As supporters of Senator John Edwards, I often hear others discussing and debating 'inclusion' as opposed to 'exclusion'. Mostly, when we hear those discussions, we hear them referring to racial issues, or homosexuality or other such issues. Rarely do we hear a discussion about those who are so ostracized by virute of their hearing and vision impairments
I have, over the years done quite a bit of work (mostly volunteer) related to helping the blind and deaf become included in the mainstream of our society. My Master's Degree Thesis work was on a project for and with the deaf and blind.
One of the greatest joys of my life was a veteran that I worked with for years. He had learned while in the military that he had a brain tumor and while they found it operable, he was left blind. He wanted to get his Master's Degree and become a counselor, but he needed a competent and very specific type of tutor. I had never even considered tutoring anyone until he 'barged' into my office one day at the University. He told me and a co-worker that he had to have a tutor. His grades were very bad and he was on the brink of being kicked out of school simply because he couldn't get his homework read and completed. Well, I'm sure she cringed and I just sat there with a 'not me' look on my face.
The poor guy started reciting the criteria the Veterans' Administration required of him and his tutor. Honestly, I felt horrible. Here was a guy almost reciting my bio. The other person and I let our eyes meet and we both knew I was 'sunk'. So, this black, forty-ish veteran and I were bonded as tutor and student for four years. We laughed about many things that would simply take too much explaining to make anyone else see the funny side of them... like the day when we were going down a flight of steps and he had my arm but he dropped his cane. It went sailing right through the opening between two steps. Without even thinking about it, I said 'Did you see that? It went right betweent those steps!' Then we both laughed hysterically because we both knew he didn't see that, that I knew he hadn't seen that and that I had just shared it with him. He was a real joy. Many nights I fell asleep reading his homework into a tape recorder. He said as I got sleepier I sounded like the batteries were running down. ;-)
There have been other blind and deaf friends too. My friend Barb had to sedate her seeing eye dog prior to a plane flight, but apparently, it was a little too soon. Have you ever tried to get a seeing eye dog to move when it wasn't inclined to do so? ;-)
While I have worked more with the blind than with the deaf, I have worked some with the deaf too. Unfortunately, I enrolled in AmSlam once, but never had time to become proficient in it though my neice is quite good at it.
So, I feel that we, John Edwards supporters, may be involved in another first. I did notice at a couple of JRE's speaking engagements that they are signed which really impressed me.
I have captioned two of my videos for the hearing impaired and I will be doing more as we go along. If you know those with hearing impairments, you might let them know about my videos.
Here is my other captioned video if you didn't see it a few days ago.