Example Of Discrimination Against Deaf Community example essay topic

The Deaf population in the United States is composed both of individuals Deaf since early childhood and individuals who lost their hearing later in life. The 'Deaf Community', a heterogeneous mix of people from all walks of life, represents every socio-economic and racial category. However, this group of people consider themselves 'a community' because they are bound by a common culture, history, heritage and, most importantly, a common language. This language, which forms the foundation of the Deaf Community, is known as American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is a beautiful and expressive visual language that holds the Deaf Community together. (Lake) Unfortunately, deaf / Hard of hearing people have long been victims of discrimination.

Lacking a "voice", hearing people have assumed that Deaf people are incapable, and have made decisions for Deaf people on their behalf. Even today the attitude toward Deaf people is that they are incapable of accomplishing anything including their own dreams. This message of incapability is sinking into the heads of many Deaf children and adults. Deaf people as a group are underemployed or unemployed period. Many community based services are unwilling to make accommodations to meet the needs of this unique population. Being deaf means that you can't hear the conversations in supermarkets, in banks, at the post office, at work, at school, etc.

All of these which hearing people take for granted. This means that a deaf person is often found in situations where they can't follow what is being said and are often confused, scared, and isolated. The attitudes of hearing people toward Deaf people tend to pervade deaf / HOH people's relationships with their family, educational environment, employers, and fellow co-workers. Some examples are, accepting lower expectations of themselves based on perceptions of hearing people, and lacking confidence as a result of being raised in an overprotective environment, or having things done for them. When it comes to education, deaf / HOH people are also discriminated against. Unfortunately, residential schools for the deaf are often sorely deficient in actual education.

The teachers rarely use ASL or teach Deaf history and in most places are not required to. The administrations are often made up of hearing people who are still bent on assimilating the students. The focus is on 'word attack' and speech skills, rather than science, math, history, and literacy in English. As a result, many deaf students in this country graduate from both residential and mainstreamed programs with a third to fifth-grade reading level and little chance of going to college or ever holding more than a minimum-wage job. Several studies have reported a higher incidence of substance abuse in the deaf community, largely due to the lack of access to information, or understanding about substance abuse. This is a prime example of how deaf students are not getting taught like they should be.

Therefore, a major goal of the Deaf civil rights movement is parity in education -- development of an educational system where deaf children can become both deaf and literate. (Searls) One specific example of discrimination that I found is from the Journal News. It is about a woman who worked at a deaf school in New York. She was deaf since birth and she attended public schools in Manhatten, and always communicated through speech. She learned sign language so she could teach deaf students, because she wanted to help the deaf community any way she could. Hearing aids became less effective for her in recent years so she opted to get the cochlear implants.

These implants enabled some deaf people to be able to hear better. Not all Deaf people are able to get them such as ones that are totally deaf. So she got these implants and it improved her hearing very much. She started to encounter disapproval at work and was even made fun of by a supervisor because she was able to hear an alarm bell.

Five weeks after the operation she was fired from the school because of the disapproval of the surgery. This is totally not fair to a woman who earned a position as a teacher. To top it off the school ended up hiring a teacher that was able to hear herself. (Harris, 2002) Another example of discrimination against deaf community is emergency situations. On the television the hearing society has no problem listening to the latest breaking news about the weather or a local emergency. For a deaf person it is much harder.

Many people feel that the broadcasting companies need to make sure that there is the essential information displayed on the screen visually. It doesn't just mean sending a simple little announcement across the bottom of the screen once or twice. Word for word captioning is not necessary, although it would be nice, but critical information must be shown. Telephones are also another example.

There are certain devices called DDT's which are keyboards that a deaf person can type into to contact an operator. The operator then relays the messages to someone that can hear. The problem is these DDT's are not very accessible for one thing. They can be found in many big cities but not in your little suburbs. Another problem is, there have been many times that DDT's calls to operators of 911 have gone unanswered.

This is a problem because if a deaf person were to be stuck in an emergency all alone, they would be left to suffer all by themselves. Another major topic is the fact of deaf people getting proper medical treatment in emergency situations. Today almost every public or private institution has emergency plans in place for getting people to safety. Public and private institutions posts emergency information and someone is usually assigned to give instructions in an emergency. However, even with this level of planning if you are a deaf child, you are at considerably greater risk in emergencies than the average child in public.

Indeed, in an emergency a blind child faces less risk. Almost without exception emergency planning involves giving spoken instructions on actions to be taken for getting to safety. (Rogers, 1999) One thing that we can do as a society to start eliminating some of the discrimination that goes on is to start raising awareness of the deaf community. There are some very easy things that you can do to learn about the deaf culture. One very easy way is to attend a deaf awareness event.

Many amusement parks such as Paramount Kings Dominion in Virginia and Six Flags hold deaf awareness days. There are also many baseball teams that hold deaf awareness nights at the ballpark. Many schools, programs, and organizations for the deaf also hold annual deaf awareness events or festivals. These are some very easy ways to learn about the deaf culture and have fun at the same time. Another way is to join or volunteer to an organization. There are many deaf groups and organizations that are in need of volunteers to get involved and help with the deaf community.

As I said before, we are lacking interpreters and people to interact with the Deaf and we can start to improve that area by having more people get involved and learn about the deaf community. In conclusion, deafness is a disability of communication. Given equal opportunities to communicate at home, in school, and at work, the Deaf individual can and will succeed and make a positive impact on the community.