DEAF AS A CULTURAL & LINGUISTIC MINORITY

One of the Deaf-World's identifying characteristics lies within the way its members view deafness. While the world in general still tends to see deafness from a medical perspective: that deafness is a handicap, a malformation, or an illness to be cured, Deaf people generally see deafness as a human difference to be dealt with. I. King Jordan, the president of Gallaudet University, explained during an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes that Deaf people do not sit around wondering when we will find a cure for deafness. Because Deaf people do not experience an absence as hearing people usually imagine. They do, however, recognize a significant difference."

 This difference is often difficult for hearing people to understand, and perhaps no hearing person can ever fully understand it. After all, most hearing people grow up being taught and believing that the word deaf fits in the same category with words like blind, paraplegic, and mentally retarded. But the Deaf community, at least a substantial part of it, argues that deafness is more closely akin to Chineseness and Indianness. They explain that the Deaf community is much more like an ethnic community than a group of disabled people, because while the phenomenon of deafness brings Deaf people together, it is their common language and culture. In reality most Deaf people consider their deafness something to be proud of, something that is deeply a part of them, and something without which they would not know themselves.

As the Deaf community begins to take control of the education of its own, this broadened awareness is beginning to spread, but it is a slow process. The medical view of deafness is entrenched in the hearing culture. Deaf students are often placed in schools and educational programs shared by blind or developmentally disabled students, and interpreters for the Deaf are paid from funds and organizations established for the disabled, while interpreters for other languages are paid through other sources. There are hundreds of other ways like these that the hearing perspective of deafness is planted deep within the hearing culture. Changing such deep-rooted cultural constructs is not an easy task, but many Deaf activists aim to do just that.

Recently the Deaf community has been the focus of increased media attention through movies, books, etc. in addition to the tremendous exposure given to the "Deaf President Now" protests at Gallaudet University in 1988. Many people within the community also believe that the establishment of ASL programs in colleges and schools around the country, as a result of ASL's widespread acceptance as a legitimate, living, functioning language, could do much to remove the old stigmas surrounding deafness which in turn could open doors to Deaf people as they seek employment and other opportunities in hearing-controlled organizations.