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yoliticaLACUVlsm in the rneqf commumty: AnExpwra:tol(j stw!r!J ifrnCqfLeaJie,rs in ~ocJUster; New York GERALD c. BATEMAN, JR. n this report, I will summarize the results of a study that examined the insights , perceptions, and experiences of a selected group of deaf and hard of hearing adults who are leaders in the deaf community of Rochester, New York. Rochester is an excellent community in which to conduct this kind of research. There are approximately 50,000 deaf and hard of hearing people in the area, one of the highest per capita populations of deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States. Two major educational institutions and numerous organizations of deaf and hard of hearing people have served the educational, social, and civic needs of the community's citizens for many years. These institutions and organizations also foster the development of social and political networks among their members, a necessary element of political activism. The major goal of this study was to determine the factors that have helped or hindered these deaf and hard of hearing leaders in becoming politically active and to obtain their perceptions of the forces that have shaped the political activism of other deaf people in the Rochester area. The informant group consisted of deaf people who were currently in leadership roles in a variety of local organizations of deaf people. The qualitative research approach of open-ended, intensive interviews was used to generate findings. Ten issues were investigated: (1) deaf adults' understanding of what political activism is, (2) their self-perceived barriers to political activism, (3) the impact of families on the development of political activism, (4) the impact of schools on the development of political activism, (5) communication concerns in political activism, (6) the deaf leaders' experiences in political activism, (7) their attitude toward working with other deaf people, as well as hearing people, to achieve political goals, (8) their self-perceived political and social concerns, as well as accomplishments, in the deaf community, (9) the impact of captioned news programs on deaf people's sense of political awareness and activism, and (10) the roles of organizations of deaf and hard of hearing people in political activism. The leaders expressed their views on what political activism means and how important it had been for them. One of the recurring themes was that political activism is Political Activism in the Deaf Community a process of making changes to improve the lives of the members of the deaf and hard of hearing community to overcome the inequities in services and in the treatment of deaf people by hearing people. Many of the leaders reported feeling that they had to become spokespeople and activists to convince hearing people, especially legislators, that services for deaf and hard of hearing individuals have not been adequate and need to be upgraded. As one leader stated, "All [deaf] people are recognized as people." Therefore, everyone has the right to equal access to the services provided to the general community. The leaders acknowledged the fact that within the deaf community there are two sides or factions regarding the issue of political activism. One leader said: I see two threads to political activism in the deaf community. One is the deafrelated issues ... more captions on TV, TTY relay service, in other words, telephone accessibility, tax exemptions for what we spend, what it cost us for being deaf, what we have to pay for doorbell lights, TTY, decoders and all the things we have to pay for, we're looking for tax exemptions. Now there are deaf people that are politically active in pursuing those issues. Now that other part is the world issues ... social issues like gay rights, abortion, against nuclear arms, education, education for our children, those are the broader issues. Several leaders expressed concerns that the members of their organizations or communities focus their attention only on deafness-related issues while usually disregarding issues that affect the hearing and deaf communities as a whole. The attitude seems to be one of fIlet the hearing people take care of that for us." Ironically, even when deafness-related issues or projects needed to be resolved, the leaders found themselves working alone or with very few deaf people. Deaf people also have the attitude that the leaders "can do the work for us." The feeling of political disenfranchisement and the lack of political involvement among many of the deaf people were major problems for the leaders. Regardless of these pervasive...

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