North of the Stupid Line

22 September 2008

The Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) are proud to announce the launch of a pilot specialist casework service in British Sign Language (BSL) via the Internet to eligible clients. RAD Legal Services has been working in partnership with the LSC and online interpreting service provider Significan’t Ltd to develop the service, which will go live on 22 September 2008.

Deaf BSL users living in England and Wales with a low income or receiving benefits will be able to obtain free and confidential legal advice through a webcam with a broadband connection. Caseworkers are fluent in BSL, and will provide specialist advice at Community Legal Service Specialist Quality Mark level.

Advice topics will be phased in stages, starting with Welfare Benefits from September 2008. Employment will follow from November 2008, Housing from January 2009 and Debt from March 2009.

William Hayden, Development Manager, Direct Services, at the LSC, said, “The Community Legal Advice (CLA) helpline is currently inaccessible to Deaf BSL users and therefore the CLA is not meeting its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. They are acutely aware that they have a gap in their services. Nevertheless, with the development of new types of technology such as video communications and the Internet, there are now fresh opportunities to dramatically improve access to the CLA for Deaf people.”

Jeff McWhinney, Chief Executive of Significan’t, said, “RAD is the first organisation in the UK to utilise TokBox technology – developed and used in the United States – to deliver legal advice online. Significan’t are proud to work with the RAD to turn this technology into a reality and benefit Deaf people seeking legal advice and support in the UK.”

Tom Fenton, Chief Executive of RAD said “This is a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness specialist advice in BSL via the Internet. It will provide evidence of the need for access to legal services for Deaf people.”

For further information visit www.radlegalservices.org.uk.

Media enquiries – contact:

Lorna Bareham
Marketing & PR Administrator
Royal Association for Deaf people
18 Westside Centre
London Road
Stanway, Colchester
CO3 8PH
Email: lorna.bareham@royaldeaf.org.uk

I’m fuming after reading this piece of crap. So, the RNId purports to represent the 8.7 million D/deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, huh? If the RNId’s latest campaign is anything to go by, it’s plain for all to see that they do NOT represent us at all.

How dare they come up with a slogan like: Imagine A World Without Sound. I don’t need to imagine it thank you, and guess what – shock horror – I actually like it! But the RNId being the RNId, they just have to go the whole hog and do that whole “poor deaf people” thing, with this introduction that makes me want to vomit:

Take a moment to imagine if you couldn’t hear birdsong at dawn or danger signals in the street, enjoy wonderful sounds like a baby giggling or listen to your favourite music. This site celebrates the value of sound. By joining in we hope you’ll appreciate the importance of sound too and will make a donation to help us continue our work. We want to campaign for issues faced by deaf and hard of hearing people, provide services to individuals and organisations and carry out vital research into deafness and hearing loss.

Oh puh-lease!

And:

Help us change the world for deaf and hard of hearing people

Well, the RNId hasn’t done anything for me up to now, so what makes them think they’re going to achieve this? I don’t want to be fucking cured, I want a BSL Act and equal rights and access for Deaf people.

That video clip, with a little girl running into a road to fetch her ball, and hey presto! she’s got an hearing aid so she could hear that huge lorry hurtling its way towards her and get out of its bloody way! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

What the fuck is the RNId thinking? Do all the people who work for the RNId actually know what they’re doing? Do they consult with the Deaf community at all (I seriously doubt it, given their holier-than-thou and we-know-better-than-you attitude)?

The thing that makes my blood really boil though, is that the RNId are asking for more money to “cure” deafness. Piss off! And another thing; they actually rely on public funds to run ridiculous campaigns like this. What exactly do they hope to achieve?

Oh yes, they want hearing people to feel sorry for Deaf people, so they’ll give the RNId more money to pay even higher salaries to their stupid hearing staff.

Let’s start a campaign to close down the RNId. I’m sick of them.

Yes, another post about being Deaf. If you’re bored with this topic, go somewhere else! You’ve got to expect it; I’m Deaf after all.

I was just reading this post, which provides an extremely insightful account of a hearing person’s experience of the Madrid WFD Congress. It summarises rather neatly what it’s like to be Deaf, how we perceive being Deaf, and what being part of the Deaf community is like.

My life is rather curious. I’m fully immersed in both Deaf and hearing worlds, and find it easy to switch between BSL and spoken English (making me bilingual).

I’m married to a deaf woman who has deaf parents and a deafened brother (deaf because they are oral and do not use BSL). The rest of my family and Rachel’s family are all hearing. My parents and sister have recently started to learn BSL, following a great deal of prompting from me, which gives me rather a thrill.

