Wednesday, July 9, 2008
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As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. Gloria Steinem
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
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The Creative Key
- Aidan Mack
- is a passionate, ambitious director, cinematographer, and editor. She is the first ASL-Deaf highly engaged and motivated, Dean’s List student-filmmaker at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, she has shown great potential as a filmmaker from conception to completion. As a Deaf individual, Aidan has faced and overcome a myriad of obstacles in her life. She brings the same tenacity to filmmaking as she strives to become a successful visual storyteller through the medium of film. Aidan is also an ASL and Deaf pro-activist working on the sharing and spreading of invaluable information about bilingualism in American Sign Language and English written language of Deaf children. She also urges people to recognize that the medical establishment has one-sided information that promises parents they will "cure" their babies’ deafness and that doctors, audiologists, and oral educators feed the idea into parents that Deaf people are not able to function in society if they do not get fixed.
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Blog Archive
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2008
(71)
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August
(9)
- Deaf or ASL: Do We Have To Choose?
- Deaf is a Cultural Term
- Zeroing in on side issues and small details blurs ...
- Ignorance and Deafhood
- My Sincere Apology to DeafRead Viewers
- Part Two: Healthy Anger vs. Unhealthy Anger in the...
- Part One:"Emotion" issue in the DeafRead and DeafV...
- DBC: Helping Hands--Seek Geo
- Slander in the DeafRead and DeafVideo Community
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July
(24)
- RE: the Litmus Test Issue
- AGBELL: No! Stop teasing me! Cut it out! Oh no! No...
- REDO VLOG: Cheap Talk
- DBC and NAD
- NAD Should Have Done Something about Promoting ASL...
- DBC Core Members and A question for you
- DBC's Thank You Vlog
- DBC proved my vlog right about "Stereotypes"
- DeafRead: Strong Vloggers/Bloggers Can Conquer ALL...
- DeafRead: Individual Deafhood Journey
- DeafRead: Cheap Talk
- Leaving DeafRead during Dark Era Answer to a Solut...
- Ella Lentz -- Deaf Community-- Rachel (Cochlear Im...
- Patti Durr--Ben Vess--"deaf cults" (Dan)
- Amy Cohen Efron: Come Clean!---and the "Signing Co...
- In Reaction to Bobbie Scoggin's comment
- Aidan: NAD Conference Motion
- Aidan: Deafhood
- Aidan: Inclusion
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August
(9)
14 comments:
Thank you, Aidan, for recognizing the problem with some Deaf leaders. It's very important for them to listen to their constituents and receive constructive feedback and disagreements in good faith. Only with a healthy dialogue and productive teamwork between the leaders and the Deaf Community members can we move forward.
Deaf Community cannot afford this horizontal oppression where members are not permitted to voice their concerns without being dismissed, intimidated, or maligned. That's what happened at Gallaudet when Jordan refused to listen and things took a turn for the worse.
Every member of Deaf Community is valuable. They deserved to be heard with respect and dignity without fear of retaliation.
Exactly!!!...I agreed with you 1000 percent. First Amendment already stated it loudly as "FREEDOM of SPEECH" over 200 years!!!! Whether we like or not from NEGATIVE or POSITIVE comments!
I do not like anybody who tried to censor our thoughts or manipulate our opinions. FREEDOM of SPEECH is for everyone not just "Hearing" or Audist's point of views only (sarcastic).
We need to UNITE and we CAN brainstorming our thoughts until we UNITED Deaf community.
That’s how America colonies fought with England for Freedom for Revolution. Even America colonists complained about taxes, treatments, un fair business etc etc whatever you named it until they reach to the point. America chose to UNITED and fought against England. America won the Revolution.
Can you see why the America colonies created the US constitution "We the People". Does it ringing your head? "We the People" means UNITED!!!!!!
I don’t care what kind of person who have CI, Cued, PSE, ASL, Oral or whatever. I simply look at you as D E A F just like us with different kind of intelligent / education background same as hearing. No biggie difference.
