18 September 2013
John M. Fahey, Jr.,
President/ CEO
National Geographic Society
1145 17th Street N.W.
Washington DC 20036-4688
Dear Mr. Fahey,
This letter serves to express serious concerns related to how your
organization “reflects the world” through the National Geographic Live: BELL!
play.
The world of the play BELL! ignores the grave injustices that Alexander
Graham Bell has fostered upon Deaf people. It ignores his systematic attempts to deny Deaf children
sign language and efforts to “teach” Deaf people “to forget they are
Deaf.” It is acknowledged that AG
Bell was the Chief architect and advocate of the oral/aural only method of
educating Deaf students in the United States, and
-worked to ban the use of ASL in the
classroom
-worked to deny Deaf people the right to be
educators
-worked to stop Deaf people from socializing
with
and marrying other Deaf people
-worked to abolish Deaf publications,
organizations, schools and conventions
Today, we know that pure oralism--the denial of a fully accessible
visual language—leads to language and cognitive deprivation as well as lags in
social-emotional and identity development. In practice, many oral/aural only programs have resorted to
physical and emotional abuse to stop Deaf children from using sign language or
gestures.
In his ‘love for the Deaf,” AG Bell consistently refused to work with
our organizations when they reached out to him. As ex-President of the National Association of the Deaf,
George Veditz wrote in AG Bell’s obituary (1922):
“ It was not
so much the education of the deaf, per se that Dr. Bell was interested in as
the oral method…The deaf as a class have had little cause to love him because
of the nature of his interference in their affairs… Dr. Bell’s influence upon
the American deaf has been negative. They would have welcomed him with open
arms and gloried in his interest in them had this interest been expressed in a
manner they could approve. He did not choose this last.‘Tis true, ’tis pity;
Pity ’tis, ’tis true.”
Furthermore,
it is appalling to learn the Deaf people today are still expected to passively
accept the sanitized version of “AG Bell the genius inventor” (and what of the
plagiarism and forgery charges?) celebrated by the play, BELL! The efforts on the part of your
organization to promote the play to Gallaudet University students is a
shameless attempt to eradicate the true history of AG Bell and to minimize the
detrimental role he has played in the education of Deaf people. Are the students to forget that in 1891
during a congressional committee hearing concerning appropriation for the
college, AG Bell criticized the training Deaf teachers as “detrimental?” Are they to forget he said when
addressing Gallaudet students in the past, “…I am sure there is no one among the deaf who desires to have his
affliction handed down to his children?”
Your organization professes to “promote the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources” and to “care about the planet.” Does the National Geographic Society today, unlike its second president, care about and appreciate the natural human biodiversity represented by Deaf individuals globally? We call on you to celebrate your 125 years by making a public statement to Gallaudet students as well as Deaf people worldwide that the National Geographic Society acknowledges the harmful history of AG Bell and today embraces the human, linguistic, economic and civil rights of all peoples—including Deaf people.
Let freedom
roll!
Karen
Christie, Ruthie Jordan and Patti Durr for Audism Free America
Cc:
Gary E. Knell, next President/CEO
Meg Calnan
Mary Jeanne Jacobsen
