I was ready to jump down MM’s throat when he write his article, We’re disabled just get over it… but the angel sitting on my right shoulder, whispered some words of humility in my ear and urged me to show some compassion.

“Shit!” said Mephisto, as the Angel smiled beatifically.

Well MM’s article is a mess. It leaves you confused because he stakes out a position, usually anti- Deaf, and then goes on to prove his assertion by arguing against it, thinking he is arguing for it, and making all these illuminating observations, which have no bearing on the argument he is trying to make.

Confused? I am? Besides it’s late, as I write this.

Still, if his argument is in the headline, We’re disabled just get over it… then he pretty much should have stopped there. It would be more prudent for MM to publish headlines, one liners that sum up his position succinctly without destroying his credibility.

Still, it’s a free world [so we are lead to believe] and it is his right to express himself in any manner he chooses.

If you examine his argument [s], you will find that he does a pretty good job of damning the hearing world [if that is his intention, which I don’t think it is], for which he so desperately wants to be part of. Thinking he is admonishing us, for getting our knickers in a knot over the word disability, he is actually damning the Hearing world for its inability to see deafness as anything but a disability.

MM can see Deafness as a culture, he just doesn’t accept it. He doesn’t accept it as a valid way of being, living and defining oneself. He perceives that the problem of our disconnect from the hearing world, is all of our own making. He blames the problems deaf people suffer on Deaf people who are trying to carve out abetter world. He filters his perceptions through the prism of a desperation to belong to a world he has been excluded from, by virtue of his own disability, his deafness.

Sure, the Hearing world has a lot to answer for. They are perpetually stuck in a stereotypical thinking of deafness. They are so stuck, that the only solutions they can conceive of is audiological. Meaning, hearing aids, cochlear implants, regrowing hearing cells, eugenics [who said Hitler was dead] without any real thought to the development of Deaf people and how they are defining themselves.

Their quest is aided by a group of people who project this notion of community that is inclusive of all types of deafness. There is no such community. There is only the Deaf community and deaf people [community if you want to stretch it]

Still, We’re disabled just get over it… and Disability – It’s Time for a New Word demonstrate quite succinctly, the tensions we suffer in trying to be who we are, in the midst of a hearing push to define who we are.

We don’t need a new word, we have a perfectly good one that has been reclaimed and redefined. That word is Deaf [pun intended]. With a  capital D! If MM doesn’t like it, stiff shit. If the hearing world can’t handle it, stiff shit.

However, Joanne Anauo does make a valid point in Disability – It’s Time for a New Word regarding the energy we expend in fighting the use of words such as disabled, and perhaps it would be better to harness it towards getting our access needs met.

Then again, words do convey an idea, an image, a concept, and they have a power, a power with which to oppress us or liberate us.

The problem is, if we work within the system and accept its constraints, in order to access the fucking resources owed to us, it depletes our energy and enthusiasm. Energy and enthusiasm that is important for our social well being and mental health.

Then again, having re-read MM’s article We’re disabled just get over it…, perhaps he is making perfect sense? Or is he being ironical?

As for the angel sitting on my right shoulder, he did a little wee. So I will be having words with the man upstairs tonight.

DAD!