On Equality

I have a lot to say about the topic of equality. I apparently dreamed last night that I had the opportunity to speak in front of the Supreme Court justices tomorrow during the arguments for and against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Our constitution grants certain rights and liberties to our citizens. It was also written at a time when the authors considered White men to be eminently equal to one another. I highly doubt that they ever considered that "All men are created equal" would essentially become a rallying cry for granting women and blacks the right to vote or for marriage equality (for interracial and same-sex marriages), or for allowing two parents of the same gender to adopt children as their legal offspring. Luckily for us, society has evolved over the last couple hundred years. While racial/ethnic and sexuality-related prejudices are still strong, and for a number of reasons, we have come to a point where people are actually talking about what equality means. And that's a conversation that needs to happen.

Regardless of today's arguments for/against the repeal of Proposition 8 or tomorrow's for/against the repeal of DOMA, I know one thing for sure:

I know in my heart, and always have known this, that all human beings are created equal. 

We all need to remember to be accepting of everyone else, and that includes recognizing that we all have our faults.

I feel extremely lucky to have such a widely diverse group of friends and to have grown up in an area that is more "liberal" (diverse) than many other states and towns in these United States. I don't think homogeneity does anyone any good. People don't learn to accept (and not care about) differences if they're not exposed to them.

In a nutshell: If you believe all men (and women) are created equal, then you know where you should stand on this issue.

And I urge you all to speak out and say something on your own Facebook wall. If you say something, someone may read it and start thinking about what the issue of marriage equality means to him or her. It can be as simple as posting the Human Rights Campaign equality image to your Facebook or Twitter or making it your profile picture. Or just a simple statement that says you stand for marriage equality simply because it's the right thing.

Thanks for reading.

I have a human heart, not a deaf heart

I am so sick of this “deaf-heart” bullcrap.

What’s next? Black heart? White heart? Lesbian heart? Blind heart? Paraplegic heart?

Get over it, y’all.

I’m a person. A person who just happens to be deaf. The only thing deaf about me are my ears. Not my eyes, not my hands, and certainly not my heart.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what it means to have other deaf people in my life. That doesn’t mean I don’t cherish the people who work every day to ensure that we deaf people have equal access and opportunities that hearing people have. But you know what? I take people not for what they do or what they are, but for WHO they are. As composite beings.

Who am I?

I am an individual made up of many parts. My DNA makes me human, just like everyone else who is reading this. But my DNA also makes me unique. I am a person who just *happens* to be female, white (and pink and tan, depending on how much sun I get), short, deaf, sensitive, stubborn, frustrated, frustrating, perfectionist, and more.

In other words, my whole is greater than the sum of my parts.

I don’t have a short heart.

I don’t have a stubborn heart.

I most definitely don’t have a deaf heart.

And neither do you. So get over it. See people for who they are, and celebrate that. Not for WHAT people are.

Because, in the end, we’re all human. And unique.

Thoughts about the recent "celebrations"

I posted the following on Facebook as a note, and decided to copy it here.

I'm really not pleased with some of the images I saw last night and this morning. My friend Mark had a good status, which I've adapted:

We should all be humbled by the death of Osama bin Laden. To show Americans celebrating is sad. We should be thankful and respectful, and show dignity. To party and climb trees and mug for the cameras is no different than what we saw in other countries after 9/11. These acts only serve to fan the flames of hate and feelings of disrespect, discord, and enmity. We should focus on thanking our troops and intelligence personnel for their sacrifices that they've made over the years and will make in the future, and hope for peace.

I will NOT be sharing any pictures or comments/links that are disrespectful. I've already seen one of the Statue of Liberty holding bin Laden's head instead of a torch, with blood dripping from it. That's not funny -- it's creepy, disrespectful, and just plain wrong. And that was already circulating before President Obama's official statement.

This should be a time of reflection and perhaps even of sorrow. Some have called bin Laden a psychopath. Whether he was or not is irrelevant. He was still a human being.

As so are we all. Let's remember to treat one another the way we want to be treated.

State law vs God's law; aka The Case for Equal Rights

I wrote the following response to a friend of a friend's comment on Facebook, and decided to broadcast it for all the world to see.

