Thanks for the refresher… I was there from the beginning…and I am still there, albeit a lurker ;-p

I decided to stop typing here and searched for any links to the protest in spring of 2006 and got this:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/05/prweb391164.htm

I would then say that the protest started preliminary during the spring of 2006. Would you concur on the date?

I do remember you saying that it wasn’t the protest that was the reason why Deaf Read was created. In the past I have mixed up my dates on the protest (UFG), but I remembered vividly there were objections and talk of protest during the Spring prior to the Fall’s full blown protest. I think that was one reason why some people assumed that DR was born out of the protest, but, clearly that was a coincidence.

As to Ella’s clamoring about DR to be used as a vehicle for DH, do check out my post (you said you will read it) and note that my information came from her mouth, or rather hands, on Mishka Zena’s blog. Check that link out.

You said, you wanted to:

“…create DeafRead to empower people to say what they wanted.”

In essence, you answered the question I brought up on my post: Deaf Read – for? for?

Thank you for giving us the platform to say what we want.

And, since I enjoyed reading up on all of this “ancient history,” I appreciated the facts you shared on this post. I will be mindful to ask you for your input should I ever write a post related to DeafRead in the future (more likely, since my Truth Series has a lot to do with events occurring in DR.)

A. B. was born in Haiti in the 50′s and worked the docks as a teenager. Up to that point he had no signs except for home signs, mostly crude pointing and gestures of mimicry. No education, but a sibling taught him to read and write his name and his age. In his twenties he met some American deaf tourists and fell in love with a girl his age. They married and moved to the USA where he began his formal education at the age of 24. I met him to draft his plan for rehabilitation. He described in very primitive mime how he grew up, related to family members, how he found work and how the island economy affected his income (boat no come, money no have). He described how he met his wife by an angel coming down to introduce them. There was more but by that time I had stopped writing his plan and was lost in fascination for this fellow’s life experience and intuitive wisdom. Not only did he describe his social situation better than many American deaf rehabilitation clients, he also described reciprocity with his family and neighbors, economics, and even spirituality.

Not to say that American deaf minimal language skills clients don’t have wisdom. Many do, but it would be difficult to say it didn’t come from education because all have some schooling. If I were talking only about critical thinking skills, A.B. probably would have just a little bit due to his educational deprivation and come only from his life experiences. But life wisdom he certainly had. One could argue it came from observation of people around him, emotional closeness with his family, etc. I’d like to think a lot of it comes from some inborn quality, too, or we would see all criminals coming from criminal parents.

A.B. wasn’t the only one. There were others in Canada who had come as immigrants with family members having similar unschooled, intuitive wisdom. Absolutely revealing when one would think that language, education and training are what makes us wise or human. Not even half. Much, much more than that.