We CAN do the same as America Colonies. We can UNITED as "We the DEAF people"
Maybe people (leaders) aren't responding due to:
1) time? Can't respond to EVERYTHING!
2) haven't figured out an appropriate response?
3) the post did not offer logical thoughts, therefore not worth the time to respond?
4) Better to not say anything than to not say something nice?
5) Other?
--Don G.
*applaud*
That's all I can say. :)
Hello Aidan,
Glad you're back for a while and sound like you got something rolling on for good!
Leaders; Yes, we need a good leadership to hear out the community. Where are they? That's a interesting statement you made. I wonder, It must be a tough position for Bobbi Beth Scoggin to take the leadering for NAD but seem she is making the movement. I watch her interview and I'm hoping the leaders from different states and community hear out her comments. This got me thinking as you said..."Leaders...where?"
I have to say being in a postion as leader is not a easy task and I don't mean in a bad way. What I mean, the duty to carry out the voice between small community to to major community. The duty to listen community and exercise the messages. You're right...Leadership is important; what ever happen to the leader will effect the community.
It got me to thinking here...is it lack of training to become a leader? or a fear of leading like "Crab's Theory?" I see that alot around here but it tough to do in order to get everyone to listen to make it happens.
To disagree; I can disagree with you or anyone but how do I do it without "barking" to you. You're right...it's OK to disagree but how do we behave to disagree without jumping on the hands that speak? Take a look a real world here...investment business. Believe it or not they have the inside the business that one group of people that agree the ideas and second group of people disagree the ideas. They get paid to do that because the business want to be sure they have every information before they move on. When they have both group speaking agree and disagreement, then the leader know the "answers." A leader can move unless we speak in both agreement and disagreement.
I would say that Bobbi Beth Scoggin made a move of the echo from Gallaudet Unity and it is great that she speak to the people to work together instead of "shooting in the wild west." I sometime check your vlog because you have a good leading discussion and present the issues among people. We need to listen and accept both disagreement and agreement because that's how we learn to grow a better people.
Thanks Aidan for this vlog!
The Ponder Deaf Man
*acknowledging nod* to you.
SO beautiful! Let's show them OUR united front. We ARE the community!
-Ben
Hi,
It is very hard to be a Deaf leader as our community is very small one. Once a leader does something that is very unpopular, it is not usually appreciated by a lot of deaf people. Either the leader gets ousted or blamed.
We need to figure out ways on how a leader can move on, making unpopular decisions sometimes and to listen to deaf people and to be in tune or feel the pulse of the deaf community. It is a courage to be a great leader. I wonder about Fred Screimber -- did he have to make unpopular decisions, if so, how did the deaf community react, or whatever. We need to study our past leaders and see how they were able to prosper and to lead the deaf community.
Often times, deaf leaders stay on for a very short time, it is extremely hard, I wonder how we can make leaderships worthwhile for deaf people to learn and to achieve the best and to lead by example.
Good vlog you have there! Aidan, if you can give comments to start a dialogue as it is something that we need to talk about, that would be great.
hi Aidan,
question: What defines a leader? I do not call myself a leader. Are you? Who gave you the right if you did? I guess people do make assumptions.
For every person who paid or found their way to Milwaukee, each one is a leader in my eyes. They are leading the way for others to follow and realizing that finally standing up to something is important and necessary to start re-building our self-esteem as a people.
I am simply a core group member for DBC donating what I have, and am good at, the best I can. I am fortunate to be working with those currently in the core group because we all are very different but we have healthy dialogue and faith in each other. We are also very conscious that we won't be able to do what happened without others. It's been fascinating to watch the emergence of a bigger team for the Conference.
We respected each other when we didn't quite have same understanding of certain things because those didn't have any direct bearing on the idea of having all Deaf children sign, and to stand up to the expanding AVT practices. We researched information, listened to people many didn't listen to, watched various discussions, and thought a lot about the power of framing that AGB is so good at and that we definitely need to create our own framework that will determine our choices and decisions and paths towards our freedom as Deaf people to be the fullest and best we can be.
