Deafread.com has a set of rules….. I will copy and paste #8
Name Calling and Discrimination
DeafRead is enjoyed by all kinds of people worldwide ranging from children to senior citizens. It is also safe to assume that people from all races enjoy DeafRead. We will not post anything that is an attack on a specific race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orienation, age or religion. This offense is serious and the offending blog will be promptly considered for removal from DeafRead’s subscription.
I sent a comment with a question to all of the human editors a while ago and none of them responded. Do you think Deafread.com should be allowed to approve posts that attack Deaf people in general? Granted, these rules on Deafread.com is very paternalistic as it implies they know what is best for you. What’s the justification for having a different set of standards for hearing people posting about deaf topics? “Posts by hearing authors are welcome but face a more stringent standard. “
So, perhaps this post will get the attention of Deafread editors. Can we attack Deaf people in general? There are varying opinions if Deaf is a race.
According to wikipedia.com “The term race describes populations or groups of people distinguished by different sets of characteristics, and beliefs about common ancestry. The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color, facial features and hair texture), and self-identification.”
There has been many attacks on deaf people yet they get approved. For example, Ridor talks about the importance of deaf people having a trusted hearing person with them. This itself is extremely offensive and sets back Deaf people so far back. Since this is the most powerful analogy I can make, I must use it even it is offensive and wrong for me to do so, but would anyone say a black person should have a white person next to them when they call the cops? A gay person have a heterosexual person?
Even Deaf people can attack us with such statements, and this is probably the most damaging of all attacks on us. I could care less if an ignorant or uninformed person stereotypes deaf people in general, but if they are in a position of power then I will educate that person.
On Jared’s post “How do you decide which VLOGS to watch” someone named Observer posted this “Most of you deaf people always whine! Every issue! All you do is complaining, crying, protesting, disagreeing and clawing down deaf vloggers. “
So a Humanread editor is not really aware of rule #8. I’ve seen all of these stereotypes in comments, but the author has the power to delete them. If Deafread is going to stamp out attacks on specific race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orienation, age or religion, then they better start with attacks and stereotypes on Deaf people and educate everyone, including us Deafs.
Deafread.com will have the power to remove the blog from their list, so people will be educated. This is one good that comes out of paternalism. Paternalism is not a word that is automatically negative and it can serve some good. (I know paternalism is usually associated with gender lines, but that is not how I use the word) Parents are paternalistic and do so with good intent, so Deafread.com can do the same.
Lastly, I think Deafread.com should respond to every comment posted to them otherwise, what is the point of having a comment box, to filter things out that are interesting and doesn’t waste their time? A simple reply would suffice. I tried to get one blog banned from Deafread.com because of the stereotypes perpetuated. Why should children have to read blogs that perpetuates stereotypes?
If Deafread.com needs help in educating people about stereotypes on deaf people, I would be more than glad to assist by pointing them out within our own deaf blogsphere, which includes comments left in their blog made by other people. If you need help responding to comments, I would be more than glad to help, if they are not directed to a specific person. I do hope that Deafread will not drop the paternalism approach and say it’s a free for all approach reinforcing the 2nd paragraph of the publisher’s guidelines:
”Blogs are based on the concept that people can write openly and freely about their thoughts and opinions. A DeafRead visitor should be able to see the varying perspectives Deaf and Hard of Hearing people have on deaf-related issues, highlighting each individual’s uniqueness. “
Lastly, this brings up an interesting question, should audism be allowed by Deafread? I notice there are more stereotypes on deaf people in general than audistic comments. Are we at the point where we can say, “hey since we all are deaf, we can insult each other about being deaf?”
It depends on the intention of the blogwriter. If it is to josh, satirize, or poke fun at another, well…if it is to demean or insult or otherwise devalue that person, no, put that blog off the Deafread list if too extreme.
An extreme is suggesting harm such as one blogger’s idea of another falling on his child. Or another using scatological words about a person (and I don’t mean simply using an expletive.) Paternalism aside, deleting those is being responsible for our public image.
If a critical blog brings something good, fine. If not, trust the blog respondents to call the writer on it. We have a pretty good system of moderating each other.
Comment by Dianrez — May 10, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
I think a certain amount of ‘insulting’ language is necessary to make people think. This is not to say that outright name calling is a good thing, or just yelling insults.
I have been told several times that my failure to understand all things Deaf makes me an oppressor (did I spell that correctly?) and an audist bigot. I don’t agree with those comments, but they give me all the more reason to prove those who made them wrong.
Maybe the ‘down talk’ should just be tempered by common sense. I mean your last question sounds like you are equating deaf insults with African Americans using the ‘N-word’ amongst themselves. And I’m sorry, but I think they degrade themselves by doing that.
