Teresa Blankmeyer Burke
“Selective” Mutism
He has selective hearing. People say this a lot about hard of hearing folk. Wives chide their husbands with this bon mot; parents do the same with their teenagers, who hear the vibration of their pagers in noisy rooms, but miss repeated requests to take out the trash. I’m interested in another phenomenon: selective [...]
Feeling Stupid or ‘Smart-for-Deaf’
I work in an environment where one’s intellect is often a proxy for self-worth. I’m not endorsing this view, mind you, but it is hard to escape it. Deaf and hard of hearing people have a special version of this: what I call the ‘smart for deaf’ version. That is, we acknowledge that there is [...]
The Artist and Silence
Last week I went to see a silent movie. Well, truth be told, most movies I watch are “silent” – at least for me. I’d rather watch a captioned flick on my Macbook than watch a movie with hearing aid sound and floating captions on a weird bendy pipe arm, but that’s just me. [...]
Language Wrong
I’ve spent my whole life among people who use English as a second language. Most are Spanish speakers who learned English as a second language; others spoke Arabic or German first, then added English. Signing came later – I was 18 when I first met people who signed, and 19 when I started signing myself. [...]
How My Broken Ankle Helped Me Understand Hearing Loss
I was probably born hearing, but I don’t remember any of it. The cooing of mourning doves in the morning is my only non-hearing-aid-assisted auditory memory. When I was very young, before I was old enough to start school, I heard the birds. I remember the dappled early morning sunshine on my walls, looking at [...]
It Gets Better. It Really Does.
Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve probably seen this week’s troubling stories about gay teens committing suicide. The deaths of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown from a small town just outside Houston, Texas, and Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California have haunted my thoughts this week. Watching Seth Walsh’s sister’s Youtube [...]
From Echolalia to Coprolalia: Civility on Deaf Echo
Hello readers! It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Three cheers to administrators Bobby, Adam, and Chris for rising like the phoenix from the ashes of DeafDC to give us Deaf Echo. I’m humbled to be invited to blog along, and grateful for another chance to engage in deaf community discourse. Another chance? Yes, [...]
Eid Mubarak!
Last Thursday night I had the honor of attending an Eid al-Fitr celebration hosted by Global Deaf Muslim and the Deaf Muslim Student Association (DMSA) at Gallaudet University. Just in case you are not familiar with the Eid al-Fitr holiday, this is the three day celebration that occurs at the end of Ramadan, a month [...]
Motherhood, Guns, and Open Futures
On the first day of Spring Break I fired an M-16 assault rifle. Motherhood made me do it, but not for the reasons you might think. You see, this peace-loving, anti-violence mother who won’t permit anything to be killed in the house gave birth to a now grown child who is a gifted marksman. So [...]
What’s in a Name?
It has been a long time since I’ve posted on DeafDC. Too long, in fact. My excuse is that I’ve been writing other stuff, namely a dissertation that has to be defended this term, but also a brief piece on the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill for Bionews co-written with some superb academic colleagues [...]