I FEEL ANGRY!

I am shocked. Vivienne has a number with the Metropolitan Police. I want to deny but I can’t. I feel angry!

I began my college career as a science major. I learned that all life forms have the ability to be irritated, that is, they respond to the environment around them. This ability to react to the environment allows them to endure… but when they cannot respond… they die.

Oh my goodness, yes, I transferred to the Psychology department because I became fascinated by abnormal psychology, abnormal behavior, and abnormal power. What… abnormal power? Oh, in his book Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault, a French philosopher who explored the role played by power in shaping knowledge wrote in 1961:

“There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, and more passionate than politicians think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.”

Well, I ended up with a bachelor’s degree with dual majors, Psychology and American Studies (English Department… an approach to American culture from many directions to view America as a whole rather from the perspective of a single discipline). How can I describe President I. King Jordan’s October 14, 2006 “one of the saddest of my life” letter?

Hell, President Jordan continues to celebrate his recommended oppressor-successor, Dr. Jane K. Fernandes. He continues to fail to address the heart of the life of Gallaudet University, American Sign Language. He continues to objectify ASL as the most extreme instance of a language and culture as a means to oppress by persuading Deaf people to respect diverse modes of communication. ASL is the language; and Fernandes’ agenda for “modes of communication” is the essential practice of language oppression; and we the Deaf and Hard of Hearing remain marginalized.

President Designate Jane K. Fernandes made a rare public appearance with an apparently high priority university mission statement: “get… hearing aids and hearing tests.” Very serious! A small group of students needed to meet with her to discuss this matter because… I think these tests would be determinant of Deaf people’s intelligence and ability to sign and voice at the same time according to her folk research.

Oh, did President Jordan ask that we “give Jane Fernandes the respect that is due her” in his letter? Yes, we can but it will be like a final respect. My early college science education, damn it!

(Vivienne, I'm damn PROUD of you! I love you VERY MUCH!)