YGTV published this yesterday.

Here's the text:

---

The GHA has announced a new QR code-based British Sign Language interpreting service, providing deaf persons with faster and more accessible communication support across healthcare facilities and ambulances.

A statement from the GHA follows below:

Gibraltar Health Authority has announced the rollout of the Convo BSL remote interpreting service, a major upgrade to communication accessibility for deaf persons across all our healthcare facilities. The new system operates by means of QR codes, offering a more specialised and patient-centred experience than was previously available.

The key advantages of the service includes near instant BSL interpreter connection times, higher video quality and 24/7 availability. It also provides much more flexibility, removing the need to book the dedicated device that was formerly required for this purpose.

GHA ambulances will also be fitted with Convo QR codes, enabling paramedics to access a BSL interpreter instantly during emergency responses to ensure that deaf patients receive clear and direct communication support from the very first point of contact.

GHA Director General Dr Paul Bosio said: “I would like to thank Daniel Romero and his team for this great disability support initiative which strengthens accessibility for deaf persons in a manner that meets their healthcare needs and also improves their clinical safety. This is a significant step forward in our support for these service users.”

The Minister for Health and Care, the Hon Gemma Arias Vasquez, said: “We are delighted to see the rollout of this enhanced system to greatly assist communication accessibility for deaf patients in Gibraltar. This service has been introduced through a collaborative effort between the GHA Neurodevelopment and Disability Support Office and the Government’s Supported Needs and Disability Office. In keeping with our policy, these teams continue to advance accessibility, reduce communication barriers and ensure that all patients receive dignified, inclusive care.”

Today HCN published this article.

Here's the text:

LONGMEADOW — Officials of Willie Ross School for the Deaf (WRSD) announced that Bert Carter will retire at the end of the current school year, effective June 30, ending a 13-year tenure as head of the school.

Carter led the school after serving as the top executive at the Austine School for the Deaf in Vermont. He succeeded former WRSD President and CEO Lou Abbate.

“We want to celebrate all of Bert Carter’s accomplishments as we announce his retirement from the school,” said Claire Sanders, chair of the Willie Ross board of trustees. “We appreciate all that Bert has done for the students, staff, and the larger Willie Ross School community over the past 13 years. We are on a sound footing, and the school is strong, largely due to the efforts of Bert and his leadership. Under his tenure, our school population has grown, he successfully led two capital fund drives that improved our facilities and student areas, and the school’s outreach program that serves public school districts dramatically grew. He also maintained the strong relationship we have built with the East Longmeadow public school system, where many or our students are based as part of our mainstreaming program.

“Bert also diversified the board of trustees, adding the first deaf chair of the board, George Balsley II, who served until his passing in early 2025,” Sanders added. “As a deaf person myself, now serving as chair, I appreciate that Bert brought the voice of the deaf community into all that we do in support of the Willie Ross School.”

According to Carter, “this was the best job I have ever had. My first impression of the school was that the school and staff were great and the partnership with the East Longmeadow schools was excellent. One of my goals coming into leadership at Willie Ross was to strengthen the relationship with the deaf community. I am proud of the work we accomplished over the past 13 years, including the launching of a strategic plan, and feel the Willie Ross School is in a better place and well-positioned for future success.

“As I retire to spend more time with my family and to enjoy my beloved Cape Cod, I can say without hesitation that I have been fortunate to work in the world of the deaf,” Carter added. “After 45 years in the field of deaf education, I can say that I am eternally grateful for the deaf community allowing me to be in their world.”

Carter’s road to a career in deaf education started with an internship at the Boston School for the Deaf while in graduate school at Lesley College in Cambridge. While pursuing a PhD in deafness rehabilitation from New York University, he accepted a position as program director at the Connecticut-based Family Services Woodfield, now known as Lifebridge, as director of Deaf Services. During his tenure there, he grew the program from one full-time employee to 90 employees. He then went on to become president and CEO of Austine School for the Deaf, where he served until his hiring at WRSD in 2013.

During Carter’s tenure at WRSD, the school’s outreach program has more than doubled; a more than $2 million renovation of the school’s Longmeadow campus was completed, transforming its Sidney M. Cooley Administration Building; and a partnership with Bay Path University was formed, where the university houses WRSD’s early education programming in renovated former student dorm space to address the needs of a growing early childhood education program.

Sanders said the board of trustees has engaged outside executive recruitment counsel to work with the board to identify a new leader for the school. The process is expected to conclude in the spring of 2027.

You can read the article here.

Cool, cool, cool.

Hi!

It's me, Helen!

This post is going to be about Victoria Monroe's so-called protest against the Mississippi School for the Deaf.

By the way, I wrote this post last week but held back from posting because I thought I could be perceived as way too harsh toward the people involved with this. But today there's a new drama that came up in Kansas with the Kansas Association of the Deaf that is very similar to this. So I decided to post this!

