My Feelings on Deafhood

Howdy, everybody!  It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, and to be truthful, I decided to abandon blogging, because it requires a certain amount of self-discipline, which obviously means I don’t have it.  Even so, I’ve always wanted to jot down my thoughts on Deafhood and Audism.  I could make vlogs on these themes, but somehow I feel so limited when vlogging, because it’s impossible to express everything I want to say in ten minutes, hence my blog. 

Now, as for Deafhood, please allow me to say this, I have no problem with Deafhood.  None at all.  In my lifetime, there were a number of instances where I might have felt a certain emotional connection to Deafhood, which is to say that I fully understand where proponents of Deafhood are coming from.  I grew up in a hearing family, so I naturally experienced many difficulties in communication, and occasionally I let my frustration be known.  Needless to say, I had some common experiences in school like hating speech therapy sessions and having lousy interpreters, so that led me wanting to be somewhere I can finally feel like belonging to.  The basic premise of Deafhood is going on a lifelong journey in developing your own Deaf identity, so according to this narrow definition, I can certainly understand how some people might want to be members of Deafhood.  I have my own Deaf identity.  I view myself as a culturally Deaf person. 

Thus, I think Deafhood can be a valid concept, as long it’s applied voluntarily and not arbitrarily, because not everybody wants to be a member of Deafhood, or viewing himself as a Deaf person.  We need to acknowledge that there are varying degrees of deafness, and how one views himself is largely dependent upon numerous factors like his background, the choices his parents made for him, the mode of communication, and his lifestyle.  For example, even though I am a culturally Deaf person, I do not view myself as a true ‘hardcore’ member of Deafhood. 

Why?  Because one thing about Deafhood is that many proponents believe that Deafhood at its core is all about collectivism, and this bothers me greatly.  Participating in Deafhood requires one to accept the idea that Deafhood is about sharing a set of ideals or principles propagated by Deafhood leaders.  For instance, Deafhood members label all hearing people as evil, which is like saying all capitalists are evil, filthy pigs who always steal money from poor, little guys.  They also want to blame the hearing community for every little or big problem.  They only tolerate diversity when it suits their purpose.  Furthermore, they demand government to do something to resolve their lengthy list of grievances, real or imagined.   The supposed basic premise of Deafhood then is replaced with the assumption that every Deaf, deaf, late deafened, and hard of hearing person has experienced encountering oppressive hearing persons.  So, this erroneous assumption leads some to conclude that Deafhood can be rightfully identified as uniting together to fight the perceived wrongs done against you, and the blame is placed solely on the hearing world.  We know this is not always the case with the hearing world.

Now, having just said this, let me emphasize this, one does not need to be a member of Deafhood to recognize a need to reform some areas or systems that’s set up to deal with Deaf, deaf, late-deafened, and hard of hearing people.  As a culturally Deaf person, I’m aware of some issues where the need for reform is urged.  There will always be discriminations made solely on the ability to hear, I know this, because I am too a victim of this discriminatory measure.   However, I cannot hold grudges against the hearing world for one very important reason — I fully know that there will always be some bad apples within the hearing world.

In closing my thoughts on Deafhood, it is my feeling that both sides, those who oppose and support Deafhood, have equally valid points, which are worth debating on.  If everybody were to stick with the basic premise of Deafhood — as a lifelong journey on forming your own private D/deaf identity and trying not to be so dogmatic about it, then I think that won’t cause tensions as much as we are witnessing right now in our own little D/deaf and hard of hearing world.  In the other words, you can have your Deafhood, but you better keep it to yourself, and not be so quick in labeling anybody else a member of Deafhood or as ‘not deaf enough’ (i.e., anti-Deafhood).

I will share my thoughts on Audism in the next post….if I get around to blog again!  Ha, ha, ha!  Have a good day.

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