Cultural or Disability-Oriented — a Sports Event?

Politics does talk very eloquently and yes, at times backfire, often in Deaf culture most famed for theories lacking practice or for a better word, action.

The truth remains to a lesser risk for money issues if the other end is powerful. Its true especially when it concerns the always uncertain fate between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the United States of America Deaf Sports Federation (USADSF). The uncertainty also spans in financial conjunction to USOC funding and sending a full-sized USA team let alone any athlete to the World Games of the Deaf (WGD). All held in not at all surprise a limbo thanks to the United States Olympic Committees deft input from its disabled sports facet.

Lawrence Fleischer, then President of the old American Athletic Association of the Deaf (currently called USADSF), proclaimed something that made us think twice in many spans of “deafness”. It all occurred at the last House of Delegates held under the auspices of AAAD (only name wise). Others and myself convened in Santa Fe, New Mexico back on a weekend in November 1997. The truth that money does not grow out of trees was further magnified as realized during that weekend in an twist of irony.

In boiling down to the hard facts of money and preferences in funding allocation according to the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) resorted to an intelligent yet not a highly and conclusively valid answer to the dilemma worth chump change which is slightly less than three quarters a million dollars according to a promise unrealized by the USOC.

Yes, its true that other disabled organizations under the umbrella of disabled sports under the USOC gets more chump change compared to us just because they brought home more medals, and who knows they are more efficiently organized an entity than us Deaf people are. I am certain that the Congress would not buy the “more medals formulating in more funding” theory in slapping USOC’s wrists.

The very cold-blooded, corporation-like powerful facets of the USOC, standing in their shades hovering like a big bully who’s scared underneath behind “two-way mirrors,” know that we Deaf people yell out in protest of the resentful terms “handicapped” or “disabled” and instead, to the milder degree of some citizens, look at it as such a half-full glass approach, such as “disABLED,” etc.

Whether we like it or not, we are labeled as disabled according to the American with Disabilities Act. The same bill became into law that benefited the Deaf community in terms of seeking equal treatment and rights, and in irony, hurt deep rooted Deaf cultured “institutions” in some aspects of compromise unrealized nor intended (e.g. Inflation of mainstreaming and deflation of “deaf residential schools situations”)

We wanted money and equal rights yet are we to swallow in acceptance of the “disabled” label and dropping the “cultural” agenda? Or shall we just kneel down and brown nose to acknowledge the “disability” in terms of legal “technicality?”. The disabled sports portion of USOC funds entities that are regarded as physically disabled. The definition of physically disabled is best described as “obvious visible disability.” Deafness is an invisible character as best termed in place of disability, handicap or the like.

The famed quote of I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, “The deaf can do anything but hear” does have an ironic bearing on this issue.

The Deaf had its Wendell Gaskins who blazed the track at or near World Class speed. Also featured was Kenny Walker, formerly a professional football player for the Denver Broncos; Richard Jacobs who nearly made the last cut of a US National Handball team; Wrestling’s Matt Hamill who obtained a residency at USOC’s Olympic Training Center. These are a few of many that makes the powerful ones realize that the Deaf can be as good as its Olympic, national, and/or world class counterparts.

USOC may had done their homework especially on the fact that behind closed doors, we yell out like people running around in chaos, “Deaf culture and Deaf pride or worse, in naive terms,” superiority compared to other groups “Deaf POWER”.

Come to think of this, DeafNation, the newspaper, has its own motto, “Language, Culture and Pride”. Where do you see disability in this?

Who is right in this silly game over chump change already denied to us as we sent much more less than a half-baked US Team to Denmark, ironically laden with “bureaucrat” like positions.

The USOC perceives the World Games of the Deaf as same as the non-USOC nor International Olympic Committee (IOC) sponsored Gay Games. This is from the authorized views of then AAAD (now USADSF) President Lawrence Fleischer. That view made some of us realize the irony in the worst way!

Is the USOC justified in not funding USADSF because of its mission to draw deaf athletes together to celebrate deaf culture through sports, nevermind the disability facet. Or is it to provide an more even ground of athletic competition for the deaf considering that the very overwhelming majority of the deaf is resigned to the fact that they are not cut out for elite level sports. Who’s fault is this? Apathy? USADSF or its National Sports Organizations NSOs?

Is the CISS, the international deaf sports federation, sending a right message, stating that deaf are “equal through sports”. That should hit the USOC’s jackpot even on doomsday!

What do USADSF need to hit the triple lemon on the jackpot? Some has that impression that in the first place nothing is equal among deaf athletes before they are converged together to compete.

Are these Wendell Gaskins exceptional ones, even potential wise? Let think about the very often lopsided results of such competitions lately within domestic circles, the USA in that case.

Disabled or Cultural? Deaf or deaf? How alike are Gays and Deaf games?

We need to answer to these questions in due time before we are eaten alive by more efficient groups of people such as USOC who did their homework, terming us as more cultural than disabled thanks to the likes of Wendell Gaskins blazing down the straightway with enough margin to pick up a walker and finish us off, winning the race!

Hindsight and money can go together very well at times!