THE RIPPLE EFFECT: Deaf Mississippi

by Carl Schroeder

Few people change our fundamental view of the Deaf world: Socrates, Plato, L’Epee, Sicard, Gallaudet, Clerc, Verditz, Stokoe, a handful of others. It is impossible to imagine our lives without them, for they got people thinking about the thinkable: Deaf people have American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate information and knowledge to make new meanings. Nothing could be simpler, nothing more natural and judging from the recent incident at Mississippi School for the Deaf, nothing harder to achieve.

Communication has its prerequisites—language and knowledge. Without language, both knowledge and communication are nonexistent. Animals do not have language; they have stimulations for survival. Only human languages allow us to account for temporal stimulations for humanities to survive. Only human beings can talk about incidents of the past to make predictions for the future.

In the fact, the world of the Deaf is looking out for the ripple effect of the historical FSSA protest at Gallaudet University which was half concluded with the demand of no reprisal still in the question. It was felt in Mississippi yesterday. About twenty young students protested poor communication and other issues at Mississippi School for the Deaf. The media was prevented from interviewing the protestors on the school premise, and the students were told to go back in the school or they violated the school policy.

But I’ve already seen communication as badly conveyed as this one in Mississippi. Deaf people don’t move to Mississippi; they “embrace” Mississippi. Unhappiness of the students as young as they are at Mississippi Deaf School can appear self-indulgent, though it’s more like the self-doubt that can kill their imagination when it sends out roots in the parching soil of incomprehension.

Worse, Mississippi was unclear. President John Adams warned: “The danger of revolution is its knock on effect for disobedient children…” Its knock-on effect? Mississippi must be honest in acknowledging that these children at Deaf School need ASL that is essentially a human language. These unhappy students represent the future of Mississippi School for the Deaf because they know the school needs to incorporate ASL for better communication and education.