National Geographic Response: Evolving???

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National Geographic's Response to AFA's letter about BELL! play (to see our letter go to this link or scroll down http://audismfreeamerica.blogspot.com/2013/09/18-september-2013-john-m.html)

Dear Karen Christie, Ruthie Jordan and Patti Durr:

Thank you for contacting the National Geographic Society regarding last week’s performance of Jim Lehrer’s “Bell.”

National Geographic is fully aware of the fact that many members of the Deaf community do not hold Bell in high regard.  Instead of avoiding this issue, we chose to address it in the play, and also during a post-performance panel. Dr. Brian Greenwald of Gallaudet University, an expert on deaf culture and history, who is also completing a biography about Bell and the deaf community was a member of the panel.  He mentioned Bell's evolving views on this issue. Whatever Alexander Graham Bell's early views on deafness, please know that National Geographic fully appreciates a supports a culturally diverse world. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Sincerely yours,

Julie Crain

National Geographic Society

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rescor@ngs.org
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AFA's original letter to the National Geographic Society

18 September 2013 

John M. Fahey, Jr.,

President/ CEO

National Geographic Society

1145 17^th 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.”

As a grassroots Deaf social justice network, Audism Free America (AFA) works to challenge the ideological foundations of audism in America---foundations that were put into place by Alexander Graham Bell.   Audism is attitudes and practices based on the assumption that behaving in the ways of those who speak and hear is desired and best. It produces a system of privilege, thus resulting in stigma, bias, discrimination, and prejudice—in overt or covert ways—against Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf people of all walks of life.   Sadly, one of the legacies of AG Bell, which still “shapes the world we live in today,” is audism.

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

 gknell@ngs.org

Meg Calnan

 mcalnan@ngs.org

Mary Jeanne Jacobsen

 mjacobse@ngs.org

AFA Letter to Dr. Hurwitz of Gallaudet: Promoting BELL!

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21 September 2013

Dr. T. Alan Hurwitz, President

Gallaudet University

800 Florida Ave NE

Washington, DC 20002

Dear Dr. Hurwitz,

We are contacting you because it has come to our attention that the National Geographic Society’s play, BELL! has been promoted by Gallaudet University and students have been informed of discounted tickets for this event. Perhaps in celebrating Gallaudet’s sesquicentennial there has been a lapse in institutional memory.

In 1891 during a Congressional committee hearing concerning appropriation for a request to establish a teacher training program at your college, AG Bell said:  “The employment of deaf teachers is absolutely detrimental to oral instruction, and the training school proposed by President Gallaudet should therefore not be supported by the United States….we cannot trust it to train teachers…” 

When AG Bell addressed the Literary Society at the college he said, “…I am sure there is no one among the deaf who desires to have his affliction handed down to his children.”  These words of such an influential person certainly impacted how Deaf college students and organizations viewed their own future and community.

The world of the play BELL! ignores these and other 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 ignores his work to abolish Deaf publications, organizations, conventions and schools.   It is a tragic legacy of the father of audism which still “shapes the world we live in today” and which many of your students still experience.

It is appalling to imagine that Deaf college students today are 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!  This appears to be 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.

As an educational institution of higher learning, it is your responsibility to educate your students. Promoting the play without first hosting a forum to educate students about AG Bell sends the wrong message—both to your students and people beyond Gallaudet. 

Unfortunately, the deadlock between your venerable President of 50 years, Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet and AG Bell did not end with their fight over the establishment of a teacher-training program.  It simply went national, and reverberates even today as your students sit and watch BELL! ignorant of how this man impacted their college, their history, and their lives. 

Let freedom roll!

