The White House Petition Regarding American Sign Language Could Carry Phyrric Consequences

In the past three and a half weeks, a petition based at the White House website has been circulating madly in the deaf community.

"WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Officially recognize American Sign Language as a community language and a language of instruction in schools."

Found at : https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/officially-recognize-american-sign-language-community-language-and-language-instruction-schools/CRPw2JLk

Now with just 4 days remaining, the petition is rapidly closing in on it's goal of 25,000 signatures to elicit an official response from the White House. As of the time this blog post is written, it's just a little shy of 2000 signatures needed and is predicted to be making its goal by Monday or maybe sooner.

This petition has been the latest rallying cry to mobilize the deaf community. Social networks have been heavily used to call attention to this petition. Kudos to all those involved in getting the petition signatures.

Once the goal is met, there will be plenty of victorious blogging and video blogging to be seen in the weeks ahead. The capital "D" deaf community need a little victory to drown out the major setbacks they faced in the past two years. Let's give them that little cheer!

Now let's wait for the official White House response to the petition. And that's where the phyrric elements would surface.

The communication methodology issue has always been a source of despair, a source of violent animosities between groups of people with different degrees of hearing loss. It has been a very tacky issue especially when it comes to the education of deaf children. That is because the civilization is advancing and medical technology that deals with hearing loss is also advancing with the civilization. This brings up the question of what is the best communication method for deaf children who have access to the new medical technology?

The question has been the subject of intense debates between groups of people with varying degrees of hearing loss, audiologists, and the technology. And this petition seeks to pull the White House into this foray.

This petition seeks to get the stamp of approval for American Sign Language from the White House. This is an area that requires soul searching from the highest authorities in the White House and the response could either go directly in their favor, against, or most likely it will be handed down like a mysterious cloud floating over the deaf community that would be interpreted in many different ways.

The deaf community needs to wait for the White House response before they pop their champagne bottles else they will come with a phyrric aftertaste.

Richard Roehm