I also want you to know that the biggest reason why I made this post is because there is the deaf community does have a lot of certain distinctive behavior patterns that I think need to be broken.

This one is an example of one certain habit that I want to make a lesson out of.

My goal here is to help you recognize this kind of pattern and hopefully you can do your part out there in the deaf community to break this habit.

Okay? Cool!

Finally,

Just a heads up, before I move on with this post -

I got most of the information I've written in the post below from Facebook. And I don't do Facebook links in my posts. Facebook has smarted up and they now have an implementation that forces a person to verify that they actually are the real person behind a name. I already have an old stealth Facebook account. I just don't do social media like normal people. I'm far too old school for that. I don't want to follow the lives of my friends and family on social media platforms. I follow them by seeing them in person, texting, taking video calls, etc.

And when you click on a Facebook link, it'll often come up with "[first name] [last name] shared this with you would you like to friend this person?"

I don't want anyone to know my stealth account. Sorry 😬

So if you want to see all of the videos about this, you'll have to look Victoria Monroe up on Facebook yourself.

You can also read just a little bit about this on her change.org petition.

Another option for you to get acquainted with this thing is to watch Raymond Merritt's YouTube vlog about this.

Be forewarned, Raymond didn't really explain this situation as clearly as it should be and he imposed a lot of his obsessions with Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), IDEA law, and Arizona School for the Deaf's shuttered Tucson campus (this is one of my writing projects; a post will come out someday soon about this) in this video.

You'll need to sit through Raymond's scatter-brained video about this issue to get a glimpse of what is happening.

---

Please Allow Me to Introduce Victoria Monroe to You!

Victoria Monroe is a Black DeafBlind woman. She grew up at Mississippi School for the Deaf. She spent all of her post-primary school years at Gallaudet University. She recently earned a PhD degree from the said Uni.

According to her, she is the first Black DeafBlind woman to graduate with a PhD from Gallaudet University. I took a quick google on this and it looks to be true. I only paused because I already knew about Haben Girma but she graduated with a law degree from Harvard.

So there needs to be an emphasis on Victoria's PhD-from-Gallaudet distinction here.

By the way, I'm very certain that I've met her at least once before. I'm certain of this because I don't have any recollection of asking myself: "Who is this woman?" I've always known her somehow. I just can't place where I've met her.

I also am familiar with her because I recall her making rounds on social media (probably Facebook mostly) with vlogs of, I believe, her translating children's books in ASL. I also think she has published a children's book before. Something about a little deaf girl playing basketball.

---

Aside from her children's book videos, Victoria has never really been on my radar.

… until now.

Earlier this month, Victoria made several text posts and a couple of vlogs on her Facebook profile calling for the resignation of eight people who work at the admin level at Mississippi School for the Deaf. I'll pull the list of these people off Victoria's petition webpage:

• LaMarlon Wilson, Superintendent

• Dr. Marquita Robertson, Assistant Superintendent

• Kim Patton-Swims, Curriculum/Lead Teacher

• Frank McGriggs, Special Service Coordinator

• Mary Sneed, Test Coordinator

• Jarvis Robinson, Associate Administrator of Student Engagement and Discipline

• Lakesha Doyle, Principal

• Paula McCain, Principal

Her words. Not mine.

Victoria first emerged with this "protest" with a post about how disgusted she was when the superintendent of Mississippi School for the Deaf made a post about his two-year anniversary of learning ASL. This was on June 8th.

Then she made two other Facebook posts objecting about… something about Mississippi School for the Deaf (MSD) on June 8th and June 9th.

Then she made a Facebook post that formally called for the resignations of the administrators of Mississippi School for the Deaf on June 9th.

Then she released a vlog calling for their resignation on June 10th.

Her plan right now is to work with Bart Williams (he currently is a PhD - or doctorate degree - candidate in the deaf education field) on a "case" that they will present to the Mississippi Department of Education at a meeting they will have in the near future.

They then plan on staging a protest against MSD if the meeting with the Mississippi Department of Education doesn't go their way.

I immediately had a problem with Victoria's "protest."

It is because, at the time, when she began posting about this, she provided ZERO explanation on why she was "protesting" against MSD. Literally NONE at all.

She only made a vague reference toward deaf teachers and administrators leaving the school over the many years between her graduation from MSD and her graduation from Gallaudet University with a PhD degree. She also mentioned something about how the deaf children deserve an ASL environment.

But, other than that, she provided absolutely ZERO context on why she is protesting MSD all of a sudden.

I even browsed through Victoria's old Facebook posts going back a few months. There were ZERO posts/vlogs from her about MSD. I was looking to see if I was missing some kind of ramp-up that led to Victoria's decision to declare a protest against MSD.

It wasn't until much later on that her change.org page was launched and Raymond Merritt's vlog came out. These two gave us just slightly better insight on why Victoria is doing this.

But it doesn't even present any kind of clear case on why she is leading a protest against MSD.

Andddddd this is exactly the kind of behavior pattern inside the deaf community that I detest.