I work for a deaf charity, which is focused on BSL users, and most of my colleagues are Deaf BSL users.

At the moment, my life is pretty much split between South Wales and London, providing a neat oral/BSL divide. I guess you could say that I would like the two very important parts of my life to be merged into one. Whether that ever happens, remains to be seen.

BSL translation coming soon.

Following on from Dennis’ post on The Talkie (albeit focused on unity within the Deaf community in the USA), it would be interesting to see whether unity can be achieved within the Deaf (( Deaf, used in this context to cover Deaf, Deafblind, deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people )) community in the UK. With this in mind, I’d like to ask each of these groups of Deaf people what they’d like to see happen in the UK, to establish whether the various groups have any common denominations with which to unite. Here are a few suggestions, based on my personal experience and observations.

Deaf

• Legal protection for BSL, in the form of a BSL Act;
• Improved access to mainstream services;
• Better subtitling and more BSL on TV channels and the web; and
• Education through BSL (for Deaf and hearing)

deaf

• Improved access to digital hearing aids;
• Inclusion in the Deaf community;
• Recognition of the right to use oral means of communication without criticism; and
• Better subtitling on TV channels and the web.

Hard of hearing

• Improved access to hearing aids; and
• Better subtitling on TV channels and the web

Quite surprising how many common aims these groups have.

What else do these groups of Deaf people want from society today? Discuss.

BSL translation coming soon.

There has been a spate of posts on Deaf UK and individual blogs recently discussing audism. Erick Ketcham, an American Deafist ASL user, has recently joined Deaf UK, and has contributed some thought-provoking posts on the following topics:

• There are cultural differences between the UK Deaf community and the American Deaf Community;
• There are more oralists than BSL users;
• Deaf English have an “hearing” identity, and because they cannot hear, they use BSL;
• Using the term “deafmute” will encourage audist thinking among hearing people;
• “Deafism” occurs when a Deaf person puts down or discriminates against another Deaf person;
• When Deaf people discriminate against hearing people, it is “reverse audism”;
• Parents of deaf children who are not willing to learn BSL are audists, as they are depriving their child of a normal life with full communication accessibility. This can be classified as emotional and mental abuse;
• There are two groups of hearing people: “hearing allies” and “mask of benevolence”;
• In America, oralists that refuse to sign in ASL are not considered a part of the Deaf community, and are shut out completely; and
• Research in America has shown that Deaf children that learned ASL at the same time as hearing children learned a spoken language outperform oral children by a far margin.

(By the way Erick, do you not have a blog?)

The reasons why I wanted to highlight these views here were so that non-readers of Deaf UK can read them, and also because I find them absolutely fascinating.

I’d like to respond to some of these comments:

There are cultural differences between the UK Deaf community and the American Deaf Community

Judging by Erick’s posts, I would say that this is very much clear, although I hadn’t realised just how different. There must be a number of Deaf individuals in the UK with similar views to Erick, but if there are, they’re keeping their views quiet. They need to come out of the woodwork and lead the Deaf community out of oblivion.

Deaf English have an “hearing” identity, and because they cannot hear, they use BSL

This is not correct. I don’t use BSL because I can’t “hear”. I use BSL because I love the language and to communicate effectively with Deaf friends, colleagues and clients.

Parents of deaf children who are not willing to learn BSL are audists, as they are depriving their child of a normal life with full communication accessibility. This can be classified as emotional and mental abuse

This is an extreme view. I was brought up oral, and my family do not use BSL. However, I think to call my parents “audist” would be a step too far. They chose not to use BSL because they were led to believe by “professionals” that oralism was the way to go. Also, in recent times, with encouragement from me, my parents and my sister have agreed to learn BSL. This is due to the fact that Rachel and I are very likely to have Deaf children, and we intend to bring them up bilingually, and would like their grandparents to encourage this bilingualism, and not force the kids to conform to their preferred communication methods.

Research in America has shown that Deaf children that learned ASL at the same time as hearing children learned a spoken language outperform oral children by a far margin

I do strongly believe in this point, which is why we intend to bring our children up bilingually, with emphasis on BSL in the early stages of their development. From personal experience also, I honestly believe that if I had used BSL from childhood, I would have done better academically. All I can remember during academic studies is how hard it process information when focusing on the communication aspects of learning.

More debate on such issues is desperately needed within the UK, so keep it coming.

Related articles

• The UK Deaf Community
• Audism
• Audism: Part Two
• Audism – reached the parts where Heineken can’t?
• Audism, apparently the label for everything