Reactions Upon Hearing Resignation

At the field house, I was being interviewed by Jared Evans and I introduced a HUG contact, Jennie Coyne who played a significant role in covering the Black Friday. Her interview was done so I began mine, when Jennie came back to us, telling me excitedly we got an announcement from the BoT.  We, Jared, Carrie, Jennie, Dave my husband, and I,  gathered around her pager to read the message. Upon seeing the word resignation, we screamed, jumped with joy, and hugging each other. Immediately we all dropped the interview and went down the hall to the gym where we watched the entire resignation e-mail on the big screen. Again we jumped and hugged everybody for the next five minutes, bursting open with sheer joy and pride.  We kept exclaiming “we won! we won! we won!” I saw Ryan Commerson and told him ”you did it!  we did it! we won!” Then we hugged tightly.

Then we all went to the front gate where the jubilant leaders spoke out with complete victory. Chris Coorigan, Loyota Plumber, Delia, Donalda, and many others. Several started taking down the big banner of the queen Fernandes covering Gallaudet University sign and carried it to the stand where the protester leaders were.  The protesters started tearing the top banner from the frame and several in the audience, including me,  helped tear the the bottom part of the banner. There were discussions whether to burn the banner or not.  The audience , including me,  roared  Burn!  Burn! Burn!

The leaders then discussed about burning, but it was decided to have the burning taken on the football field for safety reasons. We all then streamed to the football field and watched the banner burned.

I hugged Ryan again and watched the students celebrating. I am so proud of these students. They worked hard and never gave up. Their courage. Their determination. We have very fine young people who show themselves good leaders of the deaf community.

I left and arrived home.

I left a simple message in my blog ‘we won’ and just crashed, went to bed at eight pm and slept. I have been getting sicker the last few days because of the constant work on the protest aggravating my illness.  But now I can rest, now that the students are safe.

Yes, we still have another demand left: no reprisal for those who participate in the protest.  We have some unfinished business regarding the role of Gallaudet administrators, DPS, PPDs, and special cops endangering the physical and psychological safety of the students.

However, we achieved a very significant victory.

I don’t have to work 16 -18 hours on the protest. Now I need to recuperate from the toll on my health and get my strength back. So you will see less blogging from me.

Deaf people are heard.  They will no longer be silenced.

Deaf people are empowered again.

email contact: mishkazena@aol.com