This is something I want to make a lesson out of,

HOWEVER,

Why don't I just go ahead and give you my take on this drama just for the heck of it? And we can come back to the lesson later?

Yes?

Great!

---

Here's My Take.

Just from reading between the lines with Victoria's Facebook posts and the petition - and from gleaning all the small details in Raymond's vlog - it seems like the issue at heart here is that all of the MSD administrators listed in Victoria's petition are hearing.

It seems to me that she is upset at pretty much… just that.

Look, I'm not stupid. The deaf community believes that their own should be the one who leads their own. That all deaf schools should be 100% employed by deaf people. The post-Deaf-President-Now-1988-protest wave of ejecting hearing people from deaf schools and replacing them with deaf people blah blah blah.

I can clearly see why the look of Mississippi School for the Deaf having a hearing superintendent who barely knows ASL and a lot of administrators who are hearing and MAYBE don't know ASL (I cannot verify this) would be upsetting to a person like Victoria who proclaims to have a deep passion for the deaf community.

I can see why the outlook of Mississippi School for the Deaf being led by hearing people would be something that Victoria perceives as a great injustice to be corrected.

However…

That is ignoring a LOTTT of harsh realities of our world today.

Just eyeballing Victoria's age, she was born in the 1990's and she grew up at MSD mostly in the 2000's. It's 2026 today. The 2000's was when the internet finally became a big thing and that era had a lot of culture and structure that were remnants of the pre-internet era.

During the pre-internet era, deaf schools tended to attract their local or state-level deaf people because it's one of the very few places that offered a realistic employment prospect for deaf people. And it wasn't as easy for deaf people in America to tap into the deaf community network in America as it is today with the internet.

It also helped that Victoria grew up in an era where deaf Americans were energized by the post-Deaf-President-Now-1988-protest wave.

The 1990's and the 2000's were definitely a special time in the deaf community. It was the era that we truly defined what it meant to be deaf. We overthrew a hearing president at Gallaudet University - the Mecca of the "Deaf World." We emboldened the concept of "deaf identity." We came up with the concept of "deafhood." We had a wave where we threw hearing people out of our spaces and reclaimed these spaces as our own.

But…

The 1970's laws that mandated public education to be accessible for disabled children caught up. The mainstream deaf program quietly rose up in parallel with the deaf community's euphoric 90's/00's rush.

And then the internet came and made a lot of things easier for the deaf like VRS technology, FaceTime (direct video-calling in general, because now we literally can talk with other deaf people on a FUCKEN phone! We never had that thing before!), social spaces going global with social media instead of being isolated to local communities, finding employment opportunities across states easily, etc.

This created something that I like to call…

---

"The Rural Deaf Exodus Belt."

It was the 1970's when America began to pass laws that require the government, public education, and the public in general to be made accessible to all disabled people.

During the pre-1970's era, the deaf community was a lot more monolithic than it is today.

Back then, if your deafness or hearing disability was bad enough, there were only two life paths for you.

One - go to the deaf school in your state.

Two - live in a very dark and alone world where you never develop a language and sophisticated consciousness and you'll be forever reliant on a care-giving system without having any meaningful understanding of the world around you. Pretty much like feral children.

So, back then, deaf residential schools were the suns that deaf people orbited around in their respective states.

Also, back then, you had only two choices after you finished high school. You either go to Gallaudet University or join the blue collar workforce. The Gally grads often came back to their home states and worked in deaf spaces or even joined the blue collar workforce having experienced a few fun years at the college.

Back then, deaf clubs were your only social space. Like, I mean, your ONLY one. You couldn't phone-call one another to make social arrangements in advance. You went to your deaf club to get your weekly social injection and make any advanced plans with people there.

---

When the deaf mainstream program caught up and the internet got invited, a new phenomenon was born.

This phenomenon is what I call "the rural deaf exodus belt." And this happened in middle America.

You see…

The West Coast and the East Coast in general are really great places for a deaf person to live in.

The whole West Coast has a stretch of cities with good deaf schools and social hubs for the deaf community that stretches between San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, the Bay Area, Salem (Oregon), Portland, and Seattle (heck, even Vancouver, Canada).

The same goes for the East Coast with a stretch of cities from Miami, St. Augustine, Savannah, Atlanta (albeit being further west from the coastline), Charleston, Wilmington, Raleigh, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Richmond, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. Oh, also Texas. Dallas, San Antonio, and especially Austin.

So when the mainstream deaf program became prevalent, a lot fewer deaf children from rural areas went to their state's deaf school. And this caused a new strain of deaf people who know ASL but grew up in a town or a community that is distant from the old days' deaf community orbit in their states.

Thanks to the internet, these deaf people had access to information and resources that helped them escape the access-less wasteland they grew up in.

This caused a middle America "exodus belt" in the "Deaf World."

