ASL Version
View this video on YouTube
You may view the ASL Version here or read the English version below.
When Nyle DiMarco won Dancing With The Stars, the entire Deaf Community let out a collective cheer. We won. The Deaf Community won! I was as happy and elated as everyone else, if not more. Nyle declared that the win belongs to our entire community and his two reality show wins thrust our community in the national consciousness.
But let us be real here, the Mirror Ball is the only prize we were given. The rest, we have to work for.
What we did not win: A defeat of the AGB organization's message of hate and intolerance. A mandate to provide bilingual education for all Deaf Children. A clear path forward for our community in this society.
Nyle so clearly articulated our vision in front of millions of Americans. He did his part beautifully, but it is impossible to expect him to continue to carry the weight of our community himself. We must do our part to execute this vision otherwise it will merely be a dream.
If we want more meaningful victories, then now is the time for real action. Now is the time to pursue a higher, more complex approach to earning a place with tangible value. This isn't about human rights anymore. This is about the substance that we create and offer as a people.
So let's use the Mirror Ball to take a look at ourselves.
In my opinion, we have been missing an honest self-assessment of our capabilities as a community and a lack of a willingness to make some sacrifices. I am not talking about philosophical compromise- there is absolutely no room for compromise on issues like bilingualism. I am talking about the reality of socioeconomic facts. Our political influence, economic power, size in numbers and leadership capabilities are – let's be honest here – very limited. We don't need to debate why or how, it's obvious that years of oppression and abuse have put us at an disadvantage in a capitalist world. We're having a hard time winning allies not just because of communication issues but because our message lacks clarity, focus and impact.
Ok, I'm not just complaining here. Take stock and keep going.
A unified, long term strategy that addresses the bigger picture of the role of the Deaf in this world is necessary. I am not talking about the role of Deaf people now or even in this decade. What I want to know is- at the end of this century- who will our unborn Deaf children be, and what are we doing for them?
Whether we're ready for this conversation or not, it needs to happen: Preferably soon, because I have lost a lot of sleep over the past several years over this issue. If you haven't seen the British short film The End, you should watch it now. It's probably as an accurate depiction of our potential future as I have seen or imagined.
‘The End’ is a powerful, moving award winning drama spanning a 60 year period. Charting the introduction of the “treatment” and the subsequent decline of Deaf culture.
The reality is that we cannot stop the medical establishment. Preventive medicine, population health and technological advancements will most likely render hearing loss irrelevant. The same research and approaches to curing genetic disease like Diabetes or Down Syndrome will produce the ability to cure hearing loss. If we can put fluoride in the city water to help strengthen teeth, what's to say that similar actions would not be done in the future to ensure a healthier population.
Are we really trying to fight this? Stop this? I don't believe this is a war we can win. I do believe however, that there will always be Deaf people on this Earth. In the same way that Polio, Rubella and Meningitis created new population booms after the previous Deaf-causing diseases were cured, new causes will appear. It would be foolish to think this world would put an end to them all- but it would also be foolish to think that our community is not going to drastically shrink in size in the century to come.
So with this in mind, there's quite a few things I think we can do better, together.
Choose Our Battles
We can't fight and win every battle. We simply don't have the resources to do so, and we must learn to cede certain things. We see it in presidential elections when candidates choose not to contest certain states in favor of spending more money to ensure victories in others. We do it personally, when we don't give money to every single panhandler we see on the street, because there isn't enough money in the world.
I don't say this in a way that means we should be fighting less. Quite the opposite. We should choose long-term issues with strategic intent, and give only these specific issues the biggest fight we can muster. We learned this in DPN, when a singular focus on a Deaf President yielded the results we needed, and served as the fall of a domino that led to the Americans With Disabilities Act years later.
We have to create a methodology that is appropriate for us to identify, evaluate, and attack specific issues with vigor, and ignore other issues that may be emotionally difficult to not take up. Our tactics and issues must be backed with logic and a long view, otherwise we will continue to be a day late and a dollar short more often than not.
Messaging
Over the past several years, and particularly over the past few months, I've seen our message organically evolve and move toward the center.
We've gone from calling out the Cochlear establishment in favor of a bilingual message, which is more universally understood and accepted. We're getting there, but our message is still highly fragmented and lacks the kind of clarity and simplicity we need to advance the cause.
