Clark Denmark
IFlournoy's World
Deaf People In Society
1. Read the article by Kyle (1992); Deaf Community: Structure and
Interaction
2. Write down 5 reasons in favour of Flournoy's ideas for a Deaf homeland,
and 5 reasons against it.
3. Watch the video of Sandra Smith. How would you describe her family
life, and is it different from what you would have expected ?
The Deaf situation today
In order to understand the ideas of Flournoy we do not need to look back
in time; we can think of Deaf people today. Deaf people have a normal intelligence, yet
have all the poorer jobs and lower wages. This is on average; some Deaf people do well and
have higher jobs. However, there are no British Deaf people who are chairmen of big
companies who use a sign interpreter in their daily work. The majority of Deaf people do
not reach their potential.
The oppression disguised as education produces results which mean lack of qualifications
and so, by the standards of the hearing world, Deaf people ' fail'. When Deaf people '
fail ', their confidence to resist and organise is reduced.
Once this happens, Deaf people are doubly affected: they have lower status
by job and money and now they have no way to make their case known. Only in the last 20
years in Britain have Deaf people begun to get their case across to the hearing world and
this has come through the efforts of comparatively few Deaf and hearing people. Even now,
Deaf people, if they are to succeed, are expected to leave their Deafhood behind.
And hearing people really do not care. The society in which we live
expects to live their own lives without interference. The society provides care where it
is thought to be needed, but they expect people ' in need ' to overcome their problems.
Deaf people who can speak are valued because it supports hearing people's view of
themselves and their hearing way of life. It justifies the confidence hearing people have
in their social system, its technology and information.
Hearing people have come to accept interpreters and sign language, only
because it is presented as a means of access ... access to the majority hearing society.
There are very few hearing people who advocate and then learn sign language in order to
learn about the rich culture of Deaf people.
Many minorities are actually majorities in other parts of the world. So
the Chinese minority in Britain has a majority elsewhere in the world. Indian, Pakistani,
Greek, Italian minorities are all majorities in some other country. They draw their self
belief from knowing that they have a base for their culture , a ' homeland ', elsewhere. (
This is why the situation of people taken into slavery, like Black people in the UK and
the USA, is much harder to bear, since they were wrenched from their home culture till
they no longer had clear paths to find their cultural resemblance with their African
homelands. )
British people do not usually care about these minorities. There is
virtually no integration of British people into minority communities such as Chinese,
Pakistani and so on.
Deaf people have a choice - to be treated as a group which has to overcome
a limitation; or as a group who are like a minority community. Either way it is not a very
good outlook in terms of the way society treats them.
Flournoy's Ideal World
Flournoy reacted against this indifference and discrimination. He said
Deaf people should be like any other group and should have their own base, their own
country. He was asking for recognition as linguistic minority. He wanted people to
recognise this in a separate geographic land.
The laws of this land would be very simple:
Sign Language was the official language (not the only language)
Only Deaf people could hold political power
There would be positive discrimination for Deaf people in all jobs.
He thought an advert could be put up requesting that deaf people join him
in this new world. He believed that Deaf people would set up their own country and culture
just as any other minority.
In a Deafland, therefore:-
there would be Deaf citizens who held the power
they would celebrate their own culture and language
sign language would be the main language in schools for all subjects; ( so
English would be taught as the main second language, and there would be hearing assistants
in class to help with this.)
all business is carried out in the language of the country
tourism would occur so hearing people would visit
relatives can visit and stay, hearing people can live there as long as
they abide by the laws; most who stayed would have to know sign.
children of Deaf families go to school in the language of the country, so
would naturally learn the language of their parents and would mix with hearing and Deaf
children at school but all would use sign as their first language
there would be no stigma in marrying Deaf people , and so the basis of
marriage would be adherence to the language and culture of the country
many people would travel for trade and so interpreters and translators
would be needed
people who are hard of hearing or who are bicultural would have an
advantage, but with the application of Deaf technology there would be plenty of devices
for speech to text the only problem is that hearing children might tend naturally go off
to explore the big world with other hearing people, as happens in many other countries.