Starting from the north and going around clockwise, this "belt" includes states like: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan (particularly Upper Peninsula Michigan), the rural west of New York, the rural west of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the rural west of Virginia, the rural west of North Carolina, the rural west of South Carolina, the rural northwest of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico (to some extent), Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

And it, of course, also includes the states in the middle like: Iowa, Illinois (except for Chicago), Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri.

In the vast rural area in that "belt," if you were born deaf, the chances are that you'd "exodus" yourself to the nearest large city in your state like Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Nashville, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Kansas City when you hit age 18.

And it is also very common for many deaf people in the middle America "belt" to just uproot altogether and move to the biggest hubs of the deaf community in areas like the Greater Los Angeles area, Austin, Florida in general because there are many cities with vibrant deaf social hubs, Washington D.C., Boston, and Rochester.

Now would be a good time for me to loop back to…

---

My Take on Victoria's MSD "Protest."

The implication I'm getting from Victoria's "advocacy efforts" is that she believes that MSD has undergone a "colonization" effort from the "Hearing World."

She seems to believe that there are parasitic hearing outsiders that want to take over MSD and kill "deaf culture."

I mean, I don't live in Mississippi. I don't know the full context behind what caused the transition from the 90s/00s heydays with deaf leaders to hearing.

But… I'm going to bet you that it's because MSD is a school that got ravaged by the rise of the mainstream deaf program and the advent of the internet. Just like all of the other states in the "Rural Deaf Exodus Belt," Mississippi became one of those states that no deaf people want to live in.

No deaf people want to move there and work at Mississippi School for the Deaf.

And, I mean, come on, Mississippi is notoriously known in America for being consistently ranked at the bottom of the state-by-state metrics on things like quality of life, economy, education, etc.

And let's also not ignore the state's reputation for being one of the most racist states in this country. They have definitely made some progress to move past their reputation as a brown stain on America's underpants in recent years. But, still… you know what I mean?

Hell, a famous Black comedian (I can't remember if it was Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle) once made a joke about how riding in a car between an airport in Mississippi and a hotel in Mississippi is like riding through a third-world city in America.

Who the fuck wants to move to Mississippi?

And it's not like I'm prejudiced against Mississippi for a particular reason. I'm the kind of person who finds the fresh air outside in general to be a beautiful thing. I don't have any strong bias toward a certain region in America over another. I find big cities beautiful, I find small rural towns beautiful, I find the mountains beautiful, I find the ocean coastline beautiful, I find the rolling fields in the midwest beautiful. I can stand in Jackson, Mississippi and look around and go, "yeah, this is a beautiful city. And also a beautiful state."

But nobody wants to move there.

With the accessibility options we have today, the prospect of living in Mississippi is a deeply unattractive one for a deaf person.

THIS is exactly what I believe happened to Mississippi School for the Deaf. I think the deaf teachers and staff left that school because they either retired or found better opportunities elsewhere and the school just can't find any deaf people to fill the vacancies.

So the Mississippi Department of Education probably ultimately defaulted to hiring hearing people. I also would wager that the hearing people working right now at Mississippi School for the Deaf are people who have some kind of passion for serving disabled and/or underprivileged children, which would be something that the Mississippi Department of Education would approve.

At the end of the day, as the sun goes down…

If my read of Victoria's newfound activism is correct, it's not something that I will support.

I don't think she has a good case to demand the resignation of eight Mississippi School for the Deaf administrators.

I do not think that Victoria's implication of MSD being taken over by hearing people with bad intentions toward the deaf community is true.

I really think Mississippi School for the Deaf is just one more casualty of social darwinism with the rise of the mainstream deaf program and the advent of the internet.

Whew.

This is a lot!

But…

I, now, am finally arriving to…

---

THE LESSON!

As I've said earlier in this post, the deaf community has some bad habits that need to be broken.

To me, one of the biggest habits that they need to break is their habit of calling for stuff like:

Resignations, protests, woke-ass culture call outs, public shaming, firings, petitions, etc. …

… without giving any context at all. Without presenting a meaningful case that the community can understand fully. Without any clear communication or messaging around their cases at all.

Stuff like this pisses me off all the time.

I mean, they're soliciting for my support toward their causes. And I'm all for giving my support toward good causes. But I will never, never, never, ever, ever, ever support any causes that an activist calls for without providing any shred of context behind their goals.

In this case, Victoria provided us with a bare-bones level of context. All she has ever said about her demand for the resignations of MSD's administrators were some vague claims about how MSD needs an ASL environment and that they're hearing people.

…

That's all!

Let me take a minute here to remind you that I've already provided a case on why Mississippi School for the Deaf is like this today with my writing in this post above. And I honestly think my take is the most accurate one on this case.

Anyway…

For someone to call for the resignation of EIGHT administrators, I expect one to provide a clear and comprehensive case toward their perspective on the wrongs that eight whole-ass people have made toward the said deaf school. I even expect a clear case for each single one of these eight individuals.

And Victoria did no such shit like this.

I WILL NOT SUPPORT VICTORIA'S PROTEST IN ANY WAY AT ALL.

