Banjo's World

Over the last couple weeks, there has been a wave after wave, well… more like a series of tsunamis surrounding the situation at Gallaudet University. It’s the only university for the deaf in the whole wide world and it’s in Washington, D.C., the capital of America. I’ve chosen to stay quiet on the subject since it started back in May when they made the announcement on selecting Dr. Jane K. Fernandes as the new president of the university in January 2007. Though there have been some rumours that she’s supposed to be inducted into the presidency position within a few weeks. At first, a lot of people in the deaf community quickly dismissed at the students’ complaints of the selection only to make a sharp U-turn. Now, it has resulted in a massive protest and is gathering a lot of support from all over the country.

My reasons for staying quiet on this were because I wanted to learn more about it before sharing my opinion. Second, I’m not a student or alumni of Gallaudet University. So, it made sense to me that I was to avoid discussing the subject till now. I consider myself to be a Deaf person, and people I know consider me to be one too, even though I don’t often use the capitalized D when I refer to myself. It’s just a habit of mine, and I do have an open mind on many controversies surrounding deafness; for instance, cochlear implants. The thing I love about living in a free country is the right to make a choice. I made the choice to be myself, nothing else. I don’t lie, I don’t manipulate the truth, and I don’t twist the truth to satisfy the others or myself. I know when I see a person with a political agenda, and I find it repulsive when a person will do anything including manipulating the truth to satisfy one’s agenda. That’s a major flaw I found in a lot of political pundits, politicians, government parties and more.

There have been a lot of misconceptions floating around the blogosphere surrounding the controversy. Especially the one where they say she isn’t Deaf enough. I believe this one was taken out of context and twisted around to reflect the students badly. Deaf community continues to be one of the most misunderstood minorities in North America. Yes, there is diversity among the deaf; nearly all of the deaf children are raised differently from each other. Some grow up orally, some grow up taught in ASL (American Sign Language), some use SEE (SEE1, SEE2), PSE (Pidgin Signed English), SimCom (Simultaneous Communication, also known as Total Communication), Cued Speech and many more. People had come up with hundreds of methods in educating a deaf child.

I’ve been able to make some direct contact with a few students over the last few months regarding the controversy. I even had a video conversation with a friend staying in the Hall Memorial Building (HMB) shortly after it was taken over and went into a lockdown. I did obtain some interesting information and speculation from that video conversation alone. Some that may have not even gotten reported at all. This already has made the news all over the USA. Yesterday, the Gallaudet football team came together and aggressively expanded the lockdown’s status from a building to the whole campus. This move attracted a lot of media attention as a result, it’s not everyday that you hear about a university being taken over by the students as a part of a protest.

People’s education are being interfered with, I have no doubt in that part. It is true that the students, faculty members may have committed civil disobedience. However, as in many historical events that took place in the past, people felt they had no choice but to disobey a civil law. In fact, the bible even advocates for civil disobedience in order to obey God’s laws. I don’t condone these actions, but I’m not going to condemn them either. If you find this confusing, wait till you read all of the reports by the deaf bloggers. There are so many different perceptions and contradictions. It can be quite confusing when you read all of them. It’s not easy to choose to what to believe in when you aren’t there in person. I don’t believe everything these people say including the bloggers opposed to the protest. They are mostly speculations and opinions. But they are valid to start with; they show how people feel about the situation.

It should be obvious that I don’t personally know the incoming president, Dr. Jane K. Fernandes. Though, that hasn’t stopped me from reading many of her statements, video interviews and more. There are a lot of people who learned ASL at her age; she didn’t learn ASL till she was in her early 20s’ and yet are far more proficient. While that’s not a valid reason why she shouldn’t be the president. There are other factors to take in consideration too. Judging by the video interviews and candid video footage with Fernandes featured in it; it appears quite clear to me that she has a stutter in her signing. A strong leader should be charismatic and be well liked, be viewed as a leader. It is important that a leader possesses people skill. If you don’t have that skill, you are dead in the water. Despite some people claiming that she did a lot of good for some places she was once employed at in the past, it doesn’t mean she’s going to cut it as a president at the university.

Unfortunately, I did get to watch her analyze the situation and compare it to the movie, ‘The Perfect Storm” back in May. It was somewhere baffling, especially when she didn’t know half of what she was saying in that video clip. A leader should know what s/he is talking about and with a strong confidence, rather than looking all shaken up and nervous. I don’t see how it’s possible to defend this woman, she may be a good woman at heart, but she isn’t a firm leader. Not only that, the leader has to be a good listener. Both Fernandes and the current president, I. King Jordan hasn’t been listening. Instead, they’ve been attacking the protesters, even with lies. The public relations representatives have spread a good number of lies regarding a few incidents that took place. I even have a few high-resolution images of these incidents.

Yes, pepper-spray was used on some people. I know because it was used on somebody I happen to know, they didn’t use a powerful type, but it was enough to make some back off. From what I know, a lot of security guards are often untrained in dealing with a protest. This applies to pretty much every college and university. As far I know, no students have gotten violent with the guards. Though, they did resort to passive-aggressive tactics at times. Especially when they were taking over the Hall Memorial Building. Though it still didn’t call for some people to get pepper-sprayed. It is the responsibility of the guards to remain unprovoked when they are confronted in this manner. The only time the guards should take action against a protester is when one makes the attempt to cause physical harm.

Like usual, there’s always a few bad seeds on both sides. On the side of the protesters, a few went somewhere a bit too far. For instance, one protester took the liberty of pouring apple juice on a stage getting some onto the president and the others. I condemn these for taking it too far. Throwing liquids that can stain a person’s clothing is just plainly wrong and provoking. Yes, some did scream at the president and disturbing some events. Though you must remember that this was a protest, and they felt they had to send a message. This was one they chose to use. Still, nobody laid a finger on him. That’s what everybody has to remember here. As always, there’ll be some choices they make that we won’t agree with.

Now, what is the real reason why Fernandes refuse to resign? This reason should be obvious to everyone; it’s the money. It always is. Of course, she isn’t going to admit that as being the reason because that’ll make her look like a greedy leader. The job also comes with a lucrative retirement income. The current president of Galluadet University is one of the highest paid presidents in the USA. From what I recall, it was at least $800,000 a few years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has already passed a few more hundred thousand dollars by now.

This protest has proven to be no small fest. The last time I counted, there were 17 tent cities in the USA, excluding the tent cities in Washington D.C. There is one in Canada and one in Denmark. For these unfamiliar with the tent cities, they set up tents and stay there to support the protest at the university. This is not a small protest-taking place at a university; this is a nation-wide protest taking in several states. It is their right to protest. Right now, they are interfering with the students’ education by having a campus lockdown. The protesters are not willing to back down till their demands are met. Two simple demands and everybody can go back to their daily routines. One being that Fernandes resigns from her position and other being that there are no reprisals for the protesters.

Truthfully, I believe that the only way to resolve this situation is to have the incoming president surrender her position. Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices to achieve peace on the campus. There should be no reprisals for the students, faculty members and everybody involved. Hundreds, maybe thousands have been to the campus to protest along with many more protesting in their own cities all over the country. Personally, I don’t believe the university can afford to terminate all protesters’ education and there would be a shortage of educators if the faculty members involved were all fired. There are a large number of students involved, and the amount of tuition fees they could lose from terminating the protesters’ education.

They are loud and clear on what they want from the Gallaudet University administration and Board of Directors.They are loud and clear on what they want from the Gallaudet University administration and Board of Trustees. They should try to resolve this situation before people start getting hurt.

Too loud and clear that one cannot pretend to not hear. Even the deaf can hear.