Why I embrace my English Privilege.

It enables me to challenge nonsense from sign using (Most actually aren't), campaigners/activists, who claim to have own grammar and an unfinished visual language who spend lives complaining about it never using it to make the point. Perhaps BSL grammar is some sort of deaf 'Esperanto' or something?

English is, funny enough, our national language and enables deaf to be taught how to include themselves, bugger I know given campaigning needs to be based on NOT being included, and would result in 100s of UK 'Deaf' focus group workers looking for a job.  'We need to be seen as persecuted or its a waste of time..' as one sage cultural adherent once told me after 11 pints.    I also noticed those complaining those advocating or using English are an elite or cut above them, so respond with BSL videos that you can't follow, ya-boo sucks etc, 'we cannot even print our own grammar',  so use English instead.

I am detecting some dissent in the ranks.  If I am with this English elite it's time they paid their dues and were a bit more respectful, or I'll join a charity and start patronising them.  The curious thing about their claims is they use English to complain about it, indeed 78% of all deaf output online is in the mother tongue (written ENGLISH), and to be fair a lot of deaf are quite adept at using it (Paddy Ladd an exception, his writings are still subject of some debate, ergo to bin? or not to bin? is the question.). 

Perhaps it is those weird BSL focus group people? who are struggling to prove they need to reject an English education, in favour of some undeclared and unviable alternative (Because they can).  They are unable to succeed since they need to use English to raise their point. It widens English awareness which enables them to demand they shouldn't nor we shouldn't, be using it.  I'd ask them to explain the logic but... 

Someone cruelly suggests they need to go this way it means lots of work for people who don't rely on sign to demand hearing change their wicked ways and adopt whatever it is they are not using themselves, in case the point it cannot be followed comes out..  

We could suggest they have no BSL grammar references for a start.  Other than 'Deaf do this or deaf do that' (God knows what hearing are using, perhaps its this awful 'English' or something), which is hardly proof of an academic basis for an unidentifed grammatical base for sign.  Taking into account poor educational attainment, I have to admit the deaf have done quite well-attaining levels of English, which is all to the good, I just don't get what their gripe is?  English HAS empowered them, and what happened to bilingualism anyway?

So the idea is to what?  Reject bilingualism? demand they are taught in whatever they claim is their grammar instead, and then insist mainstream accommodates it?   Only last week we saw demands for LESS BSL use and MORE signed English being used, so the deaf majority can more easily access the world outside their own. These grammar demands are unrealistic and holding them back.  I  blame COVID personally it affects reason in some cases.  They will be asking for clear masks for the deaf who cannot lip-read next.

No I DON'T want a clear mask!

In response to the UK's largest Hearing loss charity asking people if they would ask others to remove their masks?  Of course, half the BSL community posted they don't want people wearing masks, let alone clear ones, NOT going to happen of course, but AOHL gets it in the neck for past inertia (And for asking silly questions).

"Why would anyone do that? 90% of deaf sign users cannot manage on lip-reading alone, and those that do (including the HoH), adapted to technology, it's (Clear masks), are a campaign for campaign's sake, given they had to accept signed support via face-to-face Interpreters wasn't a viable demand.  If Interpreters can be accepted for refusing to be infected, why can't everyone else?

Unless EVERYONE wears a clear mask it is pointless. (And they still won't sign at you).  AOHL could do a survey on the real effectiveness of lip-reading classes (Where NO deaf attend), or sign language classes (Also where no deaf are in attendance), and where BSL learners are actively discouraged FROM speaking, making LR academic and a real challenge to lip-reading deaf as well demanding these masks.  

We asked the old RNID 15 YEARS ago to scrap these classes of bias and develop a single total communication approach, if only in support of its own membership fed up with the communication divides.  We also asked them to develop pools of support so HoH can access what they need, at present unless you are a sign user there is no support to obtain. 

I doubt AOHL has any handle on WHAT Hard of Hearing need.  It seems to survive cleaning out hearing aids or something.  We could suggest the fact no realistic campaign has been evident for 15 years is a start.  Hearing loss support is banging its head against a cultural brick wall.  AOHL has the clout to challenge and it is time they got off the fence because a dozen BSL activists are wiping the floor with them, making a biased battlefield of access and support.   

Either challenge or cut the cord.  We suggested already 3 viable campaigns that would really benefit the UK HoH community, why ask for suggestions then stick to the same old, biased and tired mantras? and not reply? AOHL goes online 'zooming' and invites questions, then ignores what really counts, as PR I would say it is a pointless exercise, who are they fooling? 

Unless we challenge the status quo 10m HoH are not going to get anything at all.  The proof is there, exposed by something that HAS challenged, and those with hearing loss and deafness cannot counter, COVID 19.  It doesn't care if you sign or lip-read.

Navel contemplation was never a system to advance support with, nor pandering to the vociferous few. Backing off from annoying BSL activism is casting doubt on AOHL's credibility.  They should actively be challenging the 'Deaf & HoH' remit as discrimination because it supports division by decibel, social activity,  segregation,  and biased communication mode, using human RIGHTS, which was designed to do the opposite, and an area the USA have exploited online to promote ASL instead because social media and google won't stop them using a 'Hard of Hearing' (even 'UK'), tag to promote something else entirely.."

Every Sign Matters

Trailer: Every Sign Matters from Wycliffe Bible Translators USA on Vimeo.

HAD to happen, didn't it?

Idris Elba: Stop removing racists media

Idris Elba has said he disagrees with the "censorship" of TV shows after a string of British comedy programs now deemed offensive were pulled by broadcasters. 

The BBC joined other media outlets in removing content found to be racially insensitive in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, with Little Britain removed from iPlayer due to its portrayal of minority characters. A 1975 episode of Fawlty Towers was also temporarily removed by BBC subsidiary UKTV for racist language, and The League of Gentlemen was taken down by Netflix over concerns about a character in blackface make-up. 

