Inside A Deaf School’s Fight For Civil Rights | AJ+

[Music] I identify myself as a black deaf woman I'm Khalid Chapman I'm from Washington DC I'm a fifth year student at Gallaudet University and majoring in government and considering two minors Public Health Sciences and criminal justice maybe I'll run for Congress one day you never know all deaf individuals can do everything except hear [Music] my first day I was a little taken aback I was taking it all in you know just introducing myself to people Gallaudet is unique because it's the only one of its kind in the world I mean the only one it's the only University for deaf people that provides education designed specifically for deaf and hard of hearing students the first time sometimes people meet a deaf person they might feel overwhelmed and then they'll just decide to you know I don't even want to engage with this deaf person but I am happy to pull out a pen and a piece of paper I'm ready to communicate with anyone who wants to communicate with me if there's even a guy who's hitting on me we can write back and forth that's fine I can even navigate the dating scene writing notes with someone who might be interested in me so that doesn't bother me at all around seven months old something happened where I had a hearing loss I we're not sure if it was due to an illness but after that I became deaf and so I began to learn ASL got a cochlear implant and that led me to Who I am today oh I remember when I finally came into the deaf community it was in high school and I felt like the deaf community was something new to me that there was this whole Deaf world where everyone was signing you know everyone was communicating openly and freely with one another American Sign Language was first began by deaf people American Sign Language is our language research has shown that many children would benefit from having as to a visual language either they're deaf or hearing and it adds a certain dimension to your brain in terms of the way your brain processes language [Music] Gallaudet University was founded in 1864 [Music] so fast forward to 1988 at that time Gallaudet was a hundred and twenty four years old and in that a hundred and twenty four years we had never had a deaf president leave this institution [Music] [Applause] [Music] my role 30 years ago has been one that I've carried with me throughout that time I'm part of Gallaudet's history something that we call deaf president now DPN which was a movement that happened here in DC but involved people throughout the country [Music] Gallaudet University had to have a deaf president because that was the whole purpose of the university's establishment in the first place to advance educational opportunities to advance the lives of people who were deaf we closed the gates of the campus we got a lot of media attention we had rallies every day sometimes two or three times a day in fact the effort grew and it didn't just impact folks here in the United States it went global and all of that happened within one short week we call that that's the week the world heard Gallaudet [Music] [Applause] I tendered my resignation last night to pave the way for the Board of Trustees to consider the selection of a president who is hearing-impaired I am thrilled to accept the invitation of the Board of Trustees to become the president of Gallaudet University we had won we won we had made it happen you know all that hard work can result in something that was successful and we proved that to be the case that we made this enormous impact it was incredible we've made the first step it's not over yet this is just the beginning and we'll keep on making steps until we run and run it King had a famous quote and that quote was shared broadly DPN has inspired me actually what I learned was that deaf people really can do anything and everything and that really inspired me to get involved in politics because we don't have any deaf individual at this time serving in Congress and I want to be the person that makes that happen you know maybe by the time I'm 25 who knows I'm actually the only deaf member of my family so I come from a hearing family and I do remember my mom telling me that when she found out that I was deaf and had a hearing loss she was a little taken aback at first you know of course there's that grief that you experience because you know she didn't know what to do with a deaf child sometimes I felt lonely and isolated you know I was a deaf student in a hearing classroom and in a hearing environment I actually went to three different programs for deaf students the first that I attended was an oral program that didn't work out and then I stopped speech training when I was in middle school because I'm a of course I was a rebellious teenager at that point right only I didn't want to use my cochlear implant I thought I was perfectly fine I knew who I was and I didn't feel like I needed to hear you know I didn't do that well in school I was getting in trouble a lot I wasn't able to participate and do well in class finish my homework but once I got to the School for the Deaf it was like night and day because of the Milan decision back in 1880 from that point forward deaf education really did not focus at all on sign language children were spokes to only focus on spoken language and so deaf and hard-of-hearing children who were trying to sign to communicate with one another using their hands in any way for communication were punished we grew up seeing stories shared by our parents about them going to work and coming home having experienced discrimination in the workplace we could see yet how strong our parents were badly against oppression and making their way in the world very strong-willed and believing that deaf people could do anything they set their mind to it [Music] the younger deaf population the younger children these days they don't know this story and they need to have this story shared with them it's true I don't hear certain things that those of you who can hear are able to hear and yet why should that be the focus on that deficit way of thinking when instead we could focus on all the good that Life brings to people who can't hear the amazing things that people who are deaf have as opposed to focusing on what it is they don't have this video is part of a larger series on the deaf community here are some of the incredible people featured in this series subscribe to catch all of these amazing stories on this season of untold America and let us know what community we should cover next

Channel: AJ+

Views: 88,990

Keywords: deaf student, life as a deaf student. deaf students, deaf education, deaf schooling, deaf student at gallaudet, student at gallaudet, News today, world news, current events, us news, aj+, aj+ in-depth, ajplus, al jazeera, netflix, disability, docuseries, hard of hearing, ASL, American sign language, deaf community, hearing impaired

Id: 2h-MSbMrvNw

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018