Panel Video
Panel Transcript
Dr. Moore:
Well, hello, everyone. You know where we are? This is a critical piece of real estate. Before the hotel that you are now seated in was built, there was another building that was actually demolished on the same site as the current hotel. And that was the segregated school for Black Deaf students. And that school was known as the Kendall Division Two School. So, we are seated in sacred space.
I want to take this opportunity to learn more about the Kendall School Division Two and its history. This is a historic piece of property. So, this is a perfect example during the 1950s and 1960s, when no research was done on the Kendall School Division Two. So, what is clear to me is that there was bias by researchers who had their own research agendas, of course. And we at Gallaudet have now established a committee known as the Louise B. Miller Pathways and Gardens: A Legacy to Black Deaf Children. And that committee was established to document and ensure that information is shared globally. And this is absolutely critical because we know that Louise B. Miller was a mother of four children. Three out of four of those children were Deaf. And they lived five minutes from Gallaudet’s campus. And Gallaudet barred those students from entering the school that was on our campus at that time because they were Black. So, the Miller family actually spent their own money, thousands of dollars in the 1950s, to educate their children. If we think about it in today’s terms and currency, it could mean millions of dollars.
But the oldest child was enrolled at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. There’s so much documentation and preserved information from that time.
I happen to be the co-chair of the Louise B. Miller committee, along with Dr. Carolyn McCaskill. If you are interested to learn more information, please see me or Evon Black. Now I want to point out Dr. Glenn Anderson, who was a former student here in the 1960s. And he certainly shared some narratives with us this morning. And he talks about walking past the former Kendall Division Two School and knowing that there was a building here that he walked past every day while he was a student on our campus.
And he saw that school. Even in the 1970s, Carolyn and myself were students here and we would walk past that same building. And it wasn’t until the former school that the original school became the Department of Social Work and Sociology. Carolyn and I took many classes in that building. And we had no idea about the history of the building because there was a lack of documented research on this history and the Black Deaf community.
So that is the value of research in the Black Deaf community.
All right. Now I have some questions for our panelists. I have been absolutely inspired by the perspectives that you brought to us this morning on Black Studies and/or Deaf Studies.
Now, I have a question I would like to pose to all of you. I know that you are sophisticated researchers in your fields of study. And I want to know from each of you how the research that you conduct informs practice. In other words, how are you educating professionals in the fields of medicine, law enforcement, social work, and social media?
Dr. Anderson:
Lindsay Dunn and I write together. We have several articles and book chapters related to Deaf culture, as we talked about earlier this morning.
One way of teaching is using our personal lived experiences. We take what has happened to us, and we document it, and it becomes an artifact. I think that is one way to be able to teach people and pass this information on from our personal stories.
A good example of this, as we discussed the building here, is this. In the early 1990s, there was a lot of conversation going on about this being a Black school. And I was shocked to know that. I didn’t know that there had been a Black school here.
So, these personal stories, I think, are critical and make a big difference.
Dr. Jowers-Barber:
As chair of a division, I work with faculty and I’m able when they are looking for ways of engaging students, to talk about especially in history and political science classes where it’s very much organic, to talk about history that needs to be brought into the realm of the history that they are used to teaching. Right?
So, we talk about Deaf populations here in Washington, DC. We talked about Kendall School and the plaque in front of the Kellogg Center. As a public historian, our institution has made the district part of our classroom. So, students don’t just sit in a classroom for 15 weeks. You have to get your students out.
So, as I’m talking about and writing about and researching Deaf history, I’m also making sure that faculty are aware of where they can go to bring students to see some of this. Because you can say all you want in the classroom, and I have great faculty. But students actually want to get out and walk where these historical actors walked. They want to be in places where the watershed events have taken place.
When we bring them to Gallaudet’s campus and show them this plaque, they are just amazed. First of all, to understand that Black Deaf students had the same segregation issues that Black students had. So now, they have made a connection. There’s a better understanding. There’s not so much in other kinds of feelings about Deafness. It’s oh, we were Black and we couldn’t go to these schools here in Washington. They were Black and Deaf, and they couldn’t attend this school in Washington.
When you talk about the Miller case in 1952, two years before Brown versus Board of Education, but with some of the same lawyers working together, you have made a better connection. You have now educated a group of students who are now able to go out and talk more articulately about Deafness and Black history and Black Deafness, and exposed them to an area that they did not know about.
So, the research becomes not only just a personal gratification and one I can tell my family and one I can share with the students coming in. So, when they go out, they can engage in a conversation that is not thinking of people as other or putting people in limits or putting people in boxes and have a greater understanding and respect for other populations that look like them and understand we share, we have so many more similarities than we have differences. Deafness is not a hindrance to being intelligent, being educated, having a family, or doing any of those things. And also, being Deaf is not a cushion against being discriminated against or being thought of as incapable.
Dr. Moore:
Would any of our other panelists like to comment?
