Post #30: Chapters 61 & 62

Chapter 61:

Reading about all the different stereotypes given to the Deaf was sad. The people who believe in these stereotypes must be uninformed on Deaf culture and the Deaf community. The following stereotypes really stood out to me in this chapter.

-The Silent Sufferer: I was glad that the authors addressed this one because I have heard before that some people think that deaf people are lonely. The authors state that, “We have active social lives-visiting Deaf friends and inviting them over, participating in Deaf clubs and events” (pg. 359). I don’t really understand why they think that they are just lonely people; to me this stereotype just doesn’t make sense.

-The Incompetent Dum-Dum: “hearing folks still believe that deaf people can’t think, and treat them accordingly” (pg. 362). This stereotype is absurd. There is nothing wrong with a deaf persons mind. Just because they use a different language doesn’t mean they have some type of disability.

-Life’s Loser: This stereotype portrays deaf people as, “pathetic, victimized, weak characters” (pg. 362). They think this because “to succeed, you must be able to speak well” (pg. 362). This sounded to me like something an Oralist might believe.

-God’s Victim: It angers me that some people think that “deaf people are cursed” (pg. 363). I agree with the authors that this view unfortunately has a negative connotation.

-Tabloid Tragedies: This stereotype says that deaf people are “prevented from achieving our full potential because of prejudice” (pg.363). I do think that there still is a lot of prejudice that deaf people have to overcome but I do not consider it to be a tragedy.

I love the way that the authors summed up this chapter. They stated that, “stereotypical thinking is a symptom of ignorance” (pg. 363). I completely agree with that statement.

Chapter 62:

I had never really considered whether or not Deaf people have their own literature before. I read about Pierre Desloges. I learned that he was “the first known deaf person to write and publish a prose book” (pg. 365), titled “Observations of a Deaf-Mute on an Elementary Course of Education for Deaf-Mutes” in 1779. I had never heard of him before.

                “It could be said that the heart and soul of Deaf literature cannot be found in written books, but in the burgeoning library of ASL performances-stories, poems, song, plays” (pg.366). I think it would be really neat to see an ASL performance. I hadn’t heard of ASL plays before, I would be very interested in attending one. In class we watch some songs performed in ASL and I find it so amazing how expressive they can be.

                “The most popular Deaf literary genre is ASL poetry (in which the distinction between ‘writer’ and ‘performer’ is happily blurred, and the barriers between performer and audience are broken down)” (pg. 369). I don’t really understand this idea, about the barriers between performer and audience being broken down but I bet it would be a great experience.