Your Thoughts on "The Mask of Benevolence"?

I have recently FINALLY started to read "The Mask of Benevolence" by Harlan Lane. Ha yes I should have read this a long time ago, I guess I'm just behind on that sort of thing, but I'm catching up now! :)

I am not finished reading yet. I started like 3 days ago and am about 3/4 done? I'm really was curious what your thoughts are about this book? It is obviously slightly out of date when it comes to the views of the Deaf community. I felt that Lane painted a picture of how all Deaf people did not want to have implants or aids, which is obviously not the case, but I am aware that the community has become much more accepting about implants in the last decade. Also, i felt as if he made it seem that unless the deaf child was raised using ASL, the child would not be successful. He kept saying that the lucky 10 percent of the deaf people who have a good education are the lucky ones who grew up using ASL. I don't know how accurate that is, but obviously he has much more data than I do! But I know that I have met some oral deaf people and they are intelligent and got through school rather well even though they were taught orally. Same with deaf kids who grew up using Signed English [like myself]. Then there are the native ASL signers that I have met who are extremely intelligent as well! I think what is the real issue here though, as Lane also mentioned in one way or another, is that a child obviously needs some sort of language at home before the child starts school. Any sort of language is better than none, right? Another issue is that obviously if the child was raised for its first 5 years in ASL, and then ends up at a school that only teaches orally or in Signed English [and whatever else], the child is basically screwed for the first couple years as they struggle to convert from ASL to Signed English or oralism [if they ever succeed, i would imagine it's easier to convert from ASL to Signed English, than it would be to convert from ASL to oralism], and that in turn interrupts the education part of school. I was lucky in my case because I grew up using Signed English and then went to school using an interpreter who used Signed English so i did not have any problems when it came to adjusting from home to school.

I do however support ASL to be taught in school [deaf schools and mainstream via ASL interpreters], and do actually wish I was raised using ASL, but I wasn't. That's life, i don't hold any hard feelings against my mom for choosing Signed English over ASL. She at least wanted me to have a language [which was English obviously], and worked very hard on that. I'm very thankful to my mom, and even more so when i realize that there are parents out there who do not make the effort to communicate with their child, and just let the child spend it's first 5 years mostly language-less until it's time for school and figure that the school for the deaf can deal with the child. When i think about this, i feel very incredibly lucky to have a parent who cared!!

Back to the book, i also felt as if Lane was saying that being mainstreamed did not help the deaf child at all, and that they would not be able to be successful. I disagreed as I am a product of mainstreaming. It has it win and lose situations.. I had access to really good education, but i did not have full access to socialization. Which is most important? It's a tough one really, because socialization is so important to a child, it teaches the child a lot of things that will stick with them as they grow up. I strongly feel that my social anxiety is something that came from being mainstreamed. Although, obviously a deaf child would generally fail while being mainstreamed if they did not at least have an interpreter [or note-writer, CART and whatever, although i prefer interpreters by far, kind of curious about CART, never used that before]. I just felt that it was not completely accurate to declare that mainstreaming a deaf child was a bad thing. Reading through this book, i kind of felt that he did not mention people who grew up the way I did, and just focused on black and white, the successful ones who were schooled via ASL, and the unsuccessful ones who were not schooled via ASL. Where is the gray area?

I'm not finished yet so, we shall see what else i read! Overall, i am enjoying the book, it has a lot of information that i did not know or gave too much thought on, it's definitely good food for the brain. But I have to say i disagree with some of the things he writes about.

It has been interesting reflecting on how the hearing society in general tries to 'fix' deaf people. He definitely provides A LOT of information on this and it is actually refreshing to realize that Lane is a hearing person and yet thinks like this. Obviously implants do not 'fix' deaf people, and one can still be culturally Deaf and wear implants. I kind of felt as if Lane was saying that deaf people who wear implants and so on are a product of the audists attempt to fix deaf people and... that gives me a bad taste in the mouth... Because obviously we can think for ourselves, if we choose to have an implant, it's generally not because we're doing what 'they' want us to do, we're doing it because we want to. It's 2006, we have access to the internet, we can do our own research, we can think for ourselves, and if I ever get an implant, it's only because i want a little assistant in this world I live in, not because i am resorting and submitting to the 'audists'. It is a different story though, of course, for parents who discover they have a deaf baby and do not get access to every point of view. It is unfair for the audiologist to only refer to cochlear implants instead of saying that well, here's your options: you can implant your child, or you can have the child wear aids, and also you should talk to the Deaf community and get their views on what they think would be the best for the child. It is extremely important to have access to every point of view, and it is obvious that parents generally do not receive that, unless they ask for it.

I support implanting deaf babies by the way, if the parents want to do that, go for it. I am unsure if I would do that to my deaf child if i had one... BUT what i do not support, is raising an implanted baby with no sign language [ASL, BSL whatever your country's sign language is] at all. They say that it would 'stunt' the baby's progress, but I don't buy that. Look at all these hearing babies who learn 'baby signs' before they speak. They have no problems learning how to speak like a month or two after signing. My sister learned Signed English before she started to speak, and signing obviously did not interrupt her education and speech. Also i feel that it is very important for the implanted baby to have access to every form of communication: speech AND signing, it will only benefit the baby to have both, also to be FLUENT in sign language as well. That way the child gets to be a part of both worlds. That's the biggest injustice that is done to implanted children as far as I am concerned is that if the child does not successfully master the spoken language, the child will always feel somehow left out in one way or another, and would obviously not be able to be a part of the Deaf community either as the child does not know sign language at all and is in fact told to NOT learn how to sign. That is the injustice, it's not the cochlear implant itself, it's raising the implanted baby with no sign language or knowledge of and involvement in Deaf culture. If the implanted child has access to both spoken and signed language, i think the child will only benefit from that, the child would have access to both worlds.

Anyway, i got off track a bit there heh. I'll save the rest of my comments on this book for next time. I definitely could cover more topics, but this post is getting long enough!

I'm wondering what your views are on this book? Ramble away, feel free to disagree with what i wrote as well. I welcome all points of view. Let's be respectful of each other though okay?