BUG: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution

The Starving African Children Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Us

B U G 165 The Starving African Children Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Us You’ve seen it before. You try talking to someone about a problem you’re having. As soon as your emotions reach a level the other person can’t tolerate, you get something like this: “Quit bitching! Other people have it worse than you do, you know! Think of all the starving children in Africa!” Now I, for one, have never understood the logic behind these kinds of statements. What, exactly, is the significance of starving African children when we’re discussing, say, the crappy condition of Deaf education in the United States or the fact that a deaf person might have a harder time finding a job than a hearing person? Don’t get me wrong. My stomach churns right along with yours whenever I see those commercials of emaciated children hobbling along on withered legs no thicker around than small tree branches. It’s horrible, yes. I give you that freely. I detest living in a world that allows such things to happen. But you see I detest a lot more than just that. In fact, it’s precisely because I detest certain things just as much that I won’t be hoodwinked into believing that the one has anything at all to do with the other. I won’t let myself lose focus or slip into apathy. Take Deaf education, for example. For 200 years, it has been spitting out deaf kids with fourth-grade reading levels. You 166 C H R I S T O P H E R J O N H E U E R don’t need a Ph.D. to recognize the truth of this. You certainly don’t need more of the 50,000 statistical analyses that have already been done on everything related to the subject. And here’s another thing you don’t need: 50 million starving African children. If you think the woes of starving African children have anything at all to do with the woes of Deaf education, I will personally fly over there, herd a dozen or so into a cargo plane, run them through the lunch line at any state Deaf institution of your choosing, and fatten them right up. Then I will have met all your requirements: I will have stopped complaining and thought of somebody else in a position much worse than my (or in this case, my peoples’) own. Having met these requirements, you and I will then sit down and wait for whatever effects these actions (what you were talking about) are supposed to have on Deaf education (what I was talking about). Bet you a beer we’ll be sitting there for a long damned time. Am I speaking too flippantly for your tastes? Then don’t insult my intelligence. We are not meeting the needs of our own deaf children, and you’re bitching about starving African children . Some of these kids are committing suicide over the stress of trying and failing to keep their sanity intact in our schools (and in their nonsigning families), and you’re telling me other people have it worse? Is that what you plan to tell their parents ? “Stop bitching?” If so, maybe the person who’s speaking too flippantly is you, friend. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe the current state of Deaf education in our country does have something to do with starving African children. Maybe the plight of a deaf man unable to get a job in his own country is a less worthy subject for B U G 167 a graphic television commercial than is a Kenyan kid staggering around on wicker-stick legs. But hey, give it time. With no job, there’s no money, and with no money, there’s no food. Thus sooner or later, both American deaf children and African children ought to all start starving to death at the same rate! Maybe then both groups will get the same airtime! If you want to solve problems, you have to learn to recognize “Quit bitching” for the social justice cop-out that it is. “Think of the starving African children” is a statement uttered by people who are inspired to order a large cheese pizza from Dominos whenever they see Peace Corps commercials on television . They say “Think about others who are worse off” so you’ll...