A Note from the President
By Samuel J. Supalla
Why Ideology Should Matter...
For this third installment of the ASL First series, I would like to talk about the importance of
ideology. I recall some years ago that I watched a vlog involving a leader of the 2006 student protest
at Gallaudet University. In comparison to the first student protest, Deaf President Now in 1988, the
second protest did not produce highly desirable results. The media was not as supportive of the
2006 protest as they were for the 1988 protest, for example. Although Gallaudet University's Board
of Trustees yielded to the pressure from the 2006 protest and reversed their decision to employ Jane
Kelleher Fernandes as the university's president (after I. King Jordan's retirement), the student
leader, Ryan Commerson, was not happy with how the situation played out. In the October 8, 2006
vlog, Mr. Commerson made a direct reference to the need for a new ideology:
"The system has to go. It has to be ripped off the wall...paint the wall with a new ideology and
a new definition of what it means to be deaf..."
Sources: Cripps, 2006 and S. J. Supalla (personal communication with J. H. Cripps, July 27, 2019)
With the recent dispute regarding LEAD-K and the emergence of the ASL First slogan in the
American deaf community (see my first and second commentaries in the ASL First series for more
information), I decided to look in the dictionary for the definition of ideology. I found the definition to
be very interesting:
...1) visionary theorizing, 2a) a systematic body of concepts esp. about human life or culture,
2b) a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture, 2c)
the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.
Source: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2000)
Looking back, I believe that Mr. Commerson was correct in pointing out that we did not have a
clearly defined or strong ideology at the time of the 2006 student protest at Gallaudet University.
However, times have changed. I now believe that ASL First is part of the visionary theorizing process
for the American deaf community. With 'putting ASL first', we create a stronger and clearer voice.
Media and society at large may ask what ASL First means, and we can describe it as part of the 'civil
rights movement for the deaf'. According to the definition of ideology, ASL First becomes critical to
Deaf culture, deaf people as a group, and deaf individuals. Without ASL, we would not have a
signing community and we would suffer the full consequence of language deprivation, for example.
For ASL First to stand out as an ideology, we need to make sure that we fully integrate various
assertions and promote theories that will result in a highly viable sociopolitical program.
In this light, I am pleased to announce that SASL has worked hard in the publication of a third
journal issue (winter/spring of 2018) that was recently released. I wrote a commentary in this issue
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(Continue on the next page)
The Power of ASL
6
Summer 2019 – Issue 14