We do not know everything and when that happens, we back off, think, study, discuss, try to listen to our Deaf "conscience" and our ancestors for wisdom.
Vloggers and bloggers like you and others (and some commenters) I consider as leaders because you voice opinions and withstand criticism and praise. You make decisions on what you will say and take responsibility for everything you post. DBC started as a group of vloggers and bloggers, you remember? What about you and others? what are you doing as leaders of the Deaf community? I am curious. Any difference or same as what you think I am doing if you consider me a leader?
One thing, I do not appreciate some of you leaders for jumping the gun and making assumptions, accusations, etc. without doing research, without paying or donating money, without offering assistance, without being physically present at the conference and rally.... Don G is right. Many are assuming things about why we are doing or not doing things, saying or not saying things. Walk the Talk, that's what we are doing with what we believe in. It sure feels good to actually DO SOMETHING and yes it took a lot of energy, money and attention away from other parts of our lives.
May I ask you and others what "Walk" have been done? I know you are doing your part with your film and many volunteer projects for Deaf people in addition to your vlogs. Admirable!
Discussing in private can be safer because of libel. Not only that, I am wondering about cultural values being neglected at certain times in the blogosphere. Don't we have some kind of cultural "restraints" like etiquette, respectful dialogue, respecting privacy, and never assuming that people watch/read things, balance of languages, etc?
Many have given up on DeafRead like I have because it has become an unsafe place for the dialogue you are calling for. I asked around my friends and family if they know about all those naysaying about DBC. They don't. Reality check.
I can go on and on, but I will stop here. Again, thanks for all you have done to the Deafhood discourse that is badly needed, to the Deafhood filming concept that is badly needed, too. As always, I appreciate your commitment to integrity and ability to challenge as well as listen and learn.
HI Aidan,
May I ask you a question ...... do you want to run become President of NAD your self to support deaf commuity in the future ?
why not you go for it. :)
Davy
That comment by Ella isn't an response. It is a deflection or a projection of some sort.
Please.
I really expected better.
Candy~
Ella.
I don't subsribe to your philosophy of Deafhood, as you already know, despite the fact I did attend the workshop. Nor deaf people living here in Indiana subscribe to it... we just don't talk about it, because we are already comfortable in our skin.
You forget one thing... we all are leaders in our right and we also are followers in our right. Being leader is just to acknowledge the words and emotions but being able to stick to the mission. Just acknowledge. Like it or not, you are a leader and you need to acknowledge a group of deaf people without belitting them.
Take care.
Hey Ella Lentz ...... I like your good wisdom comment here in a way judgement human balance as making very sober point with possitive and negative......... gimmie high five! I like it.
Davy
Ella,
"One thing, I do not appreciate some of you leaders for jumping the gun and making assumptions, accusations, etc. without doing research, without paying or donating money, without offering assistance, without being physically present at the conference and rally...."
Well, well! Let me tell you something Ella Lentz, one does not become a part of a community by "donating" money.
Let this be crystal clear, Ella Lentz, the crowd you had at Milwaukee was NOT the WHOLE community.
Understand?
Also, let me point out the hypocrisy of your words: you assume that we did not do research. You are assuming we are making accusations. No, you are wrong on both parts.
It was our research that ignited our reaction. It is not accusations we are making, we are presenting our perspectives and taking action accordingly. Just like you.
You're just mad that there's so many of us and we are outraged. Get over it.
You'll fight for your cause, keep going, I'm not stopping you. I'll do what I can and don't try to stop me.
Let the voices of the community decide for themselves--one of our causes will prevail. Don't force it. You guys made your motion, let us our right to voice dissent and complaints.
You are in your reality and we are in ours-- we have clashed. Both of us will walk out of this with open mind and better understanding of one another. Neither one will forget the other's reality.
That is the core of diversity. Having beliefs and fighting for them.
-Ben
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