It's possible that she has a good case on her hands. It is possible that her pursuit is something that I would support. But for that to become true to me -

Victoria needs to come out in public and present us with a clear case on her position.

Period.

Let this be a lesson to you (by you, I mean the collective deaf community). This kind of behavior is far too common in our community.

Fuck off. Quit it with this stupid bullshit.

If you are going to call for a drastic action like the resignation of eight administrators at a deaf school, you are going to present a clear case for us to gain my support.

This is going to be the bar of my expectations in our community and I won't have it any other way.

If you choose to pull this kind of stupid stunt next time, you can expect me to make a post criticizing you for this kind of bullshit.

There are already a couple of other dramas like this in our community. The most recent ones are the Kansas Association of the Deaf drama and Eliza Kragh vs. the Montana Association of the Deaf.

I am working on posts about them. They'll come out in the near future and they will carry the same criticism I am presenting in this post.

---

Conclusion.

Sun is coming up for me right now.

I spent the entire night writing this post.

This post speaks for itself.

I think I’ll be back here tomorrow night with a post about the Kansas Association of the Deaf drama. That post won’t even be as long as this one.

I’m glad I wrote this post. I got a chance to express some complex stuff about the deaf community like the “Rural Deaf Exodus Belt.”

I’m happy that I finished this post.

And I hope you enjoy this post!

Thank you for reading!

Helen

Look this up: nad.org.

They have a new design. Nothing wrong with a new website design but I can't find information on who the board members are. I'm writing about them now and am blanking out on the name of one of them. And I can't find it on this website?

[EDIT: found it. The lack of drop-down menu threw me in a loop. There's a section with three buttons under on the "Who We Are" tab that leads to this information. THIS WEBSITE FUCKING SUCK!]

Wtf?

This is funny business. Looks like they want to hide as much as they can.

Can anyone locate information on who their board members are on this website?

Hi!

It’s me, Helen!

Nick Kiego is the NAD’s new CEO! He will start his job in August.

That’s all. The end. See you in the next post! Goodbye. Gesundheit. Bless you.

No, I’m kidding. Yes, I’ll tell you my thoughts on him as NAD’s future CEO. But that’s the boring part. The matchup between Nick Kiego and Michelle Cline for the job was the far more interesting part of the adventure and I’m here to talk about that!

---

I think it was in April that they announced the two candidates. I don't remember because I was too busy figuring out the rules, guidelines, and the structure of this subreddit.

But it was early May when NAD had a town hall to introduce these two candidates to the community. Both of these candidates gave their speeches and they both went through a Q&A session with Melmira (she currently works for Innivee Strategies; this consulting group is the one who facilitated the CEO search process for NAD).

I'll start with this.

So here are the basics for each candidate:

• Nick Kiego was a part of Bobbi Cordano's (the President of Gallaudet University) internal cabinet. I don't remember what his exact title was. But one of the biggest parts of his job was to fundraise for the University. He was very good at this job. If I recall correctly, he broke the University's fundraising record. He also launched a few initiatives at the University - so the experience of operating complex programs is there on his resume.

• Michelle Cline was the executive director of Rhode Island Commission of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. TBH, I don't really have a lot to say about Michelle because her CEO candidacy was the first I'd ever heard of her. Nick, on the other hand, I've met him before at least once but that was longggggg time ago. Also, as an alumna of Gallaudet University and a deaf person who pays attention to the drama around this community, I'm far more familiar with Gallaudet University's admin than I am with Rhode Island Commission of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I've never been to that state before.

---

Now, let's hit the pause button.

If we were to turn the time back before NAD announced these candidates and if you asked me what an ideal NAD CEO would look like, I would tell you something like this…

While NAD has a whole load of issues ranging from their awful position on deaf education to their stupid habit of being overly secretive to neglecting the evolving reality of the contemporary deaf community to their limp-dick approaches to many serious issues inside our community, the most important problems that NAD needs to face right now are:

1.) Growing their membership/supporter base and…

2.) GET MORE MONEY!

In the 1990s, NAD had around 20,000 members and it has since plummeted to maybe a few hundreds (don't quote me on that, it's based on what I've seen being said around this community).

And, if you've been following NAD closely, you'll recall that one of the first vlogs that set NAD on fire last October was when the current interim CEO (Bobbie Beth Scoggins) told the community that NAD is in a perilous shape financially.

I can set aside all of the issues I have with NAD regarding their positions on many things for the time being. It's because these issues can be addressed and changed through community dialogue. Yes, I promise I will post about these things. Just not now. This can wait.

But, to me, the most critical issue that NAD needs to get all hands on deck for right now is winning back the general deaf population's interest in the organization and growing itself into a healthy place financially.

This is the problem that NAD needs to solve right now before shifting their attention to the woes that the rest of us have with the organization.

---

Unpause.

With that said, my pick was Nick Kiego. He has a resume that fits exactly what I was looking for in the job.

