SURDOPHOBIA
30 01 2009All..
This is a completly different issue; my pardon, but I thought you all will find this very interesting. It is an old one, so many of you probably already read that; if so, my apologies.
Surdophobia means fear of deaf professional.
As I look back at the times I’ve worked with hearing professionals at the Texas Public Utility Commission, I could recall times that lawyers, few professionals, and even a couple supervisors (I had 8) are intimidated by me. They come in form of refusing to talk to me, communicate only by memos, preventing me from talking with Commissioners (one lawyer did that) and – fortunately not many – outright refusal to have anything to do with me.
That said, I should say that TPUC has been VERY good to me. Most of them are receptive to my suggestions, ideas, etc. Texas became the flagship for relay-related issues.
Anyway, I thought many of you professionals probably recognized that symtom in ur hearing professionals as well.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
So, you mean deaf professional only ? What abt fear of regular deaf ? Good teacher ! I learned something today Ü
Roseanne,
This one is fear of deaf professional. I’m sure there is a fear of deaf as well ;-]
Ed
I love this one. It is very common for all deaf and so easy to resolve with good interpreter services. Co workers sometimes need to be forced to develop one on one communication to bridge the gap. Over time these issues disappear. Thanks so much for sharing!
It means fear of ALL deaf people including those with an expertise. Especially those who might be more knowledgeable than the hearing people who work with them. People tend to be afraid of embarrassing themselves when faced with a different kind of person, as if they were a different species from Mars!
Thanks for the new word, Ed, it is a problem with many new parents, uninitated coworkers and wet-behind-the-ears service people. Now that we have a name for it, maybe we can come up with a cure.
Ed,
In Latin, “surd-”, derived from “absurd”, means “deaf”. I cannot agree more
that some heraring people and even some oralists who are audists’ deaf
protégés would feel insulted that some deaf people surpass them and would, therefore, become surdophobic.
Merci beaucoup for bringing up the subject so as to raise Deaf awareness
amongst Deaf people some of whom are still unsuspicious or in a complete
oblivion about some hearing people’s and deaf protégés’ surdophobia!
Hmm! Very interesting to learn new word “surpophobia” that reminded of my past working experiences with all hearing coworkers and top leaders (managers/supervisors) who were afraid of me, only one deaf employee in the largest corporate headquarters after few weeks of first hiring on the job I don’t remember which year at that time ADA law went effective in 1990—still weakened between my time 1988 to 2004.
Later those coworkers/top leaders were confessed me that they had bad experiences three times (different year apart) with previous deaf employees before me that I never knew. I was the third deaf employee. Previous deaf employees had bad work ethnics, unacceptable attitudes/behaviors, goes on…and prone to show up late working as of result firing them.
Opposite, I was the highest exceeded working performance, perfect attendence, excellence working ethnic, excellent time management/problem-solving skills and fastest typing office-effective worker they both managers, supervisors, and coworkers impressed with.
They all found out the difference between previous deaf employees and me that I had more than 15 years working experiences with college-degree computer-related field background while previous deaf employees were first-time workers from hearing community college career development with deaf education/special needs sent them there for two-week job probations or something like that. I mean they never had real job for the first time.
Unfortunately i think that college career development program for deaf students were cut off because most deaf students do not understand about job responsibility ending up dropped out their hearing colleges in order to apply for SSI for rest of their lives—that was sad!!!
By the way, I am profoundly deaf former MSSD/Gallaudet graduate, grew up in hearing pre-school starting at age 3 to 13 changing from Cued Speech, SEE, and now PSE. Thank for your blog about ’surdophobia’.
Jean,
I enjoyed ur play of words. As we become more enlightened, more lexicon terms come into existence.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
Teresa,
Right. It is someting companies/state and federal agencies need to be aware of that one or two bad deaf/hoh employee does not mean ALL deaf/hoh are equally bad.
Check this website out
http://www.mosinternational.com/movie.html
Very good analytical movie on deafness.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
Ed,
Indeed true. The deaf community was literally putting a lot of pressure on a VRS company for not having a Deaf executive and that company finally gave in to keep the community quite by hiring a Deaf person later on. They did made a hearing person a vice president behind the closed door without announcing an opening position to the public. Maybe they have a right to do so but the deaf community have a different view…
Hello to everyone..
Wow I am learning a new word and it does make sense.. I just wanted to share small information with you.. I am from Portuguse heritage..Surdo also means Deaf in portugese language. Just a thought to share…