Aaliyah Bryant

Chapter 104, “What do oral people think about the members of the Deaf Community?

And vice versa?” in the book “For Hearing People Only” was interesting because it goes into

how oral-deaf people and Deaf people treat each other. It’s starts off with a blog post written by

someone named Ann who is oral-deaf and have encountered problems with Deaf people. The

chapter later on explains that she is not the only oral-deaf person that feels that way. Lots of oral-

deaf people feel the need to assimilate to the “hearing culture” by getting cochlear implants and

banning ASL. It also states how harmful this can be to Deaf people who choose not to get

cochlear implants and rather stay deaf.

I think I learned the different between deaf and Deaf. According to Ann in her blog post,

she explains that she is deaf with a lowercase D. This might be because she was used to the

hearing world and choose to assimilate with it by speaking and lip-reading. She chose to

assimilate with the “hearing world. However, Deaf people, with a capital D, are people who are

Deaf and see nothing wrong with that. They choose to learn ASL as it is the most effective

communication for them and they refuse to assimilate to the “hearing world”. I see nothing

wrong with that. Deaf people just want to meet halfway so that can have a better shot in this

world.

I can apply the things I learned by just listening to what Deaf people want. The chapter

explains that there are even some Deaf people that criticize oral-deaf the wrong why by bashing

them. Not by just simply educating which would be the most encouraging thing to do. Hearing

and oral-deaf people should also educate themselves as well because as we have been told

countless and countless times before there is nothing wrong with being Deaf. Therefore, it

shouldn’t change by assimilation.