The Deaf Community's Manisfesto

On Wednesday's class we studied the deaf culture as Edward Gallaudet was part of first anthropology society, early anthropologist Garrick Mallory compared Plains Indian sign language with deaf mute sign language and sign language was first invented by two deaf sisters. In my other class, women's studies and disabilities class, we studied a little bit into the deaf communities as well. First of all, the deaf communities doesn't want to be labeled as "deaf". They say that being labeled as deaf makes people only look at their disabilities and not their personalities. Deaf people face the hardships in finding a job also, saying that people tend to only look at their disabilities and assume that they can't do certain stuff even though sometimes those deaf people have perfect abilities for their jobs. Although our class didn't really talk about deaf people's phychologies and their feelings, I felt like it will be interesting to discuss about deaf peole here on the blog. Deaf people are treated differently in China than in American. In some places in China, people still feel people with disabilities shouldn't be concluded in the main stream of society. Although it is getting a lot better in urban areas, I think in rural areas they keep disabled people isolated from society. Here even people born with cognitive impairments are treated with humanity and care, because people believe that all kinds of differentness are equal and should be treated equally. This is a culture I respect and at the same time, I hope the Chinese government start advocating for people with people with disabilities and impairments. I hope that one day all people can be treated equally. I don't know how the deaf communities are treated in other places around the world, how deaf communities advocate for themselves, but I hope they are well respected.