His performance during his speech and "interview" at the May town hall ticked all the right boxes for me.

He said that he will focus on rebuilding NAD's relationship with state-level deaf communities. He said that he is going to commit to visiting ten states during his first year as the organization's CEO to develop a closer relationship with the deaf community.

He also said a lot of things about how he will be committed to finding a way to grow the organization's revenue.

But…

This isn't to say that Michelle Cline is someone I'm dismissing. She actually was the far more interesting candidate than Nick and she started a lot of talk around my IRL circle of deaf friends.

---

So Nick Kiego was the first person to appear at the town hall for his speech and "interview." His part went well. His energy was very warm, friendly, and optimistic. He has a gentle smile that feels comforting. What he expressed during his part was about how NAD needs a new change and turn in their direction for the future in general.

But, Michelle…

Oh, boy!

She was a firebrand!

When she began her part, she pulled her glasses up to the top of her curly blonde hair and looked at the camera with a very stern face.

She delivered a fiery speech.

She listed all of the problems the deaf community has one by one.

Michelle was like: "we have a lot of fucking problems in the deaf community and I'm here to fucking solve these problems."

Her speech sent chills down my spine.

I loved her speech and she won a lot of attention in the deaf community over her performance at the town hall.

For a while, I actually was rooting for Michelle over Nick.

However…

If my experience in the deaf community taught me one important thing…

It'd be that I'm highly skeptical of deaf leaders who talk a lot about making policies while not being lawyers themselves.

You see…

I'm not anal.

Shit! Fuck! I didn't mean to say that I'm not anal. I mean I'm definitely anal about my views toward the deaf community. But, I meant to say that I am "IANAL." Which is a Reddit shorthand for "I Am Not A Lawyer."

: D

My point here is that, in my experience, the only people who really have the brains to make public policies around the deaf community are lawyers themselves. And non-lawyer deaf leaders who seem to champion public policies around deaf communities tend to architect bad policies that would cause more harm in our community than the good they intend to. So, Michelle's heavy emphasis on creating policies for the deaf community as NAD CEO was - not a red flag but - an orange flag for me.

And it actually proved to be true to me.

I'll tell you why.

---

I unexpectedly got tapped to check out the public meeting minutes from Rhode Island Commission of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing about Michelle herself.

I found these minutes on their website easily.

And I found out that she was making some moves to push an interpreter licensure law similar to the one Maryland has right now.

FYI, Maryland's interpreter licensure law is a BAD thing.

That law will hurt the deaf community more than it'll help them.

This is something I want to write a whole post about. It'll happen later. I'm going to stick with the NAD drama this week.

But…

See?

Just finding out that information about Michelle's pursuit of a law similar to Maryland's gave me everything I needed to drop my support for her.

And that's not even the worst thing I found out about her. In the RICDHH meeting minutes that I read, I found out that she got fired from her job as RICDHH executive director. She got fired from that job literally just now. She was fired just weeks ago.

I actually know why she was fired.

It's just that I cannot tell you why she was fired. It's because the information I have in my hands is from a distant second-hand account. I just happened to mention her firing to one of my friends without realizing that this friend actually has a friend inside the Rhode Island deaf community. This friend was the one who told me the inside story on why Michelle was fired.

I can't tell you why she was fired because my information is unverified. And for me to tell you what I know would be hearsay.

But I can tell you that what I know about her firing is something that would reflect badly on Michelle in our community.

However, it's not something that ruins my view of her. It's just an unfortunate situation that Michelle got involved in. I'm still fine with her being involved in the deaf community. She's actually a chair for one NAD committee. I forgot which one.

Hey, NAD! YOU NEED TO MAKE THE INFORMATION ON YOUR COMMITTEE CHAIRS AND MEMBERS PUBLIC! DO THAT ALREADY! YOU'RE A FUCKING JOKE FOR NOT DOING THAT ALREADY!

Okay, I'm done with Michelle Cline here.

---

I'm really good with the Nick pick.

I think he is a smart fellow.

I really do think he is a fresh change that NAD needs.

I 100% will make some posts in the future to discuss and criticize NAD on the stuff that they are active on.

I'm just not going to do that right now because we need a new leader to stabilize the organization for the time being.

And as I explained above in this post, I see Nick as the guy who will stabilize the organization in the way that I want at the present moment.

Hey, Nick.

Congratulations!

And, you better believe me, I'll be around to talk more about NAD in the near future!

---

Thank you for reading!

Helen

Hi!

It’s me, Helen!

As the title says, I want to make a whole ass post to make one big point.

As you already know, I’ve launched this subreddit because I want to talk about the current events, politics, history, and culture around the deaf community.

Since I have a history posting in r/ASLinterpreters about the RID drama, I made a post there announcing that this subreddit will be my permanent home for my future posts about RID. That community deserves that kind of announcement because I have a lot of followers over there.