Ruthie Jordan, Patti Durr and Karen Christie for Audism Free America

Cc:

Genie Gertz, PhD, Dean

College of Arts and Sciences

Catherine Murphy

public.relations@gallaudet.edu

Stephanie Johnston

via sbg@gallaudet.edu 

AFA letter to New York Times Editors re: biased series

Tue, Aug 16, 20

Dear NY Times Editors:

Audism Free America (AFA) is a grassroots Deaf activist network in the US, which advocates for Deaf American rights, cultural resurgence, and seeks primarily to challenge the ideological foundations of audism in America. Audism is attitudes and practices based on the assumption that behaving in the ways of those who speak and hear is desired and best. It produces a system of privilege, thus resulting in stigma, bias, discrimination, and prejudice—in overt or covert ways—against Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf people of all walks of life.

We want to express our discontent over the series of op-ed pieces the NY Times ran concerning Deaf education. The “debate” is not boiled down to Deaf Schools = manualism (sign language) and Mainstreaming = oral / aural only. Nope, life is much more complex than that. Some Deaf schools are oral / aural only, some are signed English, some are simultaneous-communication (Speaking with some signing), and a few are bilingual-bicultural (ASL + English). Programs offer clinical services in audition and articulation as deemed appropriate via the child’s IEP etc.

The true debate, which your series did not even touch upon, is really about whether or not oral / aural only is alright– ie whether or not the banishing of a natural and fully accessible language and the denial of a Deaf child’s natural visual acuity is acceptable in the 21st century. Four major international organizations have said – it is NOT o.k. to deny Deaf children access to a fully natural and accessible signed language (See the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), and the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) New Era and Accord for the Future 2010 Agreement).

The NY Times displayed blatant bias in their selection of writers for your five op-ed pieces. Of the five only one is Deaf. None of them appear to have had any experiences at Deaf schools – either as a student, teacher or administrator. All of them are well versed and experienced with the majority culture and highly and clearly value it.

The old “communication war” was set up to be a binary thing – Oralism Vs. Manualism but in actuality it was always Oralism vs. Bilingualism. Modality vs. multilingualism. To see the NY Times reinforce errors of the past while promoting some unhealthy and unacceptable myths about the “miracles” of future technology and the burden of “the Deaf” on taxpayers skates dangerously close to some of the rhetoric used to push for eugenics (positive and/or negative eugenics).

We request that in the future the NY Times commit to getting the full story and involve the actual byproducts of Deaf education and experts and scholars within the field of multilingualism-multiculturalism, Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf education, and Deaf rights.

As things presently stand though – instead of journalistic integrity examining Deaf Rights, the NY Times has on the record, many wrongs. We hope and trust you will correct such errors in the future.

Also, you should know that the op-ed piece by Perry Zirkel “What the Law Requires” you feature a photograph that is incorrectly captioned by the NYTimes to read “Members of the National Association of the Deaf demonstrated in Washington in July, calling for specific education for the deaf involving sign language and separate school facilities.” The fact is that the photo was taken at an Audism Free Rally in Washington, DC outside of the Omni Shoreham Hotel where the Alexander Graham Bell Association was hosting it’s Listening and Spoken Language Symposium. It was not an NAD event and we were not calling for separate school facilities at this rally.

If you would care to learn more about who we are and what we were protesting, rallying and hosting a vigil for, please feel free to contact us.

Patti Durr, Ruthie Jordan, and Karen Christie on Behalf of Audism Free America (AFA)

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LET FREEDOM ROLL!!
AFA

Meeting with AG Bell Executive Director and April 3, 2009 Rally

BIG THANKS FOR ALL YOUR CONTACTS OF SUPPORT

OUR RALLY AT AG BELL HEADQUARTERS WILL BE ON APRIL 3, FRIDAY FROM 11 AM TO 9 PM
AFA PR WEB (vlog at bottom)

LETTER TO AG BELL ASSOC FOR A MEETING:

1. On March 3, Audism Free America (AFA) sent an email and hard copy letter (see bottom) to Alexander Graham, executive director of AG Bell association, and Jay Wyant, president of AG Bell Association, requesting a meeting on April 3, 2009 Friday in order to discuss our three demands face to face. (see letter)

2. We, AFA, did not get a response from AG Bell’s executive director, Alex Graham, until Friday March 13 (10 days after we sent our letter) and we only got the reply after repeated phone calls to AG Bell Association and an email check in. He replied that he could not meet with us on April 3rd as requested but could meet with us April 2 at 9 am. AFA has conflicts in our schedule on April 2nd but we have made ourselves available for April 2nd at 4 pm if April 3rd is still not doable for Mr. Graham. We have not received any response from president Wyant.