We need to adopt a formal effort to develop and distribute broad talking points, statistics and arguments both within our community and outside. Call it the Nyle DiMarco PR strategy if you will, but I have seen our community finally unified in its message over the past few weeks- simply by repeating and expanding on what Nyle says on TV. But Nyle isn't on national TV every week anymore. We need to adopt a similar approach across the board, and work to ensure a total community buy-in. Then we'll start to see real traction.
For example, on the issue of Cochlear Implants there's quite a few things we can consider doing. One option would be to develop and present a Socratic argument on ethical grounds: Ask parents if they feel they should be the one to decide or their child should make the decision. If they are worried about being "too late", consider whether technology won't progress in the next 10 years to where invasive surgery might not even be necessary. We've seen it happen with other surgical procedures like Lasik, where the blade was replaced with a laser. Cochlear technology is going to continue to advance. There should be no urgency to make a decision because technological innovation does not stop, and likely a wait will result in more advanced and invasive-free procedures.
While these might not be the right points to make, the idea is to formally develop and distribute the right points with the kind of buy in we saw with Nyle's talking points. In order to do so successfully, we must take the kind of approach any brand with a complex message would do, and adopt a professional PR strategy. This engagement should occur through an independent, privately funded vehicle that is central, balanced and most importantly, accepted in the same way we accept new signs- together as a community.
Political Process
We're getting closer and closer to the Oval Office- we literally have a culturally Deaf person working right outside the door every single day. But how do we get inside? Not just a few times for photo ops, but as many times as we need to provoke legislative change. "King-making" is one thing our community needs to start thinking about. There are many men and women in our community who would absolutely be great Politicians. The issue is getting this person elected in the first place. So let's get the ball rolling.
We should start looking at the political process and look for seats that we can target in upcoming elections. We need to scour the country for the most attainable, politically advantageous seat – and candidate – and get this person elected at any cost. Does anyone think that Hilary Clinton became Senator of New York without Presidential ambition? I'm not saying we need a Deaf President, but we can certainly get someone elected on a local or state level in 2020 with an eye toward a seat in Washington in 2024 or 2028. Greg Hlibok, I. King Jordan, Claudia Gordon, Bobbi Cordano and Fred Weiner are a few of the many electable Deaf people off the top of my mind.
If we can manage to win one seat, who's to say we can't win more? These seats will be valuable as we start to fight some bigger battles.
Deaf Schools
Take a look around the country, the picture isn't pretty. We're losing schools and we're losing ground when it comes to keeping our Deaf schools healthy and thriving. But this isn't true everywhere- some schools are stronger than ever and are serving as a model for others that struggling with numbers and political support. We should concentrate our efforts to ensure that there always will be Deaf Schools in this country and this world. When – not if- a struggling state abandons their responsibility to educate Deaf Children, we need to be ready with a backup plan.
There are two things I think we can do as far as developing a long-term strategy.
First, is set a goal to preserve Deaf Schools – not campuses, but schools. Most of our Deaf Schools were born in a different era. Campuses are huge, buildings are old, and enrollment often doesn't match the cost to maintain campuses built in the 1800s. Big budgets are becoming harder to justify and less money is available for the classroom and outreach. What if we volunteered to get rid of old historical campuses in favor of smaller, efficient schools? I'd gladly trade a beautiful 100-acre campus where I grew up if it meant we could have a modern classroom building like the newly built Rocky Mountain School for the Deaf in Denver. We spend a lot of money on campus maintenance and not as much as is needed on outreach. I have seen this community get so emotionally attached to the campuses themselves we've forgotten our primary goal is to preserve the school's bilingual classroom philosophies.
Secondly, I hate to say this but we need to accept the fact that we won't win the fight to keep every school. 20 years from now can we afford to keep backpedaling, hoping that we still have all of our schools left? Or do we start the movement now to ensure that 100 years from now we are guaranteed some Deaf schools? I'd like to see us start a movement to ensure that when the time comes, the federal government will step in. We already have the Laurent Clerc Center (MSSD), but not every parent is going to send their children across the country and one school is not nearly enough.
We should start working toward about a long term strategic placement of Deaf education centers, that every Deaf child without access to a state Deaf school is given the option to attend a regional school. There are ways to approach this issue. For example, through federalization. New laws can require state schools to accept students from neighboring states with some federal dollars to support the cost of attendance. I don't think we can trust Deaf education in the hands of states, the stakes are just too high and many states have proven themselves unwilling allies. We can choose to fight every local skirmish for the next 20 years, or we can get to the other side and be ready to win the final battle.
