Holocaust is a destruction of life and is known as a form of genocide. The elimination of deafness is a typical of holocaust. Deaf children locally and nationally (and internationally) are the victims of holocaust being done by the medical profession and the schools that promote cochlear implanting. The deaf children are becoming the vanishing breed and the deaf leaders are looking the other way. This is a holocaust being initiated by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and this came a long way since his vision of eliminating the deaf from human race that started in 1880. Bell as well as other people throughout the history are considered perpetuators of crime against the deaf humanity.The picture on the right is A.G. Bell being considered as the public enemy number one in the deaf community.
Creator of Deaf Holocaust
In 1883, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell presented a paper titled "Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race" before the National Academy of Science in New Haven, Connecticut. He did not believe that deaf persons should be allowed to marry each other. He was totally against the idea of having deaf have intermarriages. He was worried about the type of race that the deaf had demonstrated in the early 19th century.
Thanks to Laurent Clerc for the advancement of deaf human race. We were coming out of oppression into indepedence. With the use of sign language, we were capable and functioning citizens.
Bell noted that man was able to modify breeds of animals by careful selection. He wanted to apply the same procedure to genetics. It is a new kind of genocide where he wanted to eliminate deaf from the race.
Bell used oral philosophy as a hidden agenda to accomplish his plan to eliminate the deaf from the face of the earth. He did not approve of the educational system where the deaf work with the deaf in education settings. He succeeded in getting the infamous Milan 1880 mandate that stopped the use of sign language in classrooms. He did not approve of the deaf socializing among themselves, having reunions, having social gatherings, forming their own clubs and associations, publishing their own newspapers, holding religious worships, and having state and national conventions as further encouraging social intercourse among them. Such association, Bell believed, restricted deaf persons' selection of partners and friends. Bell thought about enacting a law banning such intermarriages. It backfired on him.
He saw forbidding congenitally deaf persons from marrying each other as one way to check the "evil" although he admitted that "proving that a person had been born "deaf" would probably make the law inoperative."
To Bell - the ideal condition is to have only one deaf child in a school with hearing children. Bell opposed the employment of deaf teachers and considered them "another element favorable to the formation of a deaf race therefore to be avoided."
Bell had trouble getting support from the deaf as one noted educator of the deaf opposed him. Dr. Phillips G. Gillet, superintendent of the Illinois School for the Deaf studied 1,886 students and alumni of the school and found no justification for Dr. Bell's position.
George W. Veditz, a deaf teacher, called Alexander Graham Bell the American most feared by the deaf people saying, "he comes in the guise of a friend, and is therefore, the most to be feared enemy of the American deaf, past and present."
Albert Ballin, teacher and Bell had differing views on deaf education. Both did oppose residential schools for deaf children.
Bell wanted complete oralism while Ballin preferred sign language and fingerspelling.
Dr. Bell - A Negative Thinker
Dr. Bell had been harping about the dangers of the formation of a deaf race and the relationships among groups. He said that the segration of deaf-mutes, the use of the sign language and the employment of deaf teachers produce an environment that is unfavorable to the cultivation of articulation and speech-reading and that sometimes cause the disuse of speech.
Fast-foward to present day (2008), some hearing people have continued to carry on this hidden agenda of carrying on Dr. Bell's beliefs by maintaining oral schools for the deaf and some programs geared for elimination of deafness.
The schools that advocate oralism have succeeded in "brainwashing" the communities that the schools are located in to believe their success stories in using oral methods that only last a short time for the duration of education at specific schools. They are taking advantage of parents who are confused and hurt by the shock of having deaf children in their families. They work hard on educating the communities about their so-called programs and they have succeeded in "pulling wool over their eyes" (making money) They claim that those things work.
VEDITZ RIDICULED BELL AS ONE OF THE PHAROAHS
In the early 1900's, George Veditz expressed concern that, "A new race of pharoahs that knew not Joseph" are taking over the land and many of our American schools. They do not understand signs for they cannot sign. They proclaim that signs are worthless and of no help to the deaf. Enemies of sign language - they are enemies of the true welfare of the deaf.
Methods used to ban the use of sign language in classrooms were barbarian and that was the result of the problems throughout the 20th and 21st century. In order to concentrate on speech methods and oral methods, the teachers would resort to do these following things. They asked for cooperation of parents. They refused to hire deaf teachers, even their own products. Deaf children were told that using sign language was bad and degrading. They were told that it would prevent them from growing up "normal" and that they would not be able to live in a hearing world if they relied on sign language.
Suppression methods were used in forcing the deaf children to sit on their hands, put the hands in desk out of sight, slapping the child's mouth with a chalky eraser, tie the child's hands behind the back and used rulers to slam on the palms, they even used soap to put in mouths of any stubborn deaf child, they even put hands under scalding hot water, they even force the child to disrobe and also many other barbarian acts against poor deaf children. It will take entire length of column to describe the horrors. It is being described in the upcoming film, "THE BLUE RIBBON STORIES" to be out by Fall 2009.
DEAF HOLOCAUST - A debate to start with...
You can realize what that word means. It is often scary to think how hearing people remain hell-bent on eliminating the deaf from the human race by any methods imaginable in their quest for pathological actions. Deaf people has been around for thousands of years and the society continues to think otherwise.
We, the Deaf Advocates, leaders, friends, relatives, lovers, families, etc do not see the need for elimination of deaf. The hearing people continue to be so pathological in that sense they are hurting and tampering on our rights in life.
It is time to STAND UP and say, "Enough is enough!"
**adapted for today's blog from Jan/Feb 1996 - St. Louis DEAF ADVOCATE - FUTURE SHOCK: DEAF HOLOCAUST - Paul Kiel's editorial, Deaf Heritage by Jack Gannon and other notes from the old file of Jan/Feb 1996.
