By way of trying to communicate what I think Deaf Echo should be about (at least my small part of it), let me start by reciting my favorite Zen parable:
A Zen Master is looking for a candidate to govern the village after he dies. Three are likely: a hunter known for his aim, a warrior known for his bravery, and one of the Zen Master’s own students known for her sharp wit. He meets with the hunter and poses his challenge: The hunter must snatch up a bowl of soup from the table and drink it down before the Zen Master can hit him with his walking stick. If he succeeds, he will be chosen to govern the village. The hunter tries, thinking his reflexes will be fast enough, but they are not. The Zen Master raps him over the knuckles as he reaches for the bowl and summarily dismisses him. Then he poses the same challenge to the warrior, and the warrior growls: “If you touch me with that stick, I will chop off your head with my axe and kick it over the mountains!” The Zen Master summarily dismisses the warrior, as well, finding him unworthy. Finally he meets with the student and repeats his challenge. She studies him for a moment, and then, rather than reaching across the table for the soup, she reaches out and snatches away the stick.
Now I’m not a Zen Master, and I don’t want to govern anything. Furthermore, that’s a parable, and we live in reality where things are just a bit more complicated. Especially in this community. Try standing up for anything (or to anything), for example, and you’re a Deaf Radical, an Angry Deaf Person, or an ASL Militant. Swing the pendulum the other way and we come face to face with Oppressive Hearing People, Greedy Cochlear Implant Corporations, and Hearing Parents Living in Denial.
By the way, I don’t claim to be unbiased when it comes to Deaf Community Politics. In fact I most definitely am. But I also recognize a stick for a stick, and I recognize the process of people being beaten up for exactly what it is.
Now what to do about this? That’s the five thousand dollar question. After all, it’s not like anything happened yesterday that’s magically going to lift people out of their prejudice, anger, and distrust by tomorrow. Nothing happened that will make the act of taking an anonymous dig at your favorite boogeyman any less fun. The internet is what it is, blogs are what they are, and the fact that there are a lot of people out there more than a few bats short of a cave is one that I unfortunately cannot alter.
So why bother reviving DeafDC.com under a new name and management? What’s going to get resolved? The same people who didn’t get along there and then aren’t going to get along here and now. There will be some good blogs and some good comments for a while, and then someone will inevitably step over the line. A flame war will ensue and people will get tired of being bashed. The writers will burn out, there will be fewer and fewer posts, and that’s the end of Deaf Echo, right? The whole run should take maybe three years, tops, and at the end of it the deaf community will be exactly what it was when we first started out: a bitterly divided collective (oxymoronic, I know!) of warring factions/individuals largely unable to move past anything.
Ha, maybe so.
But maybe not. I believe in the power of stories, you see, and in the power of communication. Crazy things, frightening things, awe-inspiring things have come into being because someone stood up and said something or sat down and wrote something. History bears this out. Maybe the changes aren’t what we hoped for or even what we would have liked, but the power is there nonetheless, and undeniable. The potential is enormous.
Welcome to Deaf Echo. The next message that shapes the future of our community may very well be yours.
