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Riker the ableist?

It goes back to my earlier comment: "the Deaf community today has a strong shared culture and identity, and many do not consider deafness to be a condition that needs to be cured." Those who are not in this community don't necessarily understand this viewpoint.

I do wonder, how would the Deaf/ASL community adapt to a future where advanced medical technology can give everybody perfect hearing for free? Will many decline such medical intervention?

Kor
I am profoundly deaf.
If I could have a medical procedure done to make me hear again,
HELL YES!
I'd have it done in a millisecond.
Absolutely no hesitation.
Being deaf sucks.
People really don't understand.
If you are in a wheelchair they probably don't say asinine stuff like," can't you move faster?"
But deaf!
All the fucking time,
"can't you hear that!?"
Or I tell them that if I watch their mouth while they speak I can understand them better, so they immediately put their hand over and around their mouth and nod, probably saying something about something that makes this and that sense.

I never really noticed that what Riker said to be offensive, but more like what I would say too.
"Yo, dude, you know that they can fix that now, right?"
 
I am profoundly deaf.
If I could have a medical procedure done to make me hear again,
HELL YES!
I'd have it done in a millisecond.
Absolutely no hesitation.
Being deaf sucks.
People really don't understand.
If you are in a wheelchair they probably don't say asinine stuff like," can't you move faster?"
But deaf!
All the fucking time,
"can't you hear that!?"
Or I tell them that if I watch their mouth while they speak I can understand them better, so they immediately put their hand over and around their mouth and nod, probably saying something about something that makes this and that sense.

I never really noticed that what Riker said to be offensive, but more like what I would say too.
"Yo, dude, you know that they can fix that now, right?"
Hi

I'm sorry you feel this way. But Kor isn't wrong. In all of my travels in the past forty years, nearly all of the Deaf folks I've encountered, most are quite happy with their life having their hearing loss. Many who grew up mainstreaming in the public schools often wish they got to learn ASL. It's probably based on experience, kinds of interactions with others, not the disability itself.

That's the thing one needs to understand before they want to wish the disability away....determining if their lives would be truly better if their so called disability suddenly disappeared.

As for being in a wheelchair, I'm sure folks confined to a wheelchair get asked stupid questions time to time. Oh, apparently Google is my friend...

Linky

There's a part twoer as well.
 
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Hi

I'm sorry you feel this way. But Kor isn't wrong. In all of my travels in the past forty years, nearly all of the Deaf folks I've encountered, most are quite happy with their life having their hearing loss. Many who grew up mainstreaming in the public schools often wish they got to learn ASL. It's probably based on experience, kinds of interactions with others, not the disability itself.

That's the thing one needs to understand before they want to wish the disability away....determining if their lives would be truly better if their so called disability suddenly disappeared.

As for being in a wheelchair, I'm sure folks confined to a wheelchair get asked stupid questions time to time. Oh, apparently Google is my friend...

Linky

There's a part twoer as well.
Just saying, if they offer to take away my disability, I'm all
For it.
My dumbassed former fencing coach got pissed off at me because I couldn't hear him making parries againts his opponent.
Every week I had to listen to him going off about "can't you hear that I parried the attack?"
Every frickin week, and I'd tell him, every friggin week, "you know, the hearing aids only work so well, direction of sound isn't all that great." Every friggin week at practice I went through this.
But it goes on and on, stuff at work all the time too.
I asked to sit in the front of a training session due to my hearing problem. But people think if you can't hear, your faking it.
Or they say, " I have bad hearing too."
' yea, fuck head,' I think,' are you wearing your $7000.00 hearing aids? Cuz I sure can't see them there.'
If I could get my hearing fixed I'd be all over it!
 
Just saying, if they offer to take away my disability, I'm all
For it.
My dumbassed former fencing coach got pissed off at me because I couldn't hear him making parries againts his opponent.
Every week I had to listen to him going off about "can't you hear that I parried the attack?"
Every frickin week, and I'd tell him, every friggin week, "you know, the hearing aids only work so well, direction of sound isn't all that great." Every friggin week at practice I went through this.
But it goes on and on, stuff at work all the time too.
I asked to sit in the front of a training session due to my hearing problem. But people think if you can't hear, your faking it.
Or they say, " I have bad hearing too."
' yea, fuck head,' I think,' are you wearing your $7000.00 hearing aids? Cuz I sure can't see them there.'
If I could get my hearing fixed I'd be all over it!


