I have a difficult time in deciding whether the “New” Deaf Culture is an oxymoron or a misnomer. It shall be an interesting thinking process.

An organization states that there is a ‘new’ deaf culture. Also “Doing Deaf Differently”, ummm. Do you realize that deaf people, their community, language and culture has been assigned ‘new’ by a society that continues to oppress nature? I do not see any ‘new’ Black culture, ‘new’ Jewish culture, ‘new’ Asian culture or ‘new’ American culture.

Why are those people so dead intent on saying ‘new’, ‘new’, and ‘new’?  Technology. What is “Doing Deaf Differently”? Oh, yeah…technology.  Let me tell you, the song is way too old, it begins before I was born. History repeats itself, once again and usually it repeats itself long after a few generations have passed on by. Sadly, that natural rule has been broken.

Technology, the ‘miracle’ and bane of our global society. Let me tell you a tiny little fact…. its existence is a…. tool. That is all it is. Technology is what allows me to use this cool and neat blog website to post my thoughts irregardless if people read, listen or just plain say – ‘she’s a old nut.’

So what is that ‘new’ and ‘Doing Deaf Differently’ have to do with technology? I really do not have to bash this old stuff over and over again so I will make a simple point. The little tool that allows the deaf to ‘hear’.

Whooo, whoo, jumping for joy, clapping hands, high fives, hooting … really? I am being sarcastic here… a tool that the organization makes a big deal out of being deaf; never once even thought about the Whole Person – i.e. Human.

We are all fundamentally humans. No. Matter. What. It is the human diversity so designed by nature that has allowed us to populate the world (to a choking point), manipulate our environments, attempt to become the other person – not self, debate and make war, if there is no love to be had.

So what is this ‘new’ deaf culture? What are we doing any differently compared to other subcultures that enables us to be unique once again? We are already unique – we are a minority with a disability that has allowed us to have a culture and language adaptable because we are…again fundamentally humans.

So the ‘new’ is actually an ‘old’. Just a ‘new’ way of naming something that has been around since ancient times. Honestly, that’s typical of humans, to rename something that has been old, instead of addressing the whole. Typical, typical.

Renaming the old, instead of addressing the whole? Let me explain something to you that nature has given us, well a story then I read about some number of years ago… There were Africans in the South of Africa trying to bleach themselves so they can be ‘white’. I can totally understand the political/social viewpoint (typical Europeans) of being ‘White’. Thinking about the biological aspect, why do you think Africans do not have skin cancer? People! The problem does not lay with the skin color – the problem lays with the political/social viewpoint of ‘other cultures’.

Technology. Is. Just. A. Tool.  Yes something we cannot live without so are we prepared to live without technology? Build adaptive skills? Acquire multiple modes of communication? Commune with nature? Make love, not war in order to survive? Think about it. For me, technology is not all that; yet has made it much efficient to communicate, which is neat ya know.