Does ADA disempower Deaf people?

Transcript:

You know the ADA? It is a law that was created supposedly to protect "disable" people and their rights. I'm starting to wonder whether the ADA really helps us, or does it hinder us?

I'll give you an example. Recently, someone told me that up in Sonoma County, which is in Northern California -- north of San Francisco. It seems that the Deaf community there has been having problems with the Sheriff's office in that county. I'm not sure yet on exactly what the problems are, I need to find out more information, but it seems there has been a history of recurring problems with the Sheriff.

The Deaf community there was dissatisfied with the Sheriff, and finally decided to file a grievance with the Human Resources Commission there. They wanted the Sheriff and the Deaf community to meet together and discuss the problems and work out a solution. I applaud their initiative in taking matters into their own hands, to empower themselves and stand up for themselves by filing the grievance against the Sheriff's department.

And do you know what happened? It seems that the County's ADA Coordinator stepped in and advised the Human Resources Commission that it was not their "problem", that since this was an issue concerning Deaf people, it fell under the purview of ADA, so the HRC should drop the case, and that the ADA Coordinator would work on resolving the problem.

So the HRC agreed to drop the case, which means that now the Deaf community is stuck working within ADA and with the ADA Coordinator, examining the rules of ADA, filing for interpreters, and all that bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.

Basically, it looks like the ADA Coordinator is trying to "contain" the Deaf community and the problem instead of letting the community take the problem on their own hands and take care of it themselves. That is, the ADA Coordinator is saying that they will solve the problem FOR the Deaf community, instead of letting them do it for themselves. That smacks of audism.

It seems to me that the ADA is not worth the paper it's printed on!

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• ADADisempowerment

[DeafJennyWitty]

Why does ADA decide FOR the Deaf to drop lawsuit? Only the Deaf can decide to drop the lawsuit, or the judge decides that the case has no merit (value) or needs to go to mediation (in between office/org to work out compromise/agreement etc).

[silentone15]

 What is problem that deaf community try to solve with sheriff? you did not tell whole story that enable me to agree or disagree with you.

[CapriUni]

In some ways, the ADA is a great step forward for people with *physical* disabilities -- giving us legal protection in seeking access to employment and public life. BUT where it fails, is that it lumps all different types of disabilities together, with a one-size-fits all, approach, AND (biggest failing) gives governments and businesses a specific "Letter of the Law" to follow, so people can read the law in its narrowest sense, and say: "not my problem!"

[heeheeluck]

ADA- Audism Defense Act

[ASLVisions]

Why Now? Better than never see what happened. It happened tons of time as I told people about ADA. It is a worse law ever I seen since its' history of laws for the deaf people. Look at the corporations? nasty of their loop on deaf people. Hearing people can have the job that can building their resume by involved with ADA. YUCK!!!