I just finished reading the forums at a favorite online "deaf hangout" of mine. There was an interesting discussion going on about the difficulties of learning the English language and learning to express one's self properly in that language. In that forum,..the ideas and the way in which those ideas are expressed were striking, original and somewhat refreshing.

Ooooooooooooh Lordy is the hearing world going to be in for a "SHOCKEROOOOOO"...when some of those Deaf kids actually do start speaking up and expressing what they feel.

What I express as a person,.who learned language as a young child..(with my mom's brutal form of speech therapy)...and later developed and kept going on my own,..a steady growth of the usage of several languages in my own mind,..is merely a frustration of having to dig a bit harder for certain concepts and culteral references.

What those BORN DEAF folks at that forum are expressing is a livid resentment of a lifelong forced ingestion of the idea, that their modes of communication and their limited comprehension of certain hearing concepts, are inferior just because they don't use the English language in a fashion that is "acceptable" to the so-called "hearing world. "

I have been mocked and called "stupid" online because I need constant feedback to really understand what is going on even on a message board,..if it is inhabited by soly hearing folks. I can toss the English language around with the best,..I think,...and I've been called stupid. I wonder how some of the "snobs" that I've met online would.."tell off"...the Deaf PhD on that board....that he is stupid,..that he never should have been born,..and that his constant demands for feedback are symbolic of "bitterness" with his life!!

(Let me qualify the use of the word "snob,"..most online folks whom I have met and conversed with online are very nice and well meaning. Some of the kids that I have met online..are just that.."kids!"

And others,..well,..I just won't comment on.....!!)

Heh! I always thought that a hunger for feedback from other folks and an openess for what others had to say was a sign of intelligence,.not weakness or stupidity!!

(I googled this guy's name at the library,..and I must introduce him to Rosezelle. He is a Deaf PhD. He DOES read and comprehend classical Greek but he can't write it!! That certainly sounds familiar!! Oh God!! Does that EVER sound familiar!! I am thinking about my "Dutche!")