[Dear *Name Withheld*],

Here's something for you to think about:

The reason America was founded (and taken away from the Indians, but I digress), was so that people could escape the religious persecution they experienced back in England and other parts of Europe. Our United States Constitution was written / founded on the principle that ALL (wo)men are created equal and therefore should be accorded all unalienable rights, SEPARATE from whatever we consider God's law to be.

State law -- federal, state, county, city -- is supposed to follow that premise. Equal rights is equal rights in terms of civil law. Whatever you feel God's law to be, you may practice in your own house, but you cannot use that to discriminate against people who hold different beliefs than you do, even in terms of sexuality.

Just 50 years ago, people used the Bible and God's law as an excuse for not providing equal rights to black people.

100 years ago, the same excuse was used to prevent women from having the right to vote, to work, to be equal to men (and we're still struggling to be equal).

Marriage IS a civil right. One cannot be married in the eyes of the law without obtaining a marriage certificate from a clerk of the court.

Preventing same-sex couples from obtaining marriage certificates is most certainly denying them of equal rights and is unconstitutional, based on the principles set forth back in 1774.

Furthermore, religious choice is just that - a CHOICE. We allow all people to freely practice their religious beliefs without persecution -- BUT people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, etc., are born that way. They do not have a choice. How do I know? I'm one of them. I am who I am, and I have my own beliefs about the existence of God and the place religion has in my life.

But don't tell me I have a choice in my sexuality. You don't have any more of a choice in being straight more than I have one in being attracted to both men and women.

Think about it.

Communication in relationships

So I recently dated a deaf guy. He was the first deaf person I had dated in a few years; the previous people I had gone out with had been hearing.

Let's call him Recent-Dater #1.
Recent-Dater #2 was a hearing interpreting student who signed fluently.
Recent-Dater#3 was a hearing graduate deaf ed student who signed pretty well.

So now that you have some semblance of my recent dating history (and that "history" covers the last four years), I'm going to try to get right to the point.

Communication was HARD at times. In a way, I expected it to be easier because we were both deaf and we both sign. But apparently, that's where the similarity lies.

I prefer to express myself in English.
He prefers to express himself in ASL-PSE.
I voice relatively well.
His voice is pretty damn unintelligible.

I like communicating via voice or written English (IM, etc.). I don't have a problem discussing heavy issues over IM, especially when it's important and I don't think the issue should wait. He prefers to wait until we can both meet and then discuss in person, so he can "sign it out."

Of course, this led to frustration for both of us. Especially since I'm not the most patient person in the world. (Or even the most patient patient...but I digress.)

I almost always had to ask him to fingerspell two or three times because I never understood his fingerspelling the first time around.

He thinks I sign better when I'm "singing."

I found myself wanting to make things easier in public by voicing for him sometimes. In the beginning, he told me he did not want me to interpret for him. Then he started glancing at me every so often. And I would go right into "deaf interpreter mode." Without even thinking about it. One night, we had dinner with my parents. And I interpreted the entire time, taking time out to eat for myself. Not that I minded, but... it would definitely have been easier if he could communicate with them directly.

So perhaps the importance of communication isn't so dependent on the hearing status of both parties or communication mode (signing, cueing or speaking), but rather...

the ability of both people to express themselves in similar ways -- or at least to be able to understand how the other person expresses themselves and not struggle.

Admittedly, I want a partner who is as comfortable with English as I am, who doesn't need me to proofread written communication and, admittedly... one who enjoys musicals as much as I do. :)

And someone who can speak relatively well, so that I don't feel like inequality in communication exists. Because communication with others is just as important as communication with your partner.

Right?

ETA (edited to add): I am NOT upset/annoyed/mad with this guy. We just encountered difficulties in communication that I didn't expect. So many people assume that deaf+deaf = easy communication, but that's not necessarily true. It's not just about the language (English or ASL) or mode of communication (signing, cueing, speaking).

Hiatus & PepsiCo thoughts

So apparently, one of the drawbacks to having a job that requires me to focus on writing, editing and working with web site projects means that I have no motivation for focusing on my own blogs. A friend of a friend last night asked whether I had a blog. I directed him to this one, then looked at it myself.

April 22, 2007.

That's the date of the last blog I posted. Sigh. Didn't realize it had been that long.