Elba has criticised the recent steps taken to censor programmes following Black Lives Matter campaigning, and believes even outdated attitudes to race found in older TV shows should be aired and understood...

SOURCE

ATR COMMENT: A sign of sanity in a world gone mad via BLM. If you remove racist, historical, and sexist and whatever output from view, you remove the proof it existed.  NONE of the TV shows removed fitted any of the offensive categories either.   I.E. unless you are a snowflake purist of some kind offended by everything.

Dated? sure, but you don't have to watch them.  I'm rather worried John Wayne is going to be removed and Charleton Heston from cinematic history too.  Although to be fair Mr Wayne's headcount of the indigenous population was uncomfortably high.   Why stop there? Mr Ford's films should be removed too.

Frankly, the UK comedy shows are the only TV laughs we get.  Yanks don't understand Brit humour anyway.   New 'inclusive' comedy is a turn-off, who watches it?  Unless you are at the cutting edge, it has no impact.  Humour challenges perceptions no challenge, no laughs, no awareness. 

No amount of 're-educating' us all, is going to succeed, the NAZIs tried it without success,  BAME campaigners failed in UK education too.  What next? make it illegal to criticise politicians? Welcome to North Korea or China.  The day the world stopped laughing, the BLM campaign launch is called, and it was hijacked almost immediately by Marxist rabble-rousers, criminals who attacked the police, lockdown breakers, and common vandals..  British media banning any sort of feedback on BLM is already censoring printed media in the UK.

TV Shows like those that had Alf Garnet in it, and later shows that actually showed it is OK to show Gay Black people have been removed too.  Oops, that wasn't the idea, was it?

Alf actually did more to expose racism and bigotry than a dozen new 21stc world comedians ever have because he did it when criticism was risky.   Now, modern smart alecs are attacking us for our norm.  1 down 78.9m of us to go! Basil Fawlty poked fun at the Germans, which is fair game, they WERE responsible for millions of deaths, horrific concentration camps, and two world wars, do we pat them on the back?  We aren't even in Europe any more come December.

BLM are the new censors? does that mean we cannot ID black crime activity etc?  and all helped via a National TV Channel, nobody really watches any longer and threatens over 75yr olds unless they pay to be ignored by them. ALL lives matter mooted as racist too.  Stop the world we want to get off, what's up America? Is paranoia the new religion there?  I was surprised the land of the free, is free no longer.  If white people knelt on the ground with a raised fist they would be racist?  I've not read such rubbish since Gays complained the NHS stole their rainbow logo.  Isn't sport supposed to be FREE of politics?  

It goes without saying any sort of censoring is doomed to failure.. and is already spawning a new breed of closet racists using the assault and 're-writing' of history as a reason to attack or block the BLM campaign.  Again not supposed to be the result is it? As per usual errant white people will adopt the atypical sympathetic pose, nod in agreement sagely, and celebrate Cest la Vie, then IGNORE as per usual, and BLM has no answer to it at all. 

Telling us what we can laugh at was a demand too far.

I can't read your lips

So they advertise a campaign with a Deafie wearing one you cannot lip-read him with either?  Time to fess up folks how MUCH can you lip-read? through a clear mask or without one?  I thought all deaf used sign language?

Awareness was this the real 'Casualty'?

Being urged to watch a recent inclusion of deaf issues on a medical soap opera, I was astounded but puzzled as to what the plot was actually about.

The idea (I think), was to raise awareness an errant hearing parent had stifled a deaf daughter improving herself because medics viewed her unable to do anything for herself even talk, and she had become totally reliant on her hearing parent, who actively deterred sign tuition via advice from medical and other areas,, and that speech etc would be delayed or even non-viable if she took it up, in essence, the Mother (Hearing), opted for the oral approach.

Of course, this was/is, still, a norm in many respects, as many experts in the field are reserved about immersive sign approaches and point out that in the case of sign tuition today, adults are discouraging speech, to be avoided, as it is upsetting to deaf people.  So how would the nurses mum lip-read her peers if they don't speak? or others?  We didn't see that covered in the TV program so it appeared a bit one-sided from that perspective.  Taking her hearing aid off in work was less than subtle, another 'dig' at 'alleviations' for the deaf.

By far the most puzzling aspect was some sort of relentless dreamy expression on a nurses face and relentless 'white noise' being played in the background.  Was it Tinnitus? we weren't really told anything about that or why it was included.

As awareness of being deaf, I doubt anyone at all watching could be convinced this nurse was, either as a deaf adult, or born that way.  There was a lack of explanation really of the background, which the nurse claimed as horrific and she went from one foster home to another, but, managed to lip-read perfectly and sign along the way apparently, so not all bad news.  Dumped at age 3 because she was uncommunicative and not speaking, I doubt the system would have just shrugged that off the nurse is far too young for it have been allowed to happen, it would have been picked up after birth.

I understand Deaf took active part in the script this time? but I think 'work in progress' was the overview, probably fell foul of their own fence-sitting on the hearing loss issues.  The deaf woman (Apparently her long lost mother who dumped her because Gran had enough on the plate with her and viewed another deaf relative was one too many), was rather unkind and unrealistic, even via artistic licence.  Of course, social services never existed in this woman's time and she couldn't have attended school anywhere or they would have picked it up?  Unlikely.

I can recall way back when the obvious result of a deaf child being born meant shipping them off to institutions and deaf schools where there wasn't really much to choose between either.  The 3 women involved were too young for that to have been the case.   Looks like another hatchet job on bad parents not letting deaf children sign, ah, NOW I get it!  

At least we were all spared 'This is what Deaf people do...'  So one lesson has been learned.