Saturday, October 15, 2011

Two Visions

A true Lakota story on two visions. Two elders had different visions with different outcomes for the same tribe. One vision showed total destruction of their people. One vision showed harmony and growth for their people. So which vision turned out to be true? The answer is both. Both visions became true. It boiled down to what the people believed, as in “word becomes flesh”. The same principle applies to the deaf community. The video is subtitled for all to enjoy.




Monday, October 3, 2011

The Damage Has Been Done!



Sometime ago I v/blogged on the subject of Closed Society and how I thought it would be defeated by the Open Society, every time, due to information age that we all live in. Some time passed before I found an excellent example of the earlier point I made.

Somebody in the facebook posted this video seen here at;



I watched it and thought it was a simple inspirational story but no... it was more than that. This story has gotten bigger than life.

The video showed a 29 years old severely deaf lady who's been deaf since birth. With the assistance of new technology she heard her own voice for the first time in 29 years. Within the first day of video release at youtube it attracted over 400,000 (four hundreds thousand) unique viewers and so many comments, some of which were ugly coming from the culturally big "D" deaf community. I left an encouraging comment and told her that I was happy for her and that she was my newest hero. I told her that I was carrying the 7th generation of deafness label in the family with my son carrying the 8th label. And then I sat back and observed the massive traffic the video was attracting in so little time. It was an awe and shock moment. And then I remembered something and thought it was a classic example of what an open society will do to a closed society, every time.

Several days passed before I found this story again. This time around it was on MSBNBC.com front page!

She was interviewed by Matt Lauer on TODAY Monday. Upon reading this article I decided to check and see how much traffic this video had on youtube. The answer was mind-boggling 4,431,443 unique hits, over 18,000 comments, 43,818 likes and 618 dislikes. All that in only SIX days! And it's still counting.

What started out as a personal and amateur youtube video evolved into an international media shock wave, favoring the makers of hearing aids, cochlear implants, implanted hearing aids (in this case), the users as well their communities. Just like that. At that time it was not even promoted by an audiologist or a representative from companies that make and develop such technologies. It was just a raw and amateur video coming from the patient herself who had only release one amateur video prior to this one.

Not only that but the groaning and moaning sound coming from the culturally big "D" deaf community were also exposed to at least 4 million viewers in six short days. Millions more viewers are sure to check this video in the coming days. Meaning? The ignorance coming from culturally big "D" deaf people are going to be exposed even more, giving hearing parents even more reasons to steer away from culturally big "D" deaf community. Pretty soon there is going to be an international song called "Go For The Fix" because the ugly side of culturally big 'D' deaf people have been exposed.

Some of the ugly comments contained terrible English. I'm not saying it's a shame. I'm saying that they were even more damaging. It told the whole world that deaf education, as we know it, have failed many of us. Thus, greater numbers of deaf school closures coming up? It would not surprise me. I mean, they have no choice but to reflect on what they see out there, especially with the poor English comments found in this video's comment thread.

Many of the angry comments also targeted her for her ability to speak so well. Many did not believe that she was born deaf and remained deaf all of her life because she spoke very well. It goes to show how ignorant and uneducated culturally big "D" deaf people were. For your information, it is not uncommon and impossible for a deaf person to learn how to speak fluently and better yet, fool you for a hearing person. Those culturally big "D" deaf people didn't want to believe that. It could be due to their ever-so isolated world, in which they have only been exposed to deaf people who signed but do not speak. Those who speak well are able to disappear into the thin air and co-existed with the rest of the world. Therefore they've become invisible to our bare eyes. Furthermore, they've proved our lifelong point for us.... our deafness is invisible... I might add, unless we choose to sign. And that's a hard fact we all will have to live with.

Anyway, this "amateur video" incident is one big example of how a closed society will be destroyed or defeated by an open society, every time. This video could be the paradigm shift many of you have been afraid of. I've warned many of you against making stupid and ignorant comments towards those who choose to exercise their personal rights to choose however they see fit. Yet, many of you would not listen. Unfortunately the damage has been done, I am afraid but you can't say you've not been warned.

For more details of the interview, go to this link; http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44756127/ns/today-good_news/

Take note of MSNBC editor's choice of word for the link. Good_news. They categorized the story as 'good news'. Now, don't be upset over it because what might be good news to others might not be good news to you. Once again it boils down to personal preferences and personal choices. Get it?