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| Building Future still in doubt |
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Audism - A Deaf Culture Term
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i'm better
than you
In the deaf culture, calling someone an audist
is akin to calling someone a racist. Definition
What is audism?
A simple definition would be that it is a negative
or oppressive attitude towards deaf people by either deaf or
hearing people and organizations, and a failure to accomodate
them. People who have audist attutides
are considered to be audists. Under this definition,
deaf people who will not use sign language and who will not identify
with the deaf community and consider themselves to be "better"
than others who use sign language and are part of deaf culture, meet
the definition of audism. According to an article in Capital
D Magazine (vol. 1, issue 1), Tom Humphries invented the word
"audism" in 1975 to mean an attitude
that people who hear and speak, or have good English are superior. This
applies whether the person who hears and speaks is deaf or hearing.
I remember that when I was in my early teens, I liked a deaf girl who
was strong ASL, but someone else (hearing) put down the girl because
she was strong ASL and weak in English. Audism in Deaf
Culture
Audism has been the subject of plays, including the "Audism
Monologues" produced by LightKitchen. In the Audism Monologues, true stories
are told of deaf people experiencing oppression. At the second national
professional development conference of the American Sign Language Teachers
Association, Elizabeth Lucey presented "Oppress-Me-Finish:
Combating Audism in the ASL Classroom." In addition, at the Deaf
Way II (2002) Genie
Gertz presented "Dyconscious Audism: The Conceptual Incarceration of Deaf
People in a Hegemonically Hearing-Oriented
Culture." Additional Resources
on Audism
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