Okay

Most of us had that kind of experience. Most of us just don't decide to let ...dumbsases as you say, influence what we do to our bodies. One still encounters dumbasses no matter what :lol:
 
Okay

Most of us had that kind of experience. Most of us just don't decide to let ...dumbsases as you say, influence what we do to our bodies. One still encounters dumbasses no matter what :lol:
It's more than that.
I'd like to hear birds again in the morning.
I'd like to not have to have my hearing aid battery go dead and have to stop everything and go and get another battery, remove the old one put in a new one,
I'd like to be able to watch TV at night and hear it rather than have to read it because I have to take out my hearing aids and make sure they get in my bag that I take to work in the morning, I'd like to not have to sometimes endure pain similar to swimmers ear or an earache just so I can hear, I'd like to wake up, and not have to put in my hearing aids to hear anything/everything.
I'd like to not have to buy a special very loud alarm clock to use to wake up. The cell phone alarms I just can't hear. If someone breaks into my house, I'd not be able to hear it. If the police or fire department were banging on my door, I couldn't hear it, if my neighbor was screaming for help, I couldn't hear it. I can't hear if my car engine, brakes, tires, wheels etc. are making odd or serious noises. I can't hear if the furnace is making noises, can't hear if the water has been left running, can't hear if one of my dogs is sick or crying.
Can't hear gun shots, yep, that actually happened in my neighborhood, a guy barricaded himself in his house and the cops were shooing at his house, I went walking right outside.
It goes way way way beyond the dumbass questions and statements,
 
Just watched the beginning of it. I noticed they were already tense. I was a bit taken back by Worf's comment about Rivas doing the negotiations between the Federation and Klingons. Riva must be much older than the actor

I think Riker's reaction was a bit silly, but no not ableist. Surely, this wasn't the first or last time some kind of diplomat came aboard and visited the bridge with a bunch of staff. I think I missed how they were already tense...without really explaining why.

Lot of dialogue came off forced..
 
The Cochlear implants can have issues too, lots of them. Can't get wet, can't sleep in them. Plus at $30,000-$50,000!
Yea right.
Battery replacement just like regular hearing aids too.:ack:
Plus they can cause you to lose what small amount of hearing you have left.
Hopefully in 400 years, they have something better.
 
The Cochlear implants can have issues too, lots of them. Can't get wet, can't sleep in them. Plus at $30,000-$50,000!
Yea right.
Battery replacement just like regular hearing aids too.:ack:
Plus they can cause you to lose what small amount of hearing you have left.
Hopefully in 400 years, they have something better.
Cannot do underwater welding :(

I don't know why I missed how tense they seemed. Attributing it to the situation is BS. They were more relaxed during Code of Honor.

Perhaps Howie Seago was a difficult actor to work with. Weird, I don't hear about him much. I know he's actually quite successful in theater. But nobody has heard of him, compared to Marlee Matlin or the actor who played the Hulk...
 
Ableist is such a funny term but before I get off track I assert that not only was Riker not being prejudice but that he was reacting to the subservience of third party communication. I don’t concur with any view in which he was making a negative judgement of deafness.

Even seperate to the concept of Riva being used as a remote speaker, I feel Riker was reacting to the sheer fracture in communication.
 
I mean the whole beginning of the episode was pretty dumb. Riva was such a famous and well respected diplomat//negotiator (I can't remember the exact term they used) who worked on so many important peace treaties in the recent history of the 2360s....yet nobody, absolutely nobody knew these two very obvious facts about him?(The Deafness and his Communication via the Chorus) I mean I just think Picard should have been told ahead of time, just like it should be mentioned when a species is telepathic, or needs a different mixture of gases to breath (wasn't that the thing with the Benzites?)
Seems like something Starfleet should have mentioned and detailed in their orders to Picard to undertake the mission. At the very least someone should have made it obvious that Riva will be arriving with three interpreters who will need their own accommodation (The lady interpreter says something to the effect of "I hope you have quarters for us as well")
I mean it's not like Riva and Picard were meeting at a function, a party or causal get together, they were on a important mission, where things usually get detailed in advance.

Seems like it could have been told to the audience in the Captains Log and then we go straight to a scene where Riva's way of communication via the Chorus is shown to the audience.

Truth be told I wish we had learned more about Riva and his Chorus before they were killed off. It seemed like the three interpreters were their own people, did they have their own lives? Were they allowed to quit? The episode made it seem like they were irreplaceable (or was it just that Riva feared that the chance of peace for that war-torn planet would be over by the time they had gotten, and possibly trained, replacements?) Or were they a sort of hive mind?

It all kinda reminds me of Haven, when everybody just coincidentally ran into each other in the vastness of space (and even Troi just walked into the Transporter Room for no apparent reason when her gift box was beamed on board without any explanation)
Stuff like that makes Starfleet seem kinda disorganized.
 
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