I told Rosezelle about the two groups and she told me that she had warned me about trying to commuicate with "outsiders."
..When I visited the Ohio School for the Deaf last spring,...I was a heroine. When I spoke at the Home for the Deaf last April,..I had the old folks kissing my hand and saying that the things that had been done with Nellie would create a bridge between the hearing and the deaf,..that everyone's children could walk across. How can I go back again this year and tell them..in one part of my life,.at leas,t that they are wrong.
..There is such a vast gap between the hearing and the hearing impaired and the True Deaf,..that even people like Rosezelle and myself, who stand partially on both sides of the gap because we can speak and have college educations,..can bearly cross it!!
..How do I explain that concept to a people,..whose language has no words and whose concepts bearly go beyond those needed to live from day to day. These deaf people are not stupid. They are uneducated.
.. How to explain that to the average deaf kid that graduates from high school reads only on a fifth grade level and understands perhaps only half of what he or she reads?
How to explain to such people that no matter at what level they function at,..they are still viewed as idiots to be manipulated because the concepts, that they are slow to pick up on or have no comprehension of culturally, will condemn them in the eyes of the hearing. All this is getting a bit much even for me.
..I've gotten the idea now. Just stay away from certain people,...who have their own agendas. Except now,...I have my own agenda.
..Nellie,..old friend,....HOW WRONG YOU WERE!! You forgave.....too much!!