All I can say is, you need a big education in Deaf 101….

I’m the Dutch Deaf professional/woman etc. who have wrote the keynote Surdophobia.
My name is Gardy van Gils.

I think it’s very interesting to find out which motives hearing people have for working with D/deaf people.
copy from Brian Guy:
“Interesting this – someone said to me that ’superiority’ is the extreme version of inferiority – one need to mix with those that they perceive as ‘inferiors’ if they are to overcome their own personal inferiority complex.”

I’ve heard of this theory too. Once, a college psychiatrist, have told me about this.
He also said to me that there were a lot of hearing professionals working in Deaf area’s who are ‘misfits’ in the regular society.
In Dutch we have a great saying for this: “in the country of the blind people, the one-eyes are the king”. It’s important that we have developed antenna to recognize these “one-eye dictators” who don’t want get us empowered.
Also we have to collaborate with those who treat us as equal human beings.

Being aware of this phenomenon is very important for all of us, also being aware of our self-image too.

For example: (I love storyteling, so before you go to sleep, listen to this one)

Last week, I visited a notary with my 77 years old mother and we’ve brought an interpreter with us. I was astonished after what she have said to the notary. For your information: my mother is Deaf, borned Deaf with Deaf parents, and she got me, a Deaf daughter, she got a Deaf granddaughter which is my daughter. (are you still with me?)
She said to the (hearing) notary: I’m sorry, I can’t sign, always using my voice. Can speak very well and my daughter, she want’s to bring in the interpreter because she need a one.
(The interpreter translated her voice in the backside, because the notary couldn’t understand my mothers words. She didn’t noticed that. Still believing the notary and she are well understanding each other).
It’s painfull, absolutely painfull for me, to see my mother in this way. But I can’t blame her for this attitude. Like many Deaf people in the Netherlands and Europe and everywhere, she’s been punished structural in a physical and psychic way when using sign-language, her mother-language. For over many years, I have tried to learn my mother that everytime she talks about Deaf people like they are persons with low skills, as they are inferior human beings when they sign, or that they’re always not well lettered, she also talks about herself and put down everyone of us: her parents, me, my daughter, her friends, her family. Her self-image is damaged forever. I just have to accept that and respect her even it’s so hard to see the scars.

A lot of Deaf and hard of hearing people have built up an existential fear for being themselves. They still need respect and help for building up a more adequate self-image.
For me, it’s really going to far to call them surdophobes.

Looking forward to your comments.
Goodnight.
Gardy

Seriously this kind of attitude is prevalent in the Deaf Education and helping professions, contributing to the oppression of Deaf people. This attitude cannot be tolerated at all. period.

I’ll wait until I get back home, then watch the vlog. I hope I got the context of the post correctly. In fact, Don, I was planning to blog about this topic soon. : )

In addition to this phenomenon, I see other d/Deaf people who have been limited by the low expectations of parents. Parents who have meant well, but have taken advice from the only resource the think to ask, the medical community who is often unversed in the variety of resources available and the pitfalls of an oral only approach for many d/Deaf people (including those with cochlear implants). As a result, they often end up undereducated, un/underemployed and perpetuating this stereotype that Deaf people are limited to a life of collecting SSI (one form of government financial assistance in the US, for any international blog readers) payments or low-level jobs.

These are just my anecdotal observations but based on this article, probably not uncommon.

I’d hesitate to throw it at any hearing person as it might make them reject the whole idea. As a tool for discussion, it might have severe limitations. No one wants to be told they are behaving in a less than helpful way toward other people. “Audism” might be a less emotionally charged word.

There is some truth in it, however. I’ve seen hearing people indignant when they realize deaf people drive a car or get promoted on the job: “they can’t do that! They’re deaf!” Some hearing people have resented it when they work alongside deaf people…they feel they should have better work or privileges because they can HEAR.

On another tack, hearing people can be afraid of deaf people, especially signers. They fear that they will make a mistake or appear stupid, or offend without meaning to.

