The Corollaries of Internalized Oppression in Deaf Education
One of our regular blog contributors requested that this article be posted. Enjoy!
The Corollaries of Internalized Oppression in Deaf Education
By Patricia Raswant
Some school administrators, teachers, and hearing parents with deaf children often stigmatize members of the Deaf Community. They look at members in the Deaf Community as dimwits, backstabbing, deceptive troublemakers, SSI recipients, name-calling, spreading nasty rumors and other humiliating terms. Sadly, they do not consider well-educated deaf and hard of hearing adults to be their equals in educational decision-making. They refuse to acknowledge the cause of their “holier than thou” attitude is the product of deaf adults as dimwits, backstabbing, deceptive troublemakers, SSI recipients, name-calling, spreading nasty rumors and other crushing terms. A Total Communication system that graduates most deaf students at a third or fourth grade reading level is the consequence of internalized oppression in deaf educational establishments, which keeps the Deaf community on the fringes of our society.
According to Micheline Mason, “Once oppression has been internalized, little force is needed to keep us submissive.” Internalized oppression means the oppressor no longer has to suppress us because we do it to each other and ourselves, which is known as crab theory. With intention, divide and conquer has had been at work in the Deaf community. Ah, how can deaf people with a third or fourth grade reading level become productive citizens in our society, let alone in the Deaf community? By not acknowledging that the Total Communication system fails, those administrators, teachers, and hearing parents with deaf children in many ways are the oppressors that lead to internalized oppression in deaf educational establishments and the Deaf community. Do school staff and parents care? Are they aware of their roles as oppressors?
The rationale for their clinging to the Total Communication system is that, in their quest of speech training would benefit only the selected few at the cost of the majority of deaf students. Basing on my experience, observation and common sense and some teachers’ quotes in classrooms have validated this. But, if you insist, I could research and locate the literatures to support this hypothesis. Another reason for clinging to the Total Communication system is they know they can never acquire American Sign Language but would rather be terrible teachers to deaf children, perhaps they care more about their status and know they could not secure a new teaching job in a public school? Plus, they have proved to us that none of them would want to see their deaf students to surpass them or any hearing people.
Hence, school staff practices a low expectation of deaf children, including those bright selected few; refuses to fully empower them and the dumb down curricula limit deaf students’ potential. They resent their few deaf colleagues whom deaf students look up to. (The roots of backstabbing, name-calling, spreading nasty rumors and other humiliating terms appear to begin with those naïve selected few whose speech are good and whose parents are hearing in which school staff recruited as child posters and at the same time manipulated them as informers.) Most members of school staff do not want their school to make a transition from the Total Communication system to ASL/English bilingual education because they look down on ASL; and thereby would loose their power as subtle oppressors in maintaining the effects of internalized oppression in the Deaf community.
Anyone who stands up and speaks up against internalized oppression is often attacked or viewed as a whining troublemaker and all other degrading terms attached, suppressing their freedom of speech, as well as accusing of mud sliding. Conformity is enforced and valued. By now, you ought to see how internalized oppression in deaf educational establishments and the Deaf community work quite advantageous to those audists in the hearing aid and cochlear implant corporations, they make a lot of money off deaf and hard of hearing people through the insurances and government agencies, still only a handful deaf and hard of hearing people ever become wealthy. They manage to censure our freedom of speech, and intimidate us into thinking that we have no right to our own language, American Sign Language. Why, most of us in the Deaf community agree that people do have the rights to wear a hearing aid or cochlear implant, or be an oralist. Yet, they continue to restrict us from speaking out. Something is wrong here, isn’t it?
Let’s fret no more. We must assert. There is a respectable website called “Community Toolbox” that takes you through the healing process from the effects of internalized oppression; and you will notice that many ethnicities, gender, people with disabilities, and other groups also experience the effects of internalized oppression. The Community Toolbox website emphasizes this: “Teachers and administrators should understand the importance of integrating the histories and cultures of many groups into the curriculum. School staff should understand how to treat children equitably and have high expectations of every student.” I hope there will be workshops on eradicating the effects of internalized oppressions for all members in the Deaf community as well as deaf students. I believe that once we confront and tackle our nemeses, we will at last heal our own Deaf community from the terrible effects of internalized oppression, and move into the mainstay of the society, away from the fringes. The majority of the future generations will graduate from ASL/English bilingual schools at a collegiate reading level!
Works Cited
Hawkins, Larry and Judy Brauner. (1997). Educating Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Total Communication.
Petitto, L.A. (1994). Are signed languages “real” languages? Evidence from American Sign Language and Langue des Signes Quebecoise. Reprinted from: Signpost (International Quarterly of the Sign Linguistics Association), vol. 7, No. 3. 1-10. French and Spanish translations available on request.
Raisin, Claire and Richard Townshend. “Deaf Tall Poppy Syndrome.” Publication and Conference Proceedings at Reach Canada. Equality and Justice for People with Disabilities.
Reiser, R and Mason, M. (eds) (1990) “Internalized Oppression.” Disability: Equality in Education, London: ILEA.
Community Toolbox
Section 3. Healing from the effects of Internalized Oppression
-Click “Main Section’ – Introduction, what, why, when, who and how
-Click “Checklist” – Overheads
New Mexico School for the Deaf: CAEBER
The Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education and Research (CAEBER) uses a
bilingual framework to explore teaching strategies for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.
The Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education and Research (CAEBER) uses a
bilingual framework to explore teaching strategies for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.
-Click “Resources” to read 5-year reports
www.nmsd.k12.nm.us/caeber/
www.nmsd.k12.nm.us/caeber/