3. The same day AG Bell Executive Director Graham replied to our letter, AG Bell Association sent out an AG Bell Assoc. e-blast update to their members - (See bottom)

a. notice how they are still using media to misrepresent Deaf ASL people
b. notice how they pick and choose our demands to share with the public
c. notice how they say the purpose for telling AFA they can meet with us on April 2nd instead of April 3rd is to encourage a peaceful demonstration the next day and to clarify AG Bell's association’s mission of supporting families and individuals who choose listening and spoken language.

They are twisting things and trying to control the agenda.

4. We have already informed AG Bell, we are committed to peaceful activism and we know full well what their mission is. We are requesting the meeting to address our three demands in person.

5. We have sent the email reply below to Alex Graham’s March 13 (Friday) on March 16 , 2009 (Monday).

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AG Bell Association's Update

Friday, March 13, 2009

In This Issue….

Group Plans Demonstration at AG Bell Headquarters

A number of our members have contacted AG Bell regarding a recent announcement of a planned demonstration at its national headquarters.

Last week, a newly formed group calling itself “Audism Free America” announced that it will be demonstrating outside of AG Bell’s national headquarters, also known as the Volta Bureau, in Washington, D.C.., on April 3, 2009. In a press release entitled, “Audism Free America Targets the Volta Bureau,” the group states its intent is to “call attention to the denial of linguistic and human rights of Deaf citizens and to highlight how the Volta Bureau/AG Bell Association has worked to perpetuate the denial of these rights.” The group claims that the Volta Bureau “houses a shameful history in the establishment and perpetuation of audism in the United States.”

Audism, as stated by this group, is “the assumption that behaving in ways of those who speak and hear is best and desired. Audism manifests itself as a stigma, bias, discrimination, and prejudice against Deaf culture, American Sign Language and Deaf people.”

In a letter from the group’s representative to AG Bell Executive Director Alexander T. Graham, Audism Free America demands that AG Bell “cease and desist from denying Deaf infants, children and their families the right to a natural and fully accessible language,” among other things. The group also contends in its letter that “oralism (oral/aural only methods) has been proven to be an abysmal failure, it is time for us to unite and work together to ensure the birthrights of Deaf infants and children and the human rights of all Deaf people who have suffered under your iron grip.”

The group also requested a meeting with AG Bell leadership to discuss its demands. On behalf of AG Bell, Graham agreed to meet with the group the day before the demonstration to encourage a peaceful demonstration and to clarify AG Bell’s mission of supporting families and individuals who choose listening and spoken language. “AG Bell’s primary concern is the safety of all those involved, including our staff who work at the Volta Bureau and the particpants in the demonstration,” stated Graham. “AG Bell recognizes that differing viewpoints exist within the deaf and hard of hearing communities and respects the rights of those viewpoints to be expressed in a positive and lawful manner.”

During the AG Bell Convention in Milwaukee last June, AG Bell President Jay Wyant conducted a lengthy on-camera interview with the now-leader of Audism Free America. The interview addressed many of the issues that continue to be raised by this and similar organizations. To see the interview, click here (captions were not provided). Also, in a further effort to clarify its position on ASL, the AG Bell Board of Directors issued an official position statement on American Sign Language. To read the full statement, click here. Any inquiries related to this event should be directed to AG Bell’s director of communications, Catherine Murphy.

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Our original letter to AG Bell Executive Director A. Graham and President J. Wyant:

3 March 2009

Greetings President Wyandt and CEO Graham:

Audism Free America (AFA) is a grassroots Deaf activist organization in the US, which advocates for Deaf American rights, cultural resurgence, and seeks primarily to challenge the ideological foundations of audism in America.