It takes sensitivity and understanding, and knowing how to be helpful to get past this attitude and communication problem. Not all of us can do it, much less some hearing people.

I agree with your comment (August 24, 2008 @ 12:09 pm).

I wrote a message with the attachment of “Surdophobia” to a number of deaf professionals. Overwhelmingly, I received many replies, asserting that they have been treated negatively. One of the very important deaf professionals whose name I shall not be disclosing herein wrote as follows:

“Thanks for sending that article over. The Dutch lady’s “surdophobia” obviously is what we in the USA call audism. I’ve lived with it most of my professional life, and believe people would be amazed to know who my so-called audistic friends were!”

Others have also said that deaf protégés at Gallaudet ARE still jealous
of them in different manners.

Was i shocked to see the names of the jealous ones? No, I was not!
But what surprises me is that he has not changed an iota for over
25 years. What is worse is that he still mouths without signing to his
oral friends at Gallaudet. In my analysis, I think that deaf protégés
have what Psychologist Adler would term: “Inferior Complex”.

What I wrote to the people this afternoon is as follows:

What I wrote to the people this afternoon is as follows:

“Are hearing professionals fearful of signing deaf professionals? Yes. Do hearing professionals regard signing deaf professionals inferior? Yes Are there some hearing professionals at Gallaudet fearful of deaf professionals? Verily! Do some audists’ deaf protégés learn to look down at deaf professionals? Yes.”

“That explains why there are so few deaf professionals. I am enclosing in the attachment a Dutch deaf professional’s five-page (PDF) paper, “Surdophobia.” “Surdus” is a Latin word for “deaf”. Feel free to share it with your colleagues, friends, and relatives. We must educate hearing people that English is a foreign language of deaf Americans and that ASL is a foreign language of hearing Americans and THAT most deaf people are bilingual. (The fact is that most hearing people are monolingual (one language). Click the attachment to read the PDF paper.”

“Enjoy the rest of the summer. Jean Boutcher”

Very good observations. Whether you’re being idealistic or not, well, we have been challenging Hearing people to confront their own audistic attitudes, so challenging Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to confron their own surdophobic or superiority complex attitudes fits very well too, and I think, entirely appropriate toward understanding what is behind Deafhood.

It is not easy for Hearing people to do it, and it’s not going to be easy for Deaf/HH people either. We all have been exposed to these attitudes and ideas, and they have taken root in all of us in various ways. Even me. But I do try to be conscious of when I might be engaging in audistic/surdophobic/superiority complex modes of thinking, and to change how I think and speak, and when someone points out to me tht my words or behaviors are not “Deaf-friendly”, I think about it and change as appropriate.

I find this true amongst a good proportion of hearing professionals especially those who do not act as our allies when we wish to change the status quo (policies, procedures or any other items preventing our equality or access to the higher echelons for instance). Also sad to say that this also applies to deaf professionals who look down their noses at deaf community members and yet they are in positions of power in their organisations.

This is a double edged sword but basically why are there people out there who need to hang on to positions where there are others better placed to take over as they have a better insight into the baser issues here. The way forward is for people to identify and confront this ‘surdophobia or superiority complex’ and I bet you that should they recognise and overcome this the workplace would be a truly better one for everyone, or am I being too idealistic here?????

Not sure what your point is —

But yes, simcomming is not an effective way of communication for us, because Hearing people tend to make the speech and English primary in their minds rather than the signs, so the signs will be more English order, and because the brain really can’t handle two tasks simultaneously, much of the signs or the grammatical aspects of the signs will be deleted (unconsciously), resulting in a linguistic muddle when one is attending only to the signs (if one is not lipreading or hearing the spoken words).

For those of you who know more than one spoken language, try this experiment: on paper or a blackboard, write a sentence of your choosing while speaking the same sentence in the other language.

That’s why it’s much better for Hearing (and Deaf) people to use only one language at a time — Spoken English or ASL. Don’t mix the two.