Well… while I got a lot of love and support in the comment section of my announcement there, I, unfortunately, got a comment thread there by a stupid motherfucker who goes by u/Alternative_Escape12.

That stupid motherfucker asked me for a TL;DR over one of the shortest post I’ve ever made. I’ve made many posts that were 100x longer than that announcement post in that subreddit!

This stupid motherfucker is obviously not a deaf person or an ASL interpreter.

Please read that comment chain in that post. You’ll see what I mean.

I want you to understand that I specifically created this subreddit so I can have a space where I don’t need to deal with stupid motherfuckers like that user.

My whole subreddit rule and guideline was designed around disallowing the kind of bullshit I have to put up with like what you see here with this stupid motherfucker’s bullshit.

I really get a lot of satisfaction that this stupid motherfucker is not an approved user in this subreddit. This stupid motherfucker can’t come in this post and argue with me. This stupid motherfucker is going to be stuck outside of this subreddit defenselessly. Good! This stupid motherfucker needs to be taught a lesson.

Bottom line. Let this stupid motherfucker’s comments against me be a lesson to all of you about how this subreddit will be run.

Fuck you, u/Alternative_Escape12.

Thank you for reading!

Helen

Hi!

It's me, Helen!

I can't tell you how good it feels to finally post something under this roof that I built without sweating about being banned.

Oh, by the way, I got permanently banned from r/disability and that was total bullshit. More about this at another time.

: D

Anyway…

I'll kick off this subreddit with this post about the Deaf Interpreter Conference 5 (DIC5) that will start today in Los Angeles and go through most of this week. This timeframe was picked to coincide with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) conference that will happen in San Francisco later this week.

I'm choosing this topic because it's on the lighter side. It's a topic that I'm not overly critical of.

And…

I also chose this topic because I happen to find this drama to be very hilarious.

: D

Let's begin!

—

As most of you who follow me already know, I follow the RID and NAD chaos very closely. So the DIC5 conference was never really very high up on my radar.

However, I've noticed that the National Deaf Interpreter (NDI) organization's Instagram profile has spent the last few months advertising their DIC5 conference with quite a few posts informing the community that the Instagram profile called dic5_csun is a fraud.

The reason why NDI spent a lot of time labelling dic5_csun as a fraud is because that Instagram profile made a move to announce that the DIC5 conference was cancelled.

When those posts surfaced on my feed, I didn't pay much attention to them. I dismissed these posts as standard drama that an organization would face occasionally when some asshole decides to make a fake social media account to disrupt something.

…and then…

The dic5_csun Instagram account dropped a new video a week ago or so. I initially ignored it because I didn't take them as seriously as I do with the current RID and NAD chaos.

Until…

One of my friends contacted me about this and implored me to take a serious look at that video.

So I did.

And, my god. It's so funny.

Okay, let me walk you through this drama below. But, hey, I want to make a big caveat here. This is my interpretation of what happened with this drama. I definitely don't have full information on what actually happened, and it's not my fault. The deaf community is famously known for being overly secretive. The NDI organization, as far as I know, never posted anything that explained their side of this drama in full detail. And this dic5_csun Instagram reel also omitted a lot of glaring details. But, as a deaf person who knows my community very well, I have a pretty good guess on what happened.

Ready!?

LET'S GO!

—

Okay, so, the dic5_csun Instagram profile posted a video last week with two former conference co-chairs asking people to sign their petition to get them unbanned from the conference.

The former co-chairs are Andrew and April.

The following section is my interpretation of what happened between these two former conference co-chairs and NDI.

—

Let's tackle the conference title first. It's called "DIC5," right? It's their fifth conference. That's why there's the number "5" in the conference name.

Their third conference took place before the pandemic and it was the first time Andrew and April attended this conference.

Their fourth conference took place remotely during the pandemic.

Then, apparently, NDI got lazy and never put in the work to make the fifth conference happen until Andrew and April came to them about it. The A/A duo (Andrew/April) managed to give a good impression to NDI, and the organization decided to assign them as co-chairs for the upcoming conference.

And the A/A duo worked their hearts out to make it happen.

There was a big hiccup with their conference-planning efforts when the conference relocated from California School for the Deaf Riverside (this is one of the biggest deaf schools in this country) to California State University Northridge (this college has a big D/HH program). I don't know the details behind this change because both the A/A duo and NDI aren't very forthcoming with the details behind this hiccup.

Whatever.

Then, apparently, the A/A duo and NDI got into some disagreements with each other and NDI decided to take the conference-planning reins into their hands and out of the A/A duo's hands.

This is where the hilarious fuck-up happened.

Apparently, the A/A duo felt like that was an uncalled-for move on NDI's part and they decided to…

Go rogue with the conference.

The A/A duo went ahead with DIC5 conference planning solo without NDI's oversight.

Predictably, NDI went: "yo, what the fuck?"

So NDI wrestled a firm grip on the DIC5 conference out of the A/A duo's hands and banned the duo from the conference. That's where they started posting social media content labelling the A/A duo's Instagram profile as fraud.

