James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (05/14/91)
Index Number: 15599
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
A phrase coined by Tom Humphries.
^
Audism (o diz m) n. The notion that one is superior based on
one's ability to hear or behave in the
manner of one who hears.
Tom notes that audism is not only practiced by hearies but by
certain deafies as well. It takes various forms from subtle
to outright intimidation. Some examples Tom gave are :
"The deaf must learn English (forget ASL) because when they
grow up they will have to function in the hearing society
and need it to find jobs, find happiness and have a full and
useful life."
"We want to hire more deaf people but there not any deaf
Ph.D.'s."
"But she can't use the phone."
"He/she is very intelligent, but his/her English is
just terrible."
"Oh, you have such beautiful speech. What is your hearing
loss?"
"But we don't need a tty. There are no deaf people here."
"I really can't stand him/her. She/he's deafie deaf."
"He/she doesn't understand being deaf. He/she wasn't born
deaf" (To a person who ha been deaf for 22 years).
"ASL isn't an academic language so we can't use it to teach
high level subjects."
"No, no, no. Language work isn't college level work. What?
P.E.? Of course it's college level work!"
Of course audism comes in has other forms as well. They make
take the form of threats. One example was a hearie lady who
arranged for an outdoor trip for a group of deaf people. They
weren't consulted about the plans. It so happened the site
was not preferable. To teach them a lesson, she said she'd
advise the travel agency to not do business with the group
again as they were unreliable. Using ones power or position
to dictate or control conditions to others is not unique to
audism. Deafies are just as guilty of practicing audism too.
Unfortunately, my BBS has a limit of 3K inthetext editor so I
must terminate this without going into an example of Deaf
audists. Suffice to say, minority groups do have members who
pull other members of it members down by practicing this type
of baisness. It happens with a lot of other "-isms" as well.
A darn shame to tell the truth. But then who said beinghuman
meant being perfect?
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