Intellectual terror is upon you [Archives:2004/748/Letters to the Editor]
David Wren
Ontario, Canada
[email protected]
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond and allowing me to comment your recent article regarding to: The intellectual terror for deaf and dumb!
Although, this incident is unfortunate but understandable why these student behave the way they did. Just look the title of the heading indicate a sheer arrogance of disregard toward to the Deaf.
Your article reflects what is a widely common acceptable perception in the categorizing, identifying and labeling disabilities of sorts.
Poor choice of using the words when labeling the Deaf and Dumb illustrate a much deeper roots of ignorance in Yemen's society of understanding what deafness is all about.
Deaf means that you cannot hear and dumb mean intellectually challenge. However, those two words, deaf and dumb, do not have same meaning when identifying disabilities of this sort. Deaf by large, do not have intellectual disabilities, only rather a communication barrier which prevents their abilities to communicate in a normal formal ways of conversation in the hearing world.
To lump those two inappropriate words together is callous and insensitive. And a sure sign of what is to be perceived a strong ignorance of attitude in your country.
The proper usage of wording should be either, deaf nor Hearing Impaired. Shame on you for distributing this kind of ignorance behavior around. I think the intellectual terror is upon you.
Dear David,
I agree with your points and we will ensure that we use more appropriate wordings in the future.
)Editor
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