Tag: William F. Austin

Well, what a perfect timing! I was not surprised what Starkey Hearing Technologies had been done to exploit Deaf children—for what? Starkey Hearing Technologies has busted in a federal sting yesterday (February 20, 2016). In a Star Tribute quote, “Nov. 17, 2015: Starkey receives letter from federal authorities saying company has been identified as a “possible victim of a crime.”

Wrong! Let’s try to look at reverse psychology. Deaf children who has been exploited by Starkey has been identified as hate crime. Is it not?

HATE= A feeling of aversion or hostility; CRIME= any action that hurts, offends or judges others;

“Sink-or-swim mentality”—Starkey and its all blatant lies told to our general society. Yes! How can we describe in one way which Deaf children should feel punished and one way in which they feel they punish? Explore the thoughts to understand the forms of punishment.

Throughout my school years, I was made to wear amplification so I could hear some loud noises in my ears. I had absolutely no comprehension of any sound put forcefully through my years. I made several hundreds of guesses listening to my teacher and classmates talking on the microphone. My ears hurt, my body hurt, my mind confounded. I was punished for being Deaf.

DEAF=A collectivity: the people as a whole that is regarded as opprobrious, as a source of ignominy (humiliating) 

The underlying message for my experience with amplification in and out of school was that it was totally unacceptable to be Deaf, and I must be right in the ways of hearing people. That sucks. Really sucks.

Let’s be realistic. Would they ever will be charged with hate crimes? I doubt. Now the scandal about Starkey Hearing Technologies, imagine Deaf children who were survivors of battery economics aka hearing aids for false images, they had been battling through many detours generated by Starkey’s upheavals and exploitation. It has been long overdue, and there seemed a mission with strategic plans lacking relevance as well as reveal something not previously known or realized.

Time for Deaf community to merge from Starkey’s dirty money and raise “new order” to a new era of Deaf community today. Rome was not built overnight, and it did not decline overnight, either. If Starkey Hearing Technologies is on a shaky ground for Deaf Hate Crime, then it is a good time to know what business plan, to launder monies in promoting hegemony, quoted in Paddy Ladd’s Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, page 77-78,

the concept of hegemony, as initially presented by Gramsci (1985), is important for the development of a more dynamic reading of patterns in social control, since it emphasises that ideologies perpetually compete for acceptance and domination.” 

Starkey Hearing Technologies is about oppressive policies ranging from hiring to firing employees, from educating to exploiting Deaf children, from inspecting to neglecting facilities. Mr. Bill Austin manipulated to turn Starkey Hearing Technologies upside—UP. 800 million dollars.

Time to educate about American Sign Language (ASL)—it is about careful, sustained, and systematic thinking in ASL. It is about a willingness to get the truth and value of ASL, no matter what conclusions would result or how strange it might initially seem. ASL lead to truth and it has potential.

It is good time for Deaf community cooperation more than ever before. The most important among Deaf people—as far as the future of humanity is concerned—is the industry of hearing aids who exploit Deaf children for circus shows, and send false dilemmas and is closely connected to hate crime.

In a book, The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed: Hate Crimes quoted by Jack Levin, and Jack McDevitt:

Hate crimes represent one endpoint on the continuum of prejudice and bigotry. For economic as well as psychological reasons, there are countless individuals who feel resentful. They have suffered some loss in self-esteem or status and are eager to place the blame for their loss elsewhere—on those groups and individuals portrayed in the culture of hate as weak, immoral, and uncivilized.”

Deaf children who were exploited for Ben Franklin dollars, must have felt resentful. Did they suffer some loss in self-esteem as well, too? Deaf children are portrayed in the culture of hate as weak, immoral, and uncivilized.

That is what the Starkey Hearing Technologies should be charged with: Hate Crime.

 

-JT

Copyright © 2016 Jason Tozier

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

References:

http://m.startribune.com/mesy-split-at-starkey-is-making-industry-waves/369537361/

Ladd, Paddy: “Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood”

Levin, Jack and McDevitt, Jack: “The Rising Ride of Bigotry and Bloodshed: Hate Crimes”