Deaf Awareness
Edmund West looks at attitudes to deafness and the education of the hard of hearing, over the centuries.
May 5th-11th is Deaf Awareness Week, a time dedicated to a social group that has been almost invisible to historians. This is a pity as deaf history can be so informative about discrimination, linguistics, education, even neurology. And twenty years ago, the 2,000 students of the world’s first University for the Deaf, Gallaudet, Washington DC, went on strike, demanding a deaf president, and majority deaf representation on the board of trustees.
Their first employment was as assassins as they naturally could not say who their paymaster was.
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