Dennis
Comment by Dennis — May 10, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
Interesting — inasmuch as I took Ridor’s comment to mean complete distrust of the cops, not belief that deaf people can’t deal with cops.
I don’t see how it would be remotely realistic for the deafread editors to monitor all posts they approve and rescind them if an inappropriate *comment* is made. How do you even propose that be done? Completely impractical.
Your better bet might be to simply discuss specific comments or posts you have issues with and why. People will come over, read, think, and it will percolate.
If you just somehow magically shut down anything “unacceptable” I don’t see where anything is learned.
Comment by BEG — May 10, 2007 @ 3:29 pm
The other side is…blogging is about freedom of speech – you say what you want. Deafread.com is controlling that – and prevent the primary purpose of blogging which is to trackback etc to other blogs on a thread of discussion etc. Not all posts get thru, including many important well written posts about Deaf issues.
This get worse when you have USA editors dicating what people read about UK Deaf politics for example – ie they approve a blog of someone who is posting a lot of incorrect facts and no references whatsoever but does not approve another blog which does post the correct facts and provide links to references to back it up.
Deafread have the power to control what you think of the Deaf politics in the world and that is the wrong thing to do. It should never control output, but instead encourage you to read more, not control.
Comment by JGJones — May 10, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Dianrez, you mentioned “our public image”…so whose image is that? There is indeed a great amount of responsibility in gathering many deaf v/bloggers together because what we are doing is creating a social construction, much like scientists do. Science is a social construction itself (a cheap one at that some might argue) too and that comes with some responsibility.
Are we trying to educate the hearing world who come across our blogs through Deafread, or are we trying to educate each other, us deafs?
BEG, Deafread is in the power to educate people to let the author know that they have audist or racist views in the sense against Deaf people. It is possible nothing is learned BUT a message is sent by Deafread that such thoughts are not tolerated and will serve an utilitarian purpose for other people to learn…which is..don’t do that or you’re off deafread.com.
If Deafread started to accept all the anti-deaf and audist websites on their blogrolls, what would that say about us, that we are a remarkable race for endorsing complete freedom of speech when we had the power to educate and even censure them. We’re not the government so we are not taking anyone’s right to free speech, but as an organization, Deafread ultimately bears more responsibility to promote pro-Deaf ideas and let authors know they are on notice to be banned from deafread.com. If authors do not want to comply and be ostracized, then that is fine. I do not want my time wasted on reading/watching stereotypes of deaf people through Deafread.com.
If someone makes a personal attack on someone else, I will delete it. If they want to attack me, I might approve it, if it’s not of a personal nature and only related to the post/idea. Most authors do not take responsibility so Deafread.com has the power to ensure authors watch what is posted. Now don’t get me wrong, if blogger is independent in every sense, they can do whatever they want, post racist, sexist, audist views, there’s not much we can do about it other than ignore it completely.
Dennis, if people call you an oppresser or an audist bigot, wouldn’t you want someone formal to explain to you why you are, if you, in fact, are one? I grew up in a small town, my high school teachers and townfolks would actually use the n-word and f-word casually without any malice behind it. I hated the n-word because I had many black friends and they would call me one too because I could dunk being only 5′11 and white. Now, gay people, that was a completely different thing for me. At RIT, I would casually use the f-word and my RA caught me and asked me what I said. I repeated it, not feeling any shame or embarrassment. My RA explained to me that the f-word was similar to the n-word and that is when I realized the power of language. I was glad he educated me and he did not jump down my throat and call me a homophobe or whatever. I’m also glad he did not ignore me and just let me go on with my ways.
I see way too many Deaf people that express anti-deaf views starting with the “too ASL” deafs, the deaf power folks, the ones who love to whine and argue, and all those other stereotypes. The more educated deafs will actually joke and make fun of all the “deaf power” people, but in my opinion, I have never met anyone who blatantly says “deaf power.” People who make fun of “Deaf power” are just perpetuating stereotypes of nonexistent deaf people. Now, the worse thing is, it is the educated deaf or HoH people who does the most of these kind of joking and looking down on deaf people.
I hear so many “oh my god, deaf people tend to do this or that” from Deaf professionals who work with deaf people all the time. What does that say about most of us? Who knows if many interpreters do this, and I know they do. I get comments all the time such as “wow, you are so smart.” That’s a red flag for me, indicating that this interpreter already has a bias of Deaf people and I’m not going to let them affect other deaf people. Now, back to Deaf professionals…how many do you know that are seemingly against deaf people in general? I can understand if they are annoyed by many individuals. I am annoyed by many people, but would never say “deaf people” in general and I know for every deaf person that does so and so, there are 100 more hearing people doing the same thing too. Everyone talks about Deaf people and their english skills, but I can easily find 1,000 hearing people with worse skills or education.