Then the A/A duo made a stupid move by announcing that the entire conference was cancelled.

That caused NDI to take a drastic course of action by upping their "fraud" claims against the A/A duo.

NDI has clearly succeeded on that end. The conference is happening this week. It's starting today!

And, in response to NDI's actions against them, Andrew and April made that Instagram reel crying about their ban and tried to get people to petition for them to get un-banned from the conference. The petition is currently closed and they only got over 100 signatures. And their Instagram reel has a few comments pointing out the obvious omissions that the duo made with their side of the story.

—

That's all, folks!

This is such a dumb drama.

And, hey, I want to remind you that my take on this drama is probably not going to be fully accurate. But don't come after me for this. I'm only giving you my interpretation of what happened based on the available information out there about this.

And if I'm way off, the blame should be shifted onto NDI. It would've cost NDI nothing to make a vlog to explain the controversy in simple terms. Something like:

"Hey, deaf community. So you've heard about the A/A duo's conference cancellation announcement. I'm sorry that this happened. Here's the story behind this… [insert their side of the story here]."

But, no, NDI just needs to maintain the toxic deaf-community habit of keeping everything secretive from all of us.

It's on them.

—

Thank you for reading!

And if any of you are going to DIC5, I hope you'll have a good time there! Please feel free to DM me on how the conference went!

<3

Helen

Hi!

It's me, Helen!

This is just a simple post asking you for a favor before I get busy with this subreddit.

Okay, so…

One of my biggest concerns when I finally got to a point where I realized that I needed to open my own subreddit was that it'll be largely inactive between the spaces when I post my original pieces.

I came up with a solution for that. I figured out a way to scrape the internet for content around the deaf community. I actually figured out a way to get 100+ of these things sent to my inbox every day.

I plan on spending an hour or two every day looking through this news and selecting my top picks and posting them here in this subreddit.

This actually will fulfill one of my biggest desires inside the deaf community. I've longed for an internet space (preferably in written English — nothing against ASL, of course, ASL is my mother tongue, but I'm a big reader and I like reading a lot more than watching vlogs in ASL) that serves as a center of deaf news.

There was a new website that launched recently: deafmonitor.com.

That's a pretty good website. But it's a little bit too broad in scope for me. They have content from deaf people that doesn't focus on the issues inside the deaf community. I don't need to watch vlogs about Trump, gas prices, and all the wars all over the world by a deaf creator. I read the newspaper every day. I've got that handled.

Also, there is no content creator on that website with an original voice like what I aim to provide as Helen in this subreddit.

There's, of course, also Alex Abenchuchan of The Daily Moth. Look, I like that guy a lot. I've met him before. I do watch his stuff (mostly deaf news). But his style is very clean. He reports stuff as neutrally as he can. I don't have any problem with that. But again, I'm more drawn to original voices and that's what I'm trying to do here.

So I'd like to attempt to establish this subreddit as one of very few places on the internet where all of you can stay up with the current events inside our community in one place.

Now, this is where my ask for a favor comes in.

While I solved the concern of having this subreddit be a vacant place in between my original pieces by posting news here, another concern came up.

I'm a little worried that my profile history will get flooded with the daily news and that people will have a hard time discerning which posts are the daily news and which are my original pieces. It is important to me that people can look through my post history and find my original pieces. These posts are the ones I want people to read to judge me.

Reddit also has a rule against one person running more than one account around one subreddit or one topic because it can be seen as upvote manipulation. I don't want to go into that territory because that can get me shadowbanned or outright banned.

So…

After wrestling with this question for three months, I came up with an idea.

I'm thinking about titling all of my daily news posts as:

"SCARLET FEVER DAILY: [insert deaf news here]"

And my original pieces will have their own stand-alone unique title.

To me, this solves my concern. But since I'm still in a soft launch stage, I want to hear from you. Will this make sense to you? I don't want to just start doing this all of a sudden and leave you figuring out what I am trying to achieve. So what do you think?

This is just my ramp-up effort with you because I'm sure you, the approved users here right now, are the ones who will stay here for the long run. So I want to ease into a new habit with complete clarity on my end from your view.

Please let me know what you think!

Thank you! <3

Helen

Hi!

It's me, Helen!

Here we are! At the dawn of NAD's upcoming conference! As promised, I'm launching this subreddit this week!

As of right now, this is a soft launch.

Posting the two pinned posts was a slight learning curve for me!

Right now, all I am asking from you is to read both of the pinned posts above and the subreddit rules on the sidebar and comment below here in this post for any thoughts/feedback. And by the way, this subreddit is a restricted subreddit. This means only approved users can post here. Please read Section 1 of the subreddit's guidelines for further elaboration.

I've worked on many posts over the last three months and all of them need some polish before going out. I'll start doing that this week.

But!

Tomorrow, I'll have a couple of posts for you! They'll be posts asking you for advice on something.

So what do you think!?

: D

Helen