truth Shall Set You Free.

From 2010-2020, this decade has been the challenging of how the stigma can be. Someone once said: ‘The thing that I did that I am most proud of this decade? Survive.’ the other day.

W.E.B. DuBois on Abraham Lincoln: “I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not, and yet triumphed.”

Learning how to navigate a history of bullying, slandering, character assassination, and hate dynamics in regards to a modern scarlet letter. Wellness, healing, equity, and the paramount factor is not so easily accepted: Strength.

Everything is the opposite. Cyberculture is the new norm of bullying. Technology has adapted faster even before blink eyes every time is something of concern we should be aware of in the future.

The wisdom that I appreciate most from books can be found in their writings on how we should how to survive. Landauer’s For Socialism, Day’s Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements, and Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Baird and Rosenbaum’s Hatred, Bigotry, and Prejudice, Lawrence’s Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law, and many others.

Indeed, for many of the great writers, critical thinking is not always abstract, head-in-the-clouds, the kind of thing, but focus on how to survive in a hate-filled life. Professors whom I admire the most, they teach not just as something you do, but find the purpose of living. And I am grateful to know them.

Majoring in Sociology was the best decision rather than advanced math and signed up for those courses that impacted my life forever; Revolution and Radical Social Change, Hate Crimes and Bias, Methodology of the Oppressed, but not something like this, until the book surfaced: Understanding Deaf Culture: in Search of Deafhood by Paddy Ladd in 2010 had changed my life more than anything.

I wonder all the time, if I have not read Ladd’s book, I wouldn’t be here. Honestly, I wouldn’t be here. I am grateful for the book. It is one of many reasons: survive. Every day is filled with mystery and answers to make all the difference in the world.

Encouraging suicide by its Deaf community is something really tough to bear with, and I am thankful for Deaf-centered counseling. Rehabilitation is the key. The obstacles seem insurmountable, and the people I love and care the most had been supportive, though I am about as depressed as I’ve been and kept thinking that it is unbelievable for me to survive through.

Stigma sucks. I walk that road and I keep walking, no matter what how hard it is in the spite of cyberculture, and that makes all the difference, where an 18th-century British legal scholar, Sir William Blackstone: “It is but reasonable that among crimes of different natures those should be most severely punished, which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.”

Here comes 2020. I look forward to finishing my greatest project. As of 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln: “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”

The thing that I did that I am most proud of this decade? Survive.

-JT

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I found myself studying tirelessly the activities of De’VIA, (Deaf View Image Art or Deaf Art), learning about how Deaf artists thought and interacted with stories for their substance and sustenance in art. Like Native people, their ultimate goal is survival. The same truth goes to Deaf people: SURVIVAL. For example, the artworks done by Nancy Rourke, David Call, Ellen Mansfield, Dr. Paul Johnston of Gallaudet, late Chuck Baird whom I was honored to meet back in 2011, other many talented artists have reminded me a bit of watching a certain documentary film a while ago.

I learned which birds make nests, and which rely upon the sturdily built ones from other species of birds. I found it very interesting how instinctively innovative birds are. The great lengths birds go to procure materials, such as remnants from wasp hives, to create their nests, which is surprising to me. Such materials disguis their nests and deter natural predators from stealing their eggs. Yet, the western culture dismisses birds life as primitive. The phrase “bird brain”, which indicates a person who has little intelligence, keep on coming to my mind. It is ironic to me that birds are in fact very instinctively intelligent in matters of self-preservation and perpetuation as a species. It has the same sentiments what Deaf artists are all about disguising from oppression by predators, known as Audists. Deaf Art is about self-preservation.

De’VIA artists today are providing sustenance for Deafhood stories and Deaf people cohabiting their environment, having brought home to me the holistic vantage of Deafhood education. Even on my very street, in my backyard, I am sharing an experience with others who have just as much right to its resources, and as my state of being Deaf I can learn from the observation of birds, just how interdependent we are in the sense that birds and we are co-habitants in survival and of the same corner of the world.

In fulfillment of my support for De’VIA, I endeavored to be a careful observer of their work during their Deafhood journey. I have not had the slightest idea how Deaf artists think to draw or paint, which is beyond me and they are amazing. I must admit I have never painted, not much about my previous thought. I used to simply dismiss Art artwork because the Deaf artists are happily working and flying around inconsequentially.

When I first saw De’VIA work, it was Nancy Rourke’s creativity that I fell in love with. Then that was which has since guided me to discover more Deaf artists than ever before. I have also noticed Deaf Art has changed my life forever. Deaf Art work? I have never thought it would become my strongest therapy. Whenever I decided to sit in my living room, I began to observe their paintings over and over. A friend once said that it is an eyesore why I bought many art works from those Deaf artists. Through my observation, the artists do not want to rake the leaves fallen from the tree falls just to be lain strewn, wet, and browned from winter rains. A well-manicured lawn of our Deafhood stories across America still has little greenish pods littered with the fallen leaves.

De’VIA is a treasure that would provide nourishment “from meal to meal,” perhaps until the next Deaf person could be found in the rich blanket of our Deafhood journey. The art resistance are gathering sticks or bedding for their nests to preserve. The activism by De’VIA artists is actually assisting in the transport of Audism bin to remove to a lower place so the Deaf people can become stronger.

Also, their activism further made our Deafhood journey more accessible to truth, which would not need to climb into higher depths of Audism in order to find survival. Further, the transference of Deaf Art allows a greater yield of Audism for years and years, ensuring continued sustenance for all the Deaf people on this mother planet that depend on the stories as a source of survival. Perhaps this observation in minute of the scheme of things, but it gave me an awareness of just how interconnected we all are. I express my full support for De’VIA artists.

-JT

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Tag: Survival

Lessons from Deaf Arts