One thing this deaf elite/elitism debate should reveal is whether you personally think privileged deaf people are necessary for the advancement or perseverance of deaf people on whole, and if so, what their role / attitude should be to those who do not share their privileges. 1/x

I think it's important to make the distinction between an "elite" person and "elitist" behavior. We often sign our view of those "up/down there" using the 5 handshape, it's visceral, often unconscious, and makes visible your inner judgement of certain people and their status. 2/x

Your own subconscious can betray you. Here's a test: can you catch where you place signs for hearing people in space when referring to them? Do you generally more often place these signs higher up in relation to your own signs about deaf people? 3/x

If you place hearing signs/values/people higher up in physical space while signing, it means you are likely to have internalized and elevated certain hearing values/behaviors in your mind and will judge people on whether or not they exhibit these same values. 4/x

Growing up, I thought *all* deaf people should know English and completely dismissed the value of ASL. It took a long time for me to decolonize my negative thinking about ASL. I can immediately think of three turning points in my life that helped dislodge this thinking. 5/x

This sort of English > ASL thinking is insidious and has infiltrated our community from the beginning of deaf education, where it's drilled into us that you are almost certain to not succeed in life without English. This bias persists even as we proclaim the virtues of ASL. 6/x

You could argue that there are two deaf "elite" pools -- those that have mastered assimilation with hearingness and may look down on ASL-speaking deaf people, and those that have mastered language, whether English, ASL, or both. There can be overlap here. 7/x

As a mainstreamed deaf person, I developed a contempt for ASL and self-loathing of being deaf. That contempt elevated me, but only in my own mind. I was lonely. When I went to @GallaudetU I wanted so badly to join certain in-groups there that wouldn't give me the time of day. 8/x

I aspired to join those groups, determined that becoming skilled at ASL was going to be my ticket in. I finally got the courage to sit at "those tables" in the cafeteria. I then realized they were just like anybody else and that I had given them the power of being "elite". 9/x

I now recognize that "elite" is a completely subjective term and is very often tied to your own personal aspirations and status. There is a better term to describe the "elite". They have privileges, are privileged. And for privileged people to exclude others is elitist. 10/x

Back to the first post in this thread: do you believe that deaf people w/ privileges are critical to the advancement of deaf people as a whole? If so, what role should they play-how shall they use their privilege? Is it possible to use privilege w/o being elitist? I say yes. 11/x