1. “Coming together is a beginning,
keeping together is progress, and
working together is success.”-Henry
Ford
Are Deaf
More Like
Rocks or
Feathers?
Feathers
Kaylee Teixeira

2. 1 | P a g e
Kaylee Teixeira
DST 101
Sandra Lygren
12/23/15
10:55 am
Are Deaf people more like rocks or feathers? This is a question I’ve pondered, dissected,
and put back together again. Strong arguments can be made for both objects, they are like both in
many ways. However, the question is what are they MORE like, so one object must be chosen.
The whole time I was brainstorming, I was certain I would choose rock because I had labeled a
rock as strong and a feather as weak or flimsy. But then, I realized that perhaps that’s the point in
which I was wrong. Not only was I making a choice based on my initial labels, but I was making
a choice based on misrepresentation when comparing Deaf to these labels. Are Deaf people
strong? –yes. But one single rock on its own is a solid mass; it is strong. Deaf people, alone, with
no one to communicate with, would withdraw into a deep pit of isolation. This is why I chose
feather. Feathers are associated with lightness, but in common riddles, “Does a pound of gold or
a pound of feathers weight more” we realize that together they are as hefty as any other mass.
One Deaf person has a backbone, as does the vain in a feather, but is still not nearly strong as
feathers put together; Deaf community needs each other.
Deaf individuals come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. What I mean by that is
they each have a different story as their background, and while many might be similar, no two
are alike. Some are born Deaf of Deaf, most were not since more than 90% of deaf are born to
hearing parents. A wide spectrum of educational options can really make one’s story further
unique. Residential schools, mainstreaming, total communication, oral, and Bi lingual-Bi cultural
teachings all have a significant impact on shaping the lives of the Deaf. As a result, many sign

3. 2 | P a g e
using ASL; a visual language, many do not. Many read lips and are oral, many are not. Many use
assistive technology such as hearing aids, many don’t.
Feathers can certainly be beautiful, take the peacock for example. The peacock is a
beautiful creature with lengthening feathers commonly of blue and green. When light shines on
the feathers we see thousands of shimmering colored spots. We stare in amazement, the beauty
of it often making us forget that those feathers have a purpose. Feathers send visual signals, as
George Veditz said, Deaf people are “People of the eye”. In the human eye beauty often clouds
our vision of function. Hearing society does the same thing in relation to the Deaf. ASL is not
just swaying your arms back and forth to a beautiful rhythm. It is not something to gawk at. Deaf
view sign language as a necessity not an accessary. ASL is a survival tool used to get down and
dirty not just something pretty. Deaf are often overlooked because of their “beauty” and treated
as they are not capable of a function in the human society. This is why employment, even after
the ADA and Rehabilitation Act, is a constant struggle in the deaf community. But just as the
peacock feather has its purpose to attract a mate, Deaf people have a purpose in this world; they
have fought for it as we’ve seen in the Deaf President Now movement, and they still continue to
fight every day for the opportunity to live out their desired with equal accessibility.
Humans use feathers for a variety of uses, such as: stuffing, insulation, arts and crafts,
and decorations. A problem is that many feathers are plucked from live birds. Sound like audism
to you? The Deaf population is plucked apart by the idea of superiority. Speech is what language
is according to hearing society. Deaf are discriminated against, denied rights, paternalized, and
sometimes even physically harmed. Deaf people sometimes begin to believe that they are the
subordinate to hearing world. When they begin to believe that maybe they really can’t do
something or they aren’t good enough, not only do they not have a strong Deaf identity, but they

4. 3 | P a g e
now are in a state of dysconcious audism. When this happens it is hoped that they are surrounded
by other feathers whose purpose it is to protect one from the outside elements of harm.
In order for a deaf person to stand up for the deaf community; to stand up against audism,
they must first themselves have molted their own feelings of dysconcious audism and reached
the point of Deafhood. Deafhood is extremely important to Deaf individuals. No matter what
label a deaf person has been given: born deaf, late deafened, hard of hearing, oral; they all,
through life’s journey become confident in their identity and would not want to change who they
are. They can all fit under the umbrella of deafhood when the rain of oppression’s struggle is
pouring down on them.
The Deaf community is strongly woven together. Just as a bird plucks out its diseased or
damaged feathers, the Deaf must do the same in order to fly. Those who tear each other down in
the community, who criticize other Deaf individuals successes, those who judge the choices of
others (perhaps a choice to receive a cochlear implant), those who are jealous and gossip, fit into
the Crab Theory. The analogy is to a bucket of live crabs: whenever one crab attempts to escape
the bucket by climbing out of it, the others reach up and pull it back down. The result, of course,
is that no crab succeeds in escaping the bucket. This is the official analogy used by the Deaf
community, but for just this once imagine it as a group of baby birds in a nest. One tries to
spread their tiny wings of flight feathers to fly but the other birds grab ahold with their beaks and
pull it back down. The result is that the Deaf community doesn’t move forward until these bad
feathers are removed or healed. In a recent event at
BCC (which was amazing Sandy!), Chris Wagner stated, “But we in the Deaf community,
what do we tend to do? We complain, complain, complain. Turn the complaining into action.
You must do that. Stop complaining, do something about it. Oh it’s broken, it’s not working,

5. 4 | P a g e
they’re shutting down. Well what are you going to do about it? You have to take the
responsibility and turn that complaint into action.” This is what Deaf individuals are currently
working on today. They are becoming accountable to one another working together like a well-
oiled bird (As they preen, they distribute natural oils to help keep their feathers maintained.)
To conclude, as Henry Ford said “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is
progress, and working together is success.” How are Deaf like feathers? Birds of a different
feather flock together. No matter the differences Deaf people have, they are all under the same
umbrella and run like hell, they fight to get out of the rain.

6. 5 | P a g e
Environment
•Indicatehealth ofthe
environtment -amountof
rocks facter into
determining soilquality
•shape the environment-
mountain ranges,
watersheds
•Alter the environment -
mountains changeclimate
•Bedrock -Deaffoundation
in ASL
Erode/Refine
•water or wind dissolving
or removing geographic
materials
•^Born to hearing or deaf,
school attended, life
experiences, audism,
community or lack of,
marriage..etcall shape
deafperson
Classification
• ParticleSize
•Shape
•Colors
•permeability
•texture
Geology
•Rocks arecomposed of
grains ofminerals held
together by chemical
bonds
• ^ Attributes makeup one
person whothen belongs
to a group who thenjoins
a community
•igneous,sedimentary,
metamorphic
•^labels =born deaf,late
deafened, hardofhearing,
oral
Human Use
•Mining extracting
valuables
• we completely change it
into what wewantit tobe
or function as
•^colonization
•^Audism-usewhen
needed WWIIextracted
their work butthen
treatedas insufficiantin
society
•building
•used as monuments -
digton rock / plymouth
rock.
•^monumentous moments
in deafcultureDPN
• ^ Deafare a gain to
society

7. 6 | P a g e
classification
•vaned
•down
•synthetic
•contour
•labels= born deaf, late deafened,
hard of hearing, oral
physical
attributes
•size
•colors
•parasites
•^parasites community =crabtheory
•function overlooked bybeauty
Functions
•insulation
• decorative
•flight control
•protectionfrom outside elements
•sending visualsignals
•camouflage
•moult ^achieving deafhood
Human
Use/Animal
Cruelty
•stuffing
•Pluckedfrom live birds
•^Audism
•Arts and cafts