A lot has happened since April. I can't believe it's been almost 10 months since my last "politically incorrect" blog. And, of course, I've mused over many a topic that I've considered blogging about, but when push came to shove... I didn't do it.

I had thought part of the problem is that I'm too apathetic these days or just too much in a routine to feel fired up about anything. Then, last week, I was at a friend's house and we were discussing the whole PepsiCo commercial issue. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, first, view the video, and then meander over to DeafDC.com and check out these two blogs:

AGBell Tackles Pepsico SuperBowl Commercial

My Response to Karen Youdelman’s and Alexander T. Graham’s Pepsico Letter


First of all, I just want to say that I have met Alex Graham. I do not know Karen Youdelman, nor do I envision meeting her in the near future. My meeting with Alex Graham was fortuitous, in that it occurred before this PepsiCo commercial "controversy" came up. Alex is the new executive director of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He comes from a background in health management, and he is a businessman/organizational manager. He joined AG Bell having very little knowledge of "deaf politics." His goal is to streamline operations and make the organization's staff more efficient. The flak that he has received for being a co-signer of the AG Bell letter to PepsiCo essentially "complaining" about the lack of deaf oral participants is thus unwarranted.

Oftentimes, when an organizational letter is disseminated, both the President and Executive Director sign it. The president, however, is ultimately responsible not only for the contents of the letters, but also for maintaining the integrity and mission/goals of the organization. The president of an organization is the leader; he/she directs and oversees the board of directors. The executive director actually serves the president and board of directors. EDs do not have power over the president/board. I feel as though this is a mistaken perception on the part of many individuals.

The above is not to say that I agree with AG Bell's position or with their decision to write this letter. I personally feel it was uncalled for. In fact, just a few short days after the letter link was posted on the AG Bell home page, it was taken down. The PDF still exists, though.

Here are a few excerpts from the letter:

Although we appreciate Pepsi’s efforts to encourage new promotional ideas from your rank-and-file employees and your willingness to celebrate diversity, we would be remiss if we did not call your attention to the fact that your advertisement offers a limited view of the deaf community.

Your advertisement perpetuates a common myth that all people who are deaf can only communicate using sign language and are, therefore, isolated from the rest of society.

Of the more than 30 million Americans who live with hearing loss, the majority use spoken language as their primary mode of communication.

My thoughts regarding the excerpted comments are:

All commercials are sensationalized. Show me any commercial that shows no bias and I'll show you a pig flying. In other words, the fact that this commercial shows signing deaf people DOES portray a limited view of the deaf community. While I can understand AG Bell's desire to have oral deaf persons more "visible," I find it ironic -- AG Bell touts the ability of oral deaf persons to be mainstream, to be part of hearing society, and not to be "differentiated." This excerpt from AG Bell's "Who we are" page illustrates this concept pretty well:

Through advocacy, education, research and financial aid, AG Bell helps to ensure that every child and adult with hearing loss has the opportunity to listen, talk and thrive in mainstream society.

With regard to the second excerpt, I actually had to laugh. I didn't see anything in the commercial that shows that signing deaf people are "isolated" from the rest of society. I will accede, however, that the commercial does perpetuate the idea that deaf people sign.

The last excerpt is actually true, and I do applaud AG Bell for not putting a number to represent "majority" because then, I'd really have a bone to pick with them. My own father would be considered part of the number of Americans with hearing loss, as someone who lost hearing as he got older. He and I are different in that I use sign language to communicate sometimes, and he never does. He never had to, really.

So, to pull my thoughts together into a coherent summary:

All commercials are misleading.
Therefore, the PepsiCo commercial is misleading. ;-)

I'm sort of kidding. But seriously, what is advertising if not promoting a product or service? One would think that, looking at all the other commercials out there, that no deaf Americans exist (that is, if you follow flawed logic processes). So the fact that a major corporation produced a commercial utilizing their own deaf and hearing employees and showcasing a spinoff of a popular joke within the signing Deaf community definitely is a break from the trend. It was a risky project, and the attention it got -- both positive and negative -- was amazing.

Would it be nice to see commercials showcasing deaf oral individuals? Sure, of course!

Would it be nice to see commercials showcasing deaf signing, oral AND cueing individuals? Oh wow... utopia...

