HEY NEW YORKERS IN DC!

Shout out to General Jen who has just joined Tent City! She will be putting up photos later and I will link to them.

Lots of high schools joining in the protest. California School for the Deaf and Maryland School for the Deaf are both sending support as well as Deaf people around the country and around the world.

We know how important the protest is. Deaf leadership here in America translates to Deaf people empowering themselves all over the world. Fernandes may want to pretend this is a popularity contest; this is her choice. I see instead a community knowing we need someone who will fight for our survival.

Someone recently posted a list of "great things Fernandes did to improve diversity." Well, she claimed to have "improved diversity" at MSSD too, but what she really did was "baby down" the school.

I agree a disproportionate number of students who were held behind were Black students. I do not think it was the fault of MSSD. I think they got to the school with really poor education. I've commented on this blog about the plight of inner-city children, many of whom are Black - or Peurto Rican, like my own family. There's no easy answer to these questions, but the Fernandes solution seems to be to transform the school into a Job Center, just another form of VESID, to churn out McDonald's french-fry chefs. That's not the vision we need for a new century; we need to create a center of learning which will be open to all kinds of d/Deaf people to create a melting pot in which the underlying truths behind the Deafhood concept will become clear.

Let's be clear. I sign worse than Fernandes (friends disagree, but that's why they're friends.) I was raised orally. But I am still a Deaf person. I care about Deaf community more than almost anything except my family. We have a special fire. There is something golden about it. I want it to last forever. I don't want us to go back to the bad old days of peddling cards.