The battle against the "Oral Crusaders":

My friend, slaplore forwarded the link to an article on www.deafdc.com's blog. This article titled "Gallaudet's Poop Rally" certainly raised some issues that I have been struggling with. This article made me think more of my thoughts and thought I would try to express my thoughts.

First, I am not a big supporter of oralism. In fact I think the people who support oralism have some kind of crusade against Deaf culture. The infamous phone inventor, Alexander G. Bell's influence towards Deaf people and their culture still remains to this day, maybe even making more impact today than any previous time. It is very obvious that there are other people other than myself who see this and have become concerned. So literally the "Oral Crusade" against Deaf culture began when Alexander G. Bell founded the Alexander G. Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Now, we, the Deaf people need to become united and develop one common objective, agree and work on the same strategy to dampen the "oral crusade" against Deaf people. The last thing Deaf people need is to become divided. One strategy the "Oral Crusade" calls for is to "isolate deaf people". To fight against the "Oral Crusaders" we need to become united and develop strategies that do not further reinforce the "Oral Crusaders'" objectives. Dividing ourselves instead of becoming united is not a strategy Deaf people should use.

What happened at Gallaudet during this weekend actually reinforced the "Oral Crusaders'" cause by dividing the Deaf community into two different groups; 1) the Deaf people, and 2) the deaf people. Now the Deaf community may have lost a good number of support from the deaf people group. We need to work together, thus accepting the fact that there are deaf people who come from schools operated by the "Oral Crusaders" that acknowledge that there Deaf culture exists and wants to be part and support this culture or community.

The point of this post is... Deaf people need to develop some kind of outreach program that reaches out to every single Deaf and deaf person with a strategy that unties us all from the "Oral Crusaders" without alienating our own Deaf people and hearing people who support our culture. And lastly, those kids at Gallaudet may recognize the fact that there is a Crusade against Deaf people and their culture, but they came up with the dumbest strategy to fight against the "Oral Crusaders".