However, since they had been educated to University in sign language they will carry with
them greater recognition of sign and respect for Deaf people
new immigrants will be welcomed in exactly the way they are in Israel or
Australia, through an immigration office which would examine their reasons for wishing to
stay
The ideas of Flournoy are no more than the implications of a bilingual
bicultural policy and the recognition of Deaf people as a minority. The net outcome is
greater respect and a stronger base for interacting with hearing people in other countries
; not as inferiors or as impaired people, but as people educated to the same level, just
through a different language. Flournoy would not compel people to join him, but would
offer as in any new country, incentives in land and other opportunity.
Issues for Us
The ideas of Flournoy are very challenging. Challenging because they
strike at the very heart of society's conditioning of people. Because of the image created
of Deaf people as disabled, the first reaction is uncertainty and a little fear. Could
such a society exist against the pressures of a hearing society that says Deaf people
cannot do this and cannot do that? Challenging also because it takes the point directly to
Deaf activists by saying, " OK, set up your own State. How will it work?"
As we progress through this course we will see that all the hearing
people's descriptions of Deaf people are negative: they get poor jobs, less
qualifications, cannot read and so on. Most of the Deaf people's descriptions are
positive: sign language, Deaf culture, community life and so on. Which can be right ? Is
it possible for Deaf people to break out of the constraints of the image which the
majority imposes?
The lab session and how to complete it
In order to complete the exercise satisfactorily, you have to build up
your image of this Deaf State. Once you have done this it is possible to set out the pros
and cons.
Most people find it easy to set down five positive points, but are not
good at figuring out the negative aspects. Often people are certain of the positive points
but can only set out "maybe" or "can" for the points which are
negative. Often people just put down questions, "what if ....?", "what
about the hearing children ...?" The odd thing is that these are the questions which
the successful Deaf State would deal with. Posing questions is only the first stage of
your consideration of the idea.
The other problem about negative points is that people often list ideas
which already apply to Deaf life today:- "It would isolate Deaf people",
"hearing people would not learn about deafness" and so on. But since this is
already the case, there is no real worsening of that situation. Deaf people suffer great
isolation at the moment, even in the hearing families who would be reluctant to give them
up to a Deaf State ( another common point people make ) . But Deaf people as adults in 90%
of marriages choose Deaf society by marrying Deaf people, so their parents already ' lose
' them now in theory.
Likewise Deaf people ' integrated ' into hearing schools are not
necessarily able to interact with the hearing people they meet there. So the Deaf State is
not any less isolated than this. Another common point is that the Deaf people left behind
in hearing societies would be at a disadvantage, but it is hard to see how they could be
worse off than they are today in most countries in the world !
The major problem to deal with is statistics. Let's suppose we begin with
100 Deaf couples (200 Deaf people). They all have 2 children, so the population rises to
400. Of the 200 children only 10 will be Deaf, the rest will be hearing. So we already
have a problem: of the population of 400, 190 are hearing.
Suppose the State is successful and attracts another 200 deaf couples, so the population
balance is restored - there are now 600 people of whom 410 are Deaf.
But if the 200 couples each have 2 children, there will again be an
imbalance; 380 of the children will be hearing, with 420 deaf adults.
Let us assume that 100 of the hearing leave the country, leaving a
population of 700, of whom 280 are young hearing, and only 20 are young Deaf ( the other
400 are Deaf but too old to have children now ). If we think there could be another 100
Deaf young people to join, we would be back to 800.
But we only have 120 Deaf who can have children but 280 hearing. Let us
assume they all marry each other, then we will 400 children of whom 380 will be hearing.
Now we have 660 hearing people in the State of 1200. The majority are hearing ... again.
This would be a problem. Only as long as the hearing people leave at a good rate and there
are many Deaf families with Deaf heredity, would it be possible to keep a balance, but it
would be a constant worry. Since hearing children in Deaf families leave the home anyway
and mostly marry other hearing people and live away from their parents, it might not be a
problem.
Other than this the problems are ones which any State would have to
contend with - international relations, social relations and productivity.
In the end the choice comes down to attitude and belief. What the exercise
shows us is the deep feeling which our society creates in us which make it hard to break
out of certain conventions. The course has to challenge your thinking on social values and
Flournoy is a real challenge !
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