Biased Media Do Do?

On reading news media reports and armchair analyses of the Gallaudet
situation:

1. Most aren’t getting it right. A few are close, but still missing what
we see as insiders. We need to formulate a policy, a sense of direction
and disseminate it over and OVER again. It could be a GUFSSA statement,
or a collaborative statement for all of Gallaudet including its Board of
Trustees.

2. The King/Fernandes camps are still issuing their own statements and
analyses, and the damned thing is there is still some truth in them. So
that these do not confuse the real issue, incorporate, but amplify them
in context of the situation. For example, we do encompass all kinds of
deaf people and all the new assistive devices and always have. We will
continue to expand our outreach to all people who can use and appreciate
the ASL approach, or who can learn it and by it, to further increase our
enrollment. We will also continue to explore and strengthen the ASL/Deaf
culture in the interests of greater efficiency, applications, and self
acceptance. We also will explore all assistive devices and communicative
philosophies in strengthening the operating range of each student on
campus. In doing so, we ask that all members of the Gallaudet community
learn ASL and apply it at all times as one of the core priorities on
campus.

3. There is a tendency for the public to perceive the situation (thanks
to the editorials at Washington Post) as anarchists refusing to accept
the established bylaws and authority of the Board of Trustees. We need
to make clear the concept that the staff and faculty as well as students
and alumni have used their influence in a socially significant way: in
eventually changing an outmoded system of top-down governance of a body
of people. Secondarily, we need to convey that we were fighting
incompetence or at least an inappopriate management orientation for our
community.

4. Red herrings that have been thrown out need to be examined publicly
and dismissed with point by point rebuttals. An example is the “deaf
card”. It was an irresistible sound bite that the media eagerly grasped
and continues to circulate.

5. A weakness of the protest is that it began poorly organized and
poorly focused: it grew out of outrage that Dr. Anderson with
credentials and reputation was replaced by a white person with lesser
credentials, and then gained further steam by dislike for the
president-designate herself. If the selection had been a more popular
person with credentials, this protest might not have happened or been
limited to a quibble about why Dr. Anderson was not a finalist. Both of
these point to flawed selection: a question of racial discrimination and
one of political influence. This eventually became the focus of the
protest, but might not be actually the most valid one.

6. By formulating a clearly explained public position about the protest,
we might have to go into background, which means explaining the historic
oppression and audism that goes back to Milan 1880 and the point where
it diverged from the Laurent Clerc method. Parallels might be drawn with
other oppressed minority groups.

Dr. McCay Vernon once wrote an especially enlightening paper on
“Deafness and Minority Group Dynamics” which was published in the Deaf
American in 1969. In this article he made the point that disenfranchised
groups such as Indians and Black people historically had poor
self-esteem, were taught by white people, and taught to despise and
reject their own characteristics while successful groups such as Jews,
Mormons, and Italian-Americans were taught by members of their own
culture and incorporated their ethnic pride into their accomplishments.

7. However, make no mistake about this: this was not solely about
oppression, it was about a management style that the Gallaudet community
did not want. In today’s climate of business and management, there are
ripples of rejection of certain management styles and evolution of a
more inclusive style that respects individual rights. Whether this is a
trend that reached Gallaudet or whether Gallaudet’s revolt was against a
specific management by intimidation style that had grown up during the
IKJ-JKF years, bears analysis.

8. Allow some consideration of where the IKJ-JKF team is going to be
placed for now and in history. They had their good points and
contributions and might still be useful in some way. It looks better for
us if we can still encompass them.

We need to have a public position. Let’s get cracking on it before the
PR flacks and the news pontificators mess it up for us.

Diane.Gutierrez

Reprinted with permission by the listserv moderator

email contact: mishkazena@aol.com