October 12, 2006
Culture War Engulfs Gallaudet
It's easy to paint the protesters at Gallaudet University as young causeheads that have listened to too much Rage Against the Machine and idealistically mused on revolution. But theirs is not a battle to save the rain forest, stop sweatshops, or even impeach President George W. Bush. The continued intensity of their protest -- now in its second day of sucessfully locking down the Northeast campus -- is fueled by conflicts over culture, identity, and authority. The students may soon be arrested and the university may eventually become quiet again, but spare a radical compromise, the issue isn't likely to go away.
If this were simply a protest about an incoming university president that not many people liked, it would hardly be this intense, much less long-lasting. But wrapped into the complaints surrounding the selection process of president-select Jane Fernandes are issues of deaf identity and the university's respect for it. The Post's Marc Fisher did the protest about as much justice as any mainstream journalist could in a column he authored yesterday on his blog, Raw Fisher. Quoting from two deaf individuals, Fisher concludes:
Focus instead on the simple matter of Gallaudet's purpose and the idea that deaf students deserve to see their campus as a place where they will always be heard and where they will be able to understand what is going on around them. Those who for one reason or another live in a world apart are always striving to find ways to thrive in the larger world, but they also want to know that there is a place where they can be understood as they are. Far too many people who get caught up in our culture wars get only one of those two parts. But both are essential, and that's what the conflict at Gallaudet is really all about.Deaf blogger Allison Kaftan similarly noted yesterday:
Raise your consciousness a bit: We’re talking about the ability to be led by someone who empathizes with his or her constituents and will act on behalf of and in the common interest of the Gallaudet University. This also means recognizing Gallaudet’s unique role as not just a place where students should be expected to excel academically, but also as a model to D/deaf people everywhere of what we’re capable of doing.Take these and the many other opinions floating around on the protests and on thing becomes clear. They may be protesting a university administration that is distant and out-of-touch, but they are also protesting the fact that the distance between them and their leaders denies them some of the basic rights associated with their identity. It's not that Fernandes didn't learn to sign until later in life, it's that her allegiance is to an old guard that hasn't run the university particularly well. When a university created to serve the deaf doesn't do so effectively, it denies its students their rights, their identity, and their culture. That's not a protest that will soon go away.
Image taken from the Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition website
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We’re talking about the ability to be led by someone who empathizes with his or her constituents and will act on behalf of and in the common interest of the Gallaudet University.
In other words, Jane Fernandes isn't deaf enough. It's a deaf thing, she wouldn't understand.
The image that strikes me is of one of the protest spokesmen wearing a "Stop Cochlear Implants" teeshirt. How is a parent giving their child the tools to hear a judgement on their identity as deaf people? More importantly, how is it any of their business?
"It's easy to paint the protesters at Gallaudet University as young causeheads that have listened to too much Rage Against the Machine..."
Let's see...what's wrong with this statement...
monkeyrotica - Actually, if you've followed the story for longer than the current newscycle, you'd know that it was how her happened selection that pissed people off. She wasn't even on the final list of selectees (in government we call this cronyism) yet she was magically selected. She was essentially crowned by the outgoing president, who isn't supposed to have that kind of power over the selection of his successor.
Fernandes likely never knew what it was to be treated as less than everyone else. It's like appointing a wealthy white man to lead an all women's historically black college like Spellman.
that opening sentence is the best thing i've ever read. freakin deaf people! listening! as if!
Impossible!
Selection should precede happened, my apologies.
The opening sentence is a classic "d'oh" but I would argue that the last sentence in the first paragraph follows in its footsteps:
"The students may soon be arrested and the university may eventually become quiet again, but spare a radical compromise, the issue isn't likely to go away."
Wow. Oops. Really didn't realize that one. Sorry! No offense meant.
Writing about protests of deaf students isn't easy. Protests are inherantly noisy affairs and not that these studens are silent by any means, it just makes it difficult to write about it without using the typical verbage.
Seems to me that the job of a university president is a fundraiser and cheerleader first, administrator second, and ambassador to the non-deaf world third. Sympathetic shoulder to cry on and "I feel your pain" lackey is way the heck down on the bottom of my list.
Like Chicago residents, DC residents are used to cronyism. It's incompetent cronyism that we can't tolerate. I'd rather have a corrupt jerk who can get the job done running the show, but if they'd rather have someone who represents the ideal deaf administrator, more power to them.
"It's easy to paint the protesters at Gallaudet University as young causeheads that have listened to too much Rage Against the Machine and idealistically mused on revolution."
Uh... some sensitivity here... I doubt they've actually been 'listening' to anything...
I call bullshit. Most student bodies have zero input on their incoming presidents and I don't think Gallaudet should be any different. Hell, my fellow AU alumni had to deal with Benjamin Ladner and we're still not getting a say in his replacement.
And closing the school is a bullyish move that's counter-productive. It disenfranchises the people who are OK with Fernandes and want to, you know, actually get the education they're paying for.
au sucks.
Just curious how many have read Triump of the Sprirt- the DPN Chronicle by Angel Ramos. So many people forget that what is going on now is nothing new. Either the changes are made now, or this cycle will continue.
Folks, before piling on Martin, I'd suggest a little background reading (search for "headphones").
These students are standing up for what they feel is right and I respect that (period). When questioning their tactics - we wouldn't be talking about this if they formed a committee or signed a petition - neither would the Washingpost or any other media source. As far as questioning their argument - aside from hearing impaired students or alumni, I don't think we have any ground to critique.
Monkeyrotica - Yeah Ben Ladner was AMAZING! Or is that amazingly corrupt?
More power to them? Well maybe you should leave them be.
I'm pretty sure that (a) deaf people do and can listen to music; and (b) deaf people can be and are loud. Sometimes very loud.
I agree with Coppered. It would be similar to a rich white guy being appointed to run Spellman.
There are cultural issues at play here that we don't understand because we are not part of the Deaf community.
I'd suggest a book called "The Mask of Benevolence." It deals with the effects of society's attempt to force a spoken language upon a community whose members have no basis of understanding of that language. It's slightly off topic for this discussion, but it provides a good understanding of the Deaf culture.
Many many deaf people listen to music. Most deaf people can hear a little bit, maybe more from one ear than the other. Very few of them are 100% deaf. Ironically, the friends who I have that are deaf probably listen to Rage Against the Machine!
It's all gone Pete Tong!
wait wait wait wait wait....deaf people listening to Rage Against the Machine?
Nice opening. Wow, even the ethereal dcist who think they are solely responsible for leading intellectual debate in DC, make lame, politically insensitive mistakes. Get a clue, dopes, and realize that you are not as wonderful as you think you are.
They are as wonderful AS I THINK they are though.
The unmighty dcist continues to fall to new levels of absurd nothingness.
she was right though.. even despite arrests, this protest ain't dying down anytime soon..