Audism is attitudes and practices based on the assumption that behaving in
the ways of those who speak and hear is desired and best. It produces a
system of privilege, thus resulting in stigma, bias, discrimination, and
prejudice—in overt or covert ways—against Deaf culture, American Sign
Language, and Deaf people of all walks of life.

AFA is committed to:
1. human and linguistic rights of Deaf people
2. unmasking audism and media misrepresentation
3. advocating for future generations

Thus, we would like to request a meeting with you on April 3, 2009 when we are in the D.C. area. Our meeting is to clearly state our demands that:

1. the AG Bell Association and Academy cease and desist from denying Deaf infants, children, and their families the right to a natural and fully accessible language.

2. the AG Bell Association cease and desist from misinforming the public and the media about ASL Deaf people. The AG Bell Association has not retracted its letter to Pepsi objecting to the commercial featuring ASL in a positive light and continually paints ASL Deaf people as unsuccessful and dependent.

3. the AG Bell Association cease and desist its incestuous relationship with cochlear implant manufacturers and join AFA in calling for an independent and impartial study of the physical, psychological, and social impact of cochlear implants on infants, children and adolescents.

Indeed the AG Bell Association follows in the footsteps of your founder in trying to destroy the linguistic and human rights of Deaf people by EXCLUDING ASL from your services, programs and schools (except when legally mandated). A.G. Bell, the man, through publicized reports was an eugenicist, xenophobe, and audist along with recent reports that he was also thief and plagiarist (see D. Baynton, H. Lane, and S. Shulman as well as Bell’s own writings). Oralism (oral / aural only methods) has been proven to be an abysmal failure, it is time for us to unite and work together to ensure the birthrights of Deaf infants and children and the human rights of all Deaf people who have suffered under your iron grip.

We look forward to this meeting as an opportunity to present our demands to you in person and to address any questions you may have.

Please let us know the time and location that is best for you both to meet with us on April 3, 2009.

Let Freedom Roll,



Ruthie Jordan, Audism Free America
AudismFreeAmerica@gmail.com

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Our reply to Mr. Graham after receiving his March 13 email reply (10 days after our letter above) saying he can not meet on April 3 but could do April 2 at 9 am.

Greetings Mr. Graham:

Thank you for your reply of March 13, 2009 – 10 Days after we sent our email to you. We regret that you have some conflicts on April 3. We are hoping that you will be able to change your schedule in order to meet with us on April 3 as we have a conflict on April 2.

The only possible time we could meet with you on April 2 would be at 4 pm. We also want to know if AG Bell Association President Jay Wyant will be joining us as well.

To clarify the purpose of our meeting is not to discuss the importance of a “peaceful demonstration and to clarify AG Bell’s mission of supporting families and individuals who choose listening and spoken language.” AFA is committed to non-violent, peaceful activism and we are VERY familiar with your mission as well as your position statement acknowledging the existence of ASL.

While we appreciate your spreading the word about our website, mission, the definition of audism, and our April 3rd rally to your members via your March 13 AG Bell update, we find it very interesting that this announcement stating that you have agreed to meet with us on April 2nd was composed before you even notified us and secured our agreement to the date and time you specified.

We look forward to establishing an agreed upon meeting date and time (April 2 Thur at 4 pm or April 3 Fri anytime between 9-4) so that you can keep your word and meet with us as you have informed your members you would be doing so.

Let Freedom Roll,

Ruthie Jordan, AFA

Our Three Demands:


1. the AG Bell Association and Academy cease and desist from denying Deaf infants, children, and their families the right to a natural and fully accessible language.

2. the AG Bell Association cease and desist from misinforming the public and the media about ASL Deaf people. The AG Bell Association has not retracted its letter to Pepsi objecting to the commercial featuring ASL in a positive light and continually paints ASL Deaf people as unsuccessful and dependent.

3. the AG Bell Association cease and desist its incestuous relationship with cochlear implant manufacturers and join AFA in calling for an independent and impartial study of the physical, psychological, and social impact of cochlear implants on infants, children and adolescents.