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 4:8
Friday, August 16, 2002
Who Are “the Disabled?”
No
Definition Works
In
Damned for
Their Difference: The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as Disabled,
authors Jan Branson and Don Miller explain in the preface, “What we are
exploring is the discursive construction of a category with shifting referents
and shifting significance, a concept that demonstrates par excellence that its
meaning lies, in Derrida’s terms, in
‘differance,’ in the establishment of meaning through the
assertion of difference. No finite meaning is ever achieved, but meaning is
constantly deferred as people manipulate it for their own strategic ends. The
meaning of
‘the disabled’ is elusive but dramatic, vague in its specificity, and
destructive in its application as this label is applied to others and as
‘the
disabled’ are defined by difference, with the boundaries of their identity
deferred. It is a label that threatens us all but one that is assumed by the
majority of the population to be embodied in others.”
Damned for Their Difference offers a well-founded explanation of how the
discrimination against Deaf people came to be through a discursive exploration
of the cultural, social, and historical contexts of these attitudes and behavior
toward deaf people, especially in Great Britain.
Read more about how the majority societies
around the world viewed people who
were “different”
in chapter two,
“The Domestication
of Difference: The Classification, Segregation, and Institutionalization of
Unreason,”
and receive a 20% discount when you
order Damned for
Their Difference.
 
In The Deaf
Way II Anthology:
A Literary
Collection by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Writers,
editor Tonya
M. Stremlau has
assembled a remarkable compilation of poetry, essays, a play, and short
stories penned by 16 international writers who are
deaf or hard of hearing. In her introduction, Stremlau states,
“‘Deaf writer’
still seems something of an oddity in the deaf community.”
She continues with: “Therefore, one important reason to publish
this collection is to raise awareness in both the deaf and hearing communities
that deaf people do write. Another is to show how deaf writers portray deaf
characters and deaf experiences.”
Many of the writers of
The Deaf Way II Anthology
are well-known for their past publications and “have
many different things to say about life as a deaf person, yet their experiences
are common to deaf people everywhere.
They tell of being isolated at (hearing) family dinners or of not knowing what
is announced over a public address system. They tell of what it is like to be a
deaf writer, including dealing with expectations that they can't write because
they are deaf.”
Read sample pieces
by two of the recognized United States writers, Christopher Jon Heuer and
Raymond Luczak, and order
The Deaf Way
II Anthology.
 In a
recent issue, Silent News recognizes John B. Christiansen and Irene
W. Leigh's
Cochlear Implants in Children: Ethics and Choices. “How refreshing...to read
this new book very open to current avenues present for a parent, hearing or
deaf, faced with the educational rearing of a deaf child. In the introduction,
the authors state:
‘The problem is that there are so many different courses of action available
that parents often feel overwhelmed with the magnitude of the problem and have
little idea about which approach might make more sense,’”
writes Silent News' Hannah Merker. Read more about the current state of
this controversial technology in chapter five,
“The Cochlear
Implant Center, Surgery, and Short-Term Post-Implant Outcomes,”
and order your copy of
Cochlear
Implants in Children: Ethics and Choices.
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