Main Entry: uto·pia

Pronunciation: \yu̇-ˈtō-pē-ə\

Function: noun

Etymology: Utopia, imaginary and ideal country in Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou not, no + topos place

Date: 1597

1: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place
2: a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions

And, with that... I leave you to ponder.

Freedom isn't Free

Yesterday I was with some friends enjoying the absolutely gorgeous weather. We all shirked our duties (quiz-grading, studying, working, etc.) and acted like a bunch of adult kids just romping around for several hours under the bright blue skies. I even managed to forget about Virginia Tech for a few hours.

When we pulled into a parking lot of a local restaurant, a friend saw the following bumper sticker on a car:

"Freedom is not free."

She asked me what it meant -- she truly didn't get it. I told her it meant "FREEDOM COST MONEY, FREEDOM NOT COST-NONE."

"OH-OH-OH."

That led me to think about what the bumper sticker is really telling us. America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, or even millions, yearn to emigrate to our good ole U.S. of America every year. Why? They want a better life, and more than that, they want freedom.

Freedom from what, though?

FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

While religious persecution is not as overt here as it is in other countries, there are some muted instances of what I like to term "dogmatic criticism," when congregations split from their parent church because they don't like the changes that are happening. Since the ordination of Gene Robinson, several parishes have split from the Episcopal church because they don't agree with having a gay bishop. The most recent news comes out of Colorado, and can be found here: Congregation to split from Episcopal Church. Now, it's true that congregations have the right to do what they want to do, but the fact remains that religious persecution still exists to a degree here in America. Rather than Catholicism or Judaism or Islam or a sect within each global religion being persecuted, religious leaders and the parishioners are DOING the persecuting and discrimination against others. Hmmm. Interesting.

FREEDOM FROM DOMINANCE

Now, I'm not going to delve into philosophy here and hark back to the great philosophers of the day. Apologies to those of you fascinated by philosophy. :) What I will say, though, is that our general ability to follow our free will and do what we want to do has largely become governed by "Big Brother," especially in the last several years. I can cite a large number of petty Big Brother projects, like red light and speeding cameras, but the abortion issue is paramount to me.

I am a woman. I believe in a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, ESPECIALLY when her own life is at stake, or if the pregnancy was forced. By forced, I mean if the woman was taken against her will and raped. If that rape results in a pregnancy, then the baby is a result of lack of free will on the mother's part. Should we not allow these people to make their own decision when they can, rather than the government telling them, "I'm sorry you were raped, but since we made abortion illegal, you need to keep your baby. Now after 9 months of pregnancy and labor, you can go ahead and give up your kid for adoption. Is that really fair to the fetus? I don't think so, but that's just me.

I would never condone abortion just because someone got drunk, had sex, forgot to use a condom, and woke up pregnant. I would, however, respect the person for making a decision that was in the best interest of all parties involved. If that entails abortion, so be it.

Lately, the tide has been turning to make abortion illegal once again. I feel like crying out that of all the "bans" the federal and state governments have, the abortion issue so clearly shows that we're losing free will to the government, which is largely made up of white, middle-class males. Big Brother, indeed.

FREEDOM FROM CENSORSHIP

We can all say what we [insert adjectival word here] want to say. We can say it nicely. We can throw in a bunch of expletives. We can be brusque, charming, rude, boring, flattering, cute, monotonous, repetitive... and it doesn't matter. The only thing we cannot do is knowingly slander someone else's name. There are people who take great pains to make sure their information is accurate and supported by more than one source. I call them journalists. Whether they are paid by the Washington Post or New York Times or fellow bloggers just wanting to educate their readers, these people set the bar and exemplify why it is so important for us all to celebrate free speech.

However, there are those who do not uphold journalistic or even general ethical standards and do come very close to committing libel or slander in their blog entries. Readers can whine and moan and bitch -- and they have the right to do that, thanks to our free speech law. With free speech comes responsibility, and as bloggers and readers, we all have a responsibility to strive for ethical practices and have respect for one another.