Comment by deafphilosophy — May 10, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
Crap, my comment should never be longer than my post.
Comment by deafphilosophy — May 10, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
JGJones,
I’ve found that there are no “true” facts. I am actually hoping for a more universal audience of deaf people and let people realize that we will always have to get political wherever we live. *WARNING: Metaphysical time* The facts of “politics” is different from USA, Canada and Mexico, yet we’re all connected together. Europe is no different. Just because a country has “democratic” in their name doesn’t mean it is democratic, so facts are funny like that. A scientist would say that things fall at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared, and I would say that can be wrong, then the scientist would say oh ok, only if air resistance is neglected. I would then say, that can still be wrong, we are only talking about earth and not on other planets or even in empty space. So these facts that scientist give out only give a narrow view.
Statistics is worse too. Suppose there were 10 families in one town, all families either have 1 kid or 10 kid, why would we say that the average family in that town has 5.5 kids? (5 families with 10 kids, and 5 families with 1 kid) How do we get .5 children anyways?
Anyways, I’m unlike most americans, I am more interested in the views and lives of non-americans. Canada does not interest me at all, although they have legitimate deaf issues, but so does every country in the world. I can imagine how people in different countries feel when all of our blogs are about captioning on tv or at the movies, when those other countries haven’t gotten to that point yet, much less get a videophone or high speed internet access needed to view the VLOGS. There is a disparity of the rich and poor among the Deafs all over the world in the sense that a person who pays about 40-50 bucks a month can afford to look at VLOGs at 8 via cable access, while the economically disadvantaged may not be able to afford a computer or afford internet cafe access.
It’s probably safe to say that the Americans/Canadians you see through deafread.com are on the high end of the economic status, thus making us all completely out of touch with the rest of the Deaf world, so that itself is ironic for us. I know many people who do not have a pager or internet access, so I often wonder just how many years behind they will be in “Deaf technology.”
As for the political climate, I would love to read about any country. I think it was switzerland that passed a law that parents of deaf children must learn sign language, otherwise it would be considered neglience or child abuse. This kind of legal education would help all Deaf people greatly.
Lastly, why should Deaf people all over the world have to read about American culture only? I’ve not been overseas yet but I often wonder if I would come off as a bold, brash and arrogant American who is deaf in the eyes of all other deaf people within that country. This is a problem for Americans in general anyways, not just Deaf people, but I’d like to see that Deaf people all over the world can set up organizations all over, create an international organization if things are truly oppressive in that country etc.
I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen many major international players on Deafread.com, but that is being addressed apparently with Deafread international…but this division is still troubling, why have the division of “deafread america” and deafread international?? I still wouldn’t want to see posts approved by Deafread.com that attacks Deaf people, regardless of how the culture and political background is in that country. I don’t think Deafread.com should approve posts by a Deaf Taliban completely putting down women or deafs.
I’m an optimist but I believe there can be a global organization of Deaf people and yes, I want to go to the WFD in spain this summer, but I’m unable to go. I’ll have my chance in the future.
Comment by deafphilosophy — May 10, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
“I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen many major international players on Deafread.com, but that is being addressed apparently with Deafread international…but this division is still troubling, why have the division of “deafread america” and deafread international?? I still wouldn’t want to see posts approved by Deafread.com that attacks Deaf people, regardless of how the culture and political background is in that country. I don’t think Deafread.com should approve posts by a Deaf Taliban completely putting down women or deafs.”
Why be surprised? The fact that deafread.com is almost exclusively Amercian does put off the rest of the world. In its early day I did email asking them to include more international content. Not much have been done about this realistically, and so it end up being deafread.com as “that USA site” – which I do think is a pity.
Deafread.com have much potential, and already is great for USA itself (although I do think many bloggers on it need to learn how to blog – ie blog for the blog itself and not to try and get into deafread.com only – your blog is viewable by the world, don’t just aim for deafread.com – make use of trackbacks, pingbacks, links etc (ie one could insert a trackback to this blog – where it’ll post as a comment, but is a link to their blog with their view etc – linking blogs, making networks) Sadly…many bloggers in deafread.com often blog in the sense of “let’s make a post and see if I get into deafread.com – ie many topics are “ASL Response to Carl” – with no links…
For an outsider it make no sense whatsoever unless you’re an avid follower of deafread.com which I am not. I am interested in great blogs yes that’s true and that’s how deafread.com could work…but…it’s managing to change blogging into a mishmash of a mailing list/forum style – I don’t think that was the intention but that’s how I view it now.
Comment by JGJones — May 10, 2007 @ 6:25 pm