"to reside temporarily"
5/03/2008
Pimping with SSI
"Every deaf human born into this society with broken ear drums is a target for mental curse which becomes a deaf-mute robot who strives and hungers for the approval and favor of their enemies." Iceberg Slim's quote inspired me to write this, his actual quote is, "Every male human born into this society with black skin is a target for physical or psychological murder or for the kind of sinister mental plague which turns out the kind of nigger robot who strives and hungers for the approval and favor of his enemies." If you can write a better quote, please do share with me. English is not my first language, so anyone expert in English, inspire me! Iceberg Slim wrote a book, Pimp: The Story of My Life, a very difficult book for me to read because I am a feminist. Yet, I understood what he went through during the 1940's (remember it was during the struggling period for Black people). What was Iceberg's purpose as a Pimp? He created a space for himself, a space where he could feel "Black," or feel like a man. This is similar to why Deaf people receive SSI, even when they say they are not disabled and we see that irony through how Slim pimped his own people (black women). Workplaces in the hearing world are much different compared to workplaces at Deaf schools, Deaf owned businesses, etc because the space is Deaf-owned. Now, working in public areas, workers tend to choose outcasts. Mexicans are often the target but.... when a Deaf person appears, they are the next outcast. Out of all minorities, the Deaf person is the final target. There is no real explanation for this. Now, receiving SSI is what Deaf people do to make a space of their own.
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- Ali Tyler
- "There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers." - Ralph Ellison, Photography, University of Nevada in Reno, pinetrees, dogs (Bear, Scout, Max, Taffy), sunsets, a walk in the snow during full moon, smell of roads when it rains...
11 comments:
I want to share something with you. Many blacks that I know do not compare themselves to deaf people. Many think that what deaf people had to deal with is NOTHING compared to what their ancestors had to deal with. Discriminations towards black is much more deeper than they are for deaf people, unfortunately.
Candy, I find that interesting because my black peers understand me. They do not compare themselves to deaf people because they are now regarded culturally in the laws. We aren't yet...
Also, discriminations towards Deaf are big time deep. Don't you experience them?
-Ali
Well said :) Ignore them :)
Pros and cons of SSI benefits for deaf "able-bodied" individuals ought to be throughly examined thru formal research methods and statistical surveys.
No questions about many deaf ypung adults and high-schoolers often steered into drawing the SSI benefits.
For example, many Vocational Rehabilation (VR) usually instructed their clients to apply for the SSI while they were seeking for college tuition finanical assistance, etc. What choices the deaf VR clients have?
I constantly criticized the concept of SSI benefits during the high school years until I faced the reality of life, etc.
Sadly, many government agencies actively pushed deaf 'able-bodied" individuals into drawing the SSi benefits, instead of serving the deaf clients with employment placements, etc.
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
Well so you got inspired to dwell on the past from black people from slavery long time ago about what they did to deaf long time ago?
My advice, get over it and move on with life and evolve.
Like some smart black people did, they evolve and not dwelling on stuff or saying things "is it this cuz I'm black/deaf? This's stereotype! Be proud to be black/deaf! Etc" stuff cuz its not doing anything its not getting anywhere except makes yourself even smaller of an minority and close-minded and eventually it'll become an annoyance. So get over it and evolve and be open minded accept and respect and act like yourself not what color your skin, what disability you have, your hertiages, etc forget those and be yourself for once and you'll come far in life.
RLM,
I agree with you. I also personally believe that there are important reasons to why Deaf people use SSI (and it has nothing to do with laziness).
Amy,
Funny that u say I am dwelling on the past? It is more of the present day. I am learning from history, to better fight my rights for today.
CI devices have evolved over time and they learned from the past to make better devices, did u know that?
Also, I am pretty far in life, I am happy with what I have accomplished.
Thanks,
Ali
chuckles. i now understand why there's one deaf man who's called mr. ssi as he works at ssa and stuff and his friends scheduled tournaments to take place on first weekend of month when deafie pockets are ful.
Here you go again, and I dig it. I learned a great deal from black American writers in the 60's and 70's, and still do. I can relate to what u are saying about Iceberg Slim. Makes me recall " If He Hollers, Let Him Go" by Chester Himes.
And about SSI, it makes me remember the line "Paternalism is the bane of the Deaf" - by the first president of NAD.
Anonymous # 2, wow... you know Chester Himes! That makes me so happy. :) I wish I knew your name.
Thank you for your comment.
Paternalism is the bane of the Deaf," wow... thanks for sharing that quote with me.
-Ali
Trying to wrap it up in a nutshell:
The SSI debate interests me because I have also received the curse and blessing of free, stable financial benefit. At 18, I was still under my hearing parents' roof & was not expected to pay rent.
It was only one year later that I tried smoking some weed, and soon found that my free monthly income could buy so much of that, yay. Then I became so dependent it was very difficult to quit. The Lord Jesus delivered me!
When I quit, SSI helped me to just chill and get back on my feet, read the Bible without any other distractions. Now five years later, I'm in college, something that would not have been possible without God, getting my degree with no extreme pressure to work while in school.
When I get my degree, I plan on working around other deaf people because I thrive in deaf space.
The conversation has evolved into opinion with no concrete research because the (hearing) world is a vicious workplace. It is true.
For the deaf community to become completely independent from SSI -- if it were suddenly taken away, we would face a huge dip before any progress would be made. It would create more jobs, but how much more? Not all deaf people are capable of working because of how they were raised communicatively, psychologically, and spiritually. It could actually split the culture into half, or even shatter it, and that would make it harder for deaf people from all parts of the country to find allies. Remember we are human first, and that means we have unlimited differences.
The fact is: this world is predominantly hearing, and bases the majority of its space effectiveness on sound, whether they realize it or not, and it causes some if not much psychological, even physiological damage to many deaf individuals.
SSI helps and hurts. People want and do not want it. Agencies push it because it helps them financially, secondary schools push it because it's an easy way to excite their sheep out of the system so they can welcome younger ones in, businesses even push it if they have built their central profit around it, parents push it so they don't have to spend so much on their children. We push it because it's totally free money.
Then years later, we -- the ones who receive -- complain about the free money we're getting because we have no work experience, and that hurts. There's no financial ladder to climb if we stay on it. So, we have to go to school to get a degree.
And many deaf people who have been on SSI for so long doubt themselves. I speak from personal experience. They don't want to leave the simple, circular, hopeless life they have gotten so used to. Drugs are nice. You become lazy and trip on things and get used to the simplicity. Think about deaf people who never make it to college, who have never seen anything close to Gallaudet or RIT, or have chosen not to take an active role in the community.
Deep down inside in your hearts lies the real choice to live and love.
I would offer solutions, but I wanted to focus on what SSI does.
Could you please give me the page number of Slim's quotation as i am interested to look into the context of the whole idea. Thank you, Jenyy
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