I'm sure our founding fathers, those great men who wrote our Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution never dreamed of a day where we would be typing away on machines that could broadcast to the world in a nanosecond just exactly what we think about something or someone. With immediate technology in our hands (literally), it becomes more and more important with each passing day to take a step back, reread what we've written, and make sure it's respectful, appropriate, and worthy of being wirelessly sent out into cyberspace.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

I promise I have a point. We have the freedom to do all these things, and sometimes we're restricted for our own individual health and safety. But we wouldn't have any of those freedoms if it were not for the revolutionaries who defeated the British Redcoats. Those people did not want to pay taxes to a British Empire who did nothing for them. We all bitch and moan every April about paying taxes to not only our federal government, but our state and local governments as well. We pay sales taxes on goods. We pay property taxes. Even our Sidekick and Blackberry (and Treo, etc.) bills have taxes. But y'know what? Even though I bitch that our freedoms are not free, I'm glad we have them.

• I'm glad I'm not a female who cannot go to college.
• I'm glad I'm a woman who can wear what I want to wear.
• I'm glad I'm a deaf person who has a license to drive.
• I'm glad I can choose my own life partner, rather than going into an arranged marriage.
• I'm glad it's relatively simple for me to obtain a passport and go nearly anywhere in the world.
• I'm glad I can choose whether to follow my religion or not.
• I'm glad my friends can choose to convert from one religion to another without persecution (not counting the questions people have along the lines of "why would you do that???").
• I'm glad my friends can go into a gay bar without fear of government and police officials rushing to arrest them for sexual deviance and threatening to slice their heads off.
• I'm glad I can stay out as late as I want, without a government or military-imposed curfew dictating me to be home before dark.
• I'm glad I can write this blog without fear of being shut down because I disagree with our government.

I'm glad we have to pay for our freedom.

Freedom may not be free, but I think the cost is pretty darn minimal.

EDITED TO ADD:

A commenter alerted me to the fact that the "freedom is not free" slogan actually means that we earn our freedoms (and freedoms of others) through blood. (Thanks DeafPundit!) If you think about the wars that the U.S. has engaged in in the last half century, our soldiers were fighting overseas in order to liberate others from oppression. They were not fighting to liberate Americans. Prior to that, though, we fought for our own freedoms -- against the British. Against the Mexicans. Against each other (had I grown up in the mid-19th century, I would have lived in a secession state). The South fought not for propagating slavery, but for the right to secede from the Union. Then we fought in WWI because we were/are a major player in world affairs. Our own security was threatened in 1941, and we entered into WWII.

And now? We're sending our soldiers overseas trying to fight terrorism, but also to fight the Iraqis so that Iraqis can have a democratic government. Seems kinda ironic, don'tcha think?

*sigh*

Okay, this blog is now officially ended. :)

Musings on Blogging

As a member of the DeafDC blogging community (as a repeat comment-poster), I have of late become extremely fascinated with the ease and comfort in which we interact and "talk" with one another online via the blog comment pages -- and most of us don't even know who the other person is. Many handles exist and we think of them by their blog handles, not by their real names. The few who use their full names are typically DeafDC bloggers and are representing themselves as such; the rest of us are just joining the fray. And even the rest of us may utilize not one, but two, three or four different handles -- and in those cases, the handles reference the content of the comment posted.

The other day, DeafPundit, a regular DeafDC commenter, posted the following blog on her own site: http://deafpundit.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/i-wonder/

After I posted a reply to another reply for that blog, I started thinking about what it really means. The original reply, written by MishKazena, said:

I think our blogs and vlogs will be archives and studied carefully for decades to come, more like specimen under microscope by social scientists, linguistics and ASL/Deaf Studies students. With the rapid utilitization of cochlear implants and future implementation of genetic engineering to repair the deaf genes, the Deaf Community as we know will shrink.

My own reply:

I’m not so sure that the Deaf Community will shrink. I think it will change — it already IS changing. No cultures or communities are stagnant, anyway. I think it would be a huge mistake to try to keep the Deaf Culture “as is” at this moment in time. Think about how much we’ve changed in the last 5-6 years, thanks to the advent of two-way pagers, the Sidekick(tm), Treo(tm), BlackBerry(tm), etc., high-speed internet, videophones, digital cameras with video capability, and of course…

blogging.

Blogging seems to be the new Deaf Club. And there’s no bigger “Deaf Club” than DeafDC right now.

That leads me to the following...