Community Accountability
This is a fairly new concept that has truly caught on over the past few years, but sometimes community accountability gets dangerously close to being mixed with something else - Crab Theory. Nyle gave us a fantastic example of what happens when we embrace community accountability and not crab theory when a Deaf person maliciously outed Nyle as gay. That attack didn't hurt Nyle as much as it could have, because the entire community rallied around him and refused to accept such unwarranted attacks. Months later, Nyle rewarded that support with our greatest moment since DPN.
We should continue to hold others accountable, without crossing into attack mode because we need every person to fight this war. The more we ostracize individuals, the less formidable our community will be. We saw this happen when I. King Jordan was chewed up on his way out of Gallaudet. I mentioned him earlier, where I thought he potentially could have been a player for us in the political arena in the years to come. We're past the point of debating sides, but we can all agree that a destructive civil war might have already closed that door. I don't like everyone, and you don't have to either. Good, now move on.
Execution
This is what it really comes down to, executing the playbook and it's no simple matter. There is a lot that we need to accomplish in order for our message to be validated. Take our argument that it is essential for hearing parents to learn sign language for example: The biggest flaw to ensuring that every parent of a Deaf child learns sign language is that there are simply not enough opportunities for them to learn sign.
Today it is impractical and unreasonable for us to expect every parent to have the resources to be able to attend traditional ASL classes. There aren't enough opportunities around the country. It's easier said (but still hard) in cities like Austin or DC, and even harder in remote areas. Even if parents enroll in ASL classes, there are few total immersion opportunities available for hearing people to be able to develop the kind of fluency they should have for their children's sake.
The burden is on us to create these learning and immersion opportunities. We must address this, and other critical points of execution to ensure our message can be carried out. We are already seeing some great progress come out of the Veditz Center with VL2 and ASL instruction apps like the ASL App. We need to sustain, encourage and foster this type of entrepreneurship and work to make our language, culture and community more accessible on a global scale. It is no longer acceptable to say that "it is difficult to understand" or "it is not possible to translate." We must find a way otherwise we cannot expect the hearing world to learn sign.
Technology platforms like IBM's Watson – which is ultimately a language processing engine- offers the kind of deep artificial intelligence that can literally learn a new language in a matter of days. A few years ago when IBM researchers said Watson could theoretically learn ASL, I witnessed and participated in a debate on why it couldn't be done.
Today however, I hold the hypothesis that it actually can be done. The idea is that we would use Watson's visual, facial, and gesture recognition features to train it to learn ASL. But with so many regional variations, subtleties, and linguistic challenges (i.e. Classifiers), it seems impossible that we would ever get a data set large enough- one that offers accurate interpretation. But it isn't. Every single month, millions of minutes of Video Relay calls are made via video, and is accompanied by a live voice translation. If we could plug Watson into all VRS traffic, we could be looking at a silver bullet for teaching a machine ASL: Watson watches the Deaf person and listens to the interpreter. Positive signals means the interpretation is accurate, negative cues indicate the interpreter isn't doing a good job, and the sample is discarded from the set. This is theoretical, of course but shouldn't we be turning over every stone to make our language accessible to all?
Unfortunately, our VRS industry is so broken and fragmented that politics make that hypothesis impossible to validate. VRS companies like Sorenson, Purple, ZVRS and Convo earn so much money fighting for each other's customers, and spend so little advancing technology in meaningful ways. That has to stop, and innovation in this community can no longer happen in incremental stages. We need to start looking for the next leaps that we can take, and do what we've always done well: Adopt early.
I'm not finished here.
The best and brightest in our community gets together few and far between. When we do, I'd like to see us start to use conferences like NAD or DeafNation less for workshops and more for things like Hack-A-Thons and strategic planning sessions. I'm not saying that past conferences have not created value, but I question whether the format of legacy events are serving our future needs. Where past conferences inspire action, future events need to produce immediate results.
There is a lot that I said here, and I know I have barely begun to scratch the surface. I do not see the act of writing this as my contribution nor do I believe that everything that I said here is right or the best approach. I want to debate these ideas with you, and I intend to attend both this summer's NAD Conference and DeafNation World Expo so that I may participate in our community's discourse. I welcome any and all comments, thoughts and debate as long as it results in us working together toward the greater good. And one last thing.
That Mirror Ball Nyle brought home for us all? Hell of a trophy.
Share This Article