The Deaf community/Culture as we know it is constantly changing. We can hardly say that things have stayed the same as 100 years ago, much less 20 years ago. For many of us, we no longer regularly have to "plan in advance" our meetings, our get-togethers, our times to catch up. With a few keystrokes on a wireless device, it's now possible to meet up at a bar, a friend's house, or even a park, for some catching up time. Just last week, I imed a friend about 3 hours before the DC DPHH started to see if she was interested in getting together for a bite to eat beforehand. She was. We did.

No longer are the long-goodbyes needed; instead, the reason we take forever to leave a place is because we want to say goodbye to everyone we know there. And now it's "see you next month," or "I'll email you tomorrow" or "oh, send me an email, we can figure that out." The goodbyes themselves are relatively quick. A hug, a smile, maybe even a peck on the cheek, and away we go, knowing that we will see each other in the Online World.

Is that a good or bad thing? Do we still need the real Deaf Clubs? Do we still need a "home base" where we can get together on weekends, shoot pool, hang out and commiserate with one another? Or is a happy hour once a month, on Friday evenings, sufficient? And are the happy hours really welcoming to those in our large Deaf community who may not be comfortable because they don't drink (for various reasons -- religion, addiction, etc.)?

Find Out What It Means To Me

Years ago, many of my friends had either rainbow or HRC stickers on their car bumpers or rear windshields. I noticed one friend did not and one day inquired as to why.

“If anyone wants to know if I’m gay, all they need to do is watch me get out of the car.”

I laughed, because it was funny….and true.

Years later, here we are, talking about what it means to be deaf, Deaf, hearing-impaired, oral, manualist, cuer, Hearing, ASLian, English, Strong Deaf, hearie, militant deaf, African-American, black, Black, white, Caucasian, Latino/a, Hispanic, Muslim, Sikh, Indian, Pakistani, short, tall, average, heterosexual, gay, bisexual, male, female, and human.

To those people pushing the identity issue…

• If anyone wants to know the status of my ears, all they need to do is hear me speak.
• If people want to know my gender, all they need to do is look at my external sexual assets.
• If you wonder if I’m white, black, brown or yellow, all you need to do is look at my skin color.
• If anyone wants to know my sexuality, ask the people I’ve been with.

Who we are, as humans, does not comprise just one label. We are entities. We are infinitesimal. We are boundary-less. Our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs change from day to day. Every day we have experiences that teach us. Even our hair changes from day to day. Every day I get more gray hairs – I’ve stopped counting. ;-)

To quote a wise friend’s away message: We are all alike in that we are all unique.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that we drop the use of labels. What I am encouraging is that we remember that we are not only people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. AND that we remember other people are not necessarily of the same mindset as we are and respect them, their experiences, their opinions, and their beliefs.

That’s what this all really boils down to: RESPECT

Find out what it means to me.

And you.

Generalizations

I went to an education conference over the weekend. It was there that I observed one rather esteemed professor/researcher make the following generalization:

"Deaf people learn differently than hearing people."

Now waitjustaminute here....do you mean to tell me, Mr. Professor, that ALL deaf people learn alike? And that ALL hearing people learn alike? And therefore, ALL deaf people learn differently than hearing people.

Wow. How Kantian.

Dear Mr. Professor,

I take offense to your generalization. Implying that all deaf people think the same is tantamount to saying that all white people are the same, and that all black people are the same. Are all women the same? Are men? I think not. I hope you would agree, too.

While many deaf people do learn through visual means, there are plenty out there who can and do utilize auditory input for learning. And there are hearing people who learn differently. Just walk into any bookstore and look at either the education/reading or disabilities section(s). I know that you know this, being such an esteemed researcher and all, but why did you have to lump deaf people into all one category?

I am not a "typical" person. For that matter, what IS normal? (See Blog title above.) Every group has their oddballs, their outliers, their abnormalities, their quirky people, and yes, their norms. When you have "norms" you also have standard deviation.

The only thing that every single person on this planet has in common is this: we are all unique.

Now, I don't mind if you say N=100 and that of those 100, 50 say they prefer to learn by seeing (watching interpreters or teachers signing), 25 say they prefer to learn by reading, and the other 25 saying they prefer to learn by osmosis. But don't simply say "[all] deaf people....."

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

DC Deafie