Dr Ralph:
Yeah. I will be brief. I would love to hear more questions from the audience. I guess, regarding how we translate the research, I took it as policy, or how we make the research relevant. I’m always interested in ingenuity. I feel like no matter what circumstances or obstacles people face, they always demonstrate ingenuity and are creative and resourceful. I think people are always institutionalizing and sharing their ideas. It speaks to the point about documentation and interests you, you can find evidence of the ingenuity. It’s about studying that, tracing that, and looking at how they institutionalized that or documented it, which is a good research methodology.
Dr. Bahan:
I recall you asking me about the book, Journey into a Deaf World. And I actually included a chapter on Black Deaf lives in that book. And I will admit that looking back, I had reservations. Not because I did not want to include them in the book. I just felt a chapter was insufficient. But at the same time, I felt good; they had a chapter, and there was a lot of information in it. You know? But that was separation without inclusion. And they should have been completely integrated into the book.
So there has to be a path and a way to merge our histories. I was not happy with one chapter, which I have wrestled with. I don’t have the answers. But I think we are working toward that goal. That’s the goal where our story is integrated. Our story becomes one. It’s a story of the community experience. So that’s something to think about.
Dr. Humphries:
I think that some of my work pointed toward the diffusion of our practices, and mostly influenced our teaching practices. Carol Padden and I wrote a Basic Course textbook in 1980. That had a large influence on the teaching of American Sign Language. And before this textbook was available, most of the teaching was actually on vocabulary, and there were vocabulary books and lessons. But not looking at language. So, this was actually a language text.
It had an impact on both teachers and students. In the 1980s, many people weren’t trained to teach ASL. They didn’t have degrees in teaching ASL. So, they had to learn how to teach ASL. And they were also learning about the structure of ASL from our textbook. It’s not supposed to be that way. You should know that before you start to teach it. Unfortunately, there was a need for ASL instruction. The textbook was able to influence the practice of how we actually teach ASL.
The book is still out there. So that’s one example I can think of.
Another way that I myself have influenced practice is that I did an early experiment on bilingual education in the 1970s. And that was actually a dissertation in the 70s where I adopted bilingual approaches in my classroom, and I reported on that.
I think I contributed something to the dialogue on bilingual education. And this was very early, when only a few people were talking about bilingual education, such as Barbara Kannapell and several others at that time. But I still have things to say about teaching ASL and English to Deaf students.
Dr. Moore:
Thank you, Dr. Humphries.
Let me go to my next question. I wonder how each of you maintains your professional boundaries while conducting research? Are there any considerations to bear in mind when your research participants are members of your communities? Considering the fact that our communities are very small, as a researcher, how do you maintain those professional boundaries? What is your advice for up-and-coming, new Black Deaf researchers, Deaf scholars, and Africana Deaf scholars?
Dr. Humphries:
Wow. I’m sorry. That’s not an easy question by any means.
Dr. Jowers-Barber:
I agree. It’s not easy. And I have been challenged by it. But I have been able to do it. If you want your research to be taken seriously and if you actually want it to serve the purpose, you have to have the structure in place. And you have to have boundaries, and you have to follow some of the recognized academic rules.
That being said, I also think there’s nothing objective about being a scholar, especially a historian. We try to say that, but it’s not. You pick the field, you pick the century, you pick whatever it is you want to pick. So, there’s some subjectivity there.
In the area that I’m looking at, specifically education of Black Deaf children, it’s not difficult to go in without a preconceived notion of what you’re going to find. Right? You have your question: What was the education like? What were the challenges? What were the accomplishments? And you go in not thinking you’re going to find everything negative, as Dr. Ralph said. There’s ingenuity. You go in with an open mind. So, you’re able to do that.
What you bring to this is the ability to do your research, not to look at conventional avenues of research. You’re looking at letters. You’re looking at repositories that may not necessarily be the Library of Congress. Right? You look at the Sumner School, where the minutes of the school board have Mrs. Miller testifying before the committee about why she wants her son not to go to the Maryland School; she testifies why she wants him to go to Kendall School. So that may not be the norm, but you have to look at things sort of off the beaten path. Right?
And oral histories become important. Where you are talking to individuals, and yes, you want to try and vet as much as you can. But you understand, as we all know, that a lot of that was not written down. There’s not a lot of documentation there. But what you can do is align what was going on historically with the overview and what you’re being told. And you can make the connections.
I can go forever. We’re Howard trained. But I will pass it.
Dr. Bahan:
I think that it’s important to have knowledge about who it is that you’re interviewing. Right? And to know your role going into an interview, and the impact of the camera.
The camera is there, right? And often, a person sees the camera, and they freeze. That definitely impacts what they will say. I am impacting them. Technology is having an impact.
So, I try to make them ignore the camera in the room. And when they’re telling their story, the interviewer has to resist the urge to interrupt and ask questions. Let them talk.
I’m trying to draw them out more, to engage them more. Interviewers say things like “Well, what was it like growing up?” Just a general question. But sometimes you have to become more specific. What do you remember about when you first went to school? Do you have pictures from your first year of school? Or an article? It is something to jog their memory so they can lead the conversation rather than researchers or interviewers who start the interview with so many comments that the person has nothing to say.
I remember when Dr. McCaskill and I conducted research together. We were interviewing Willard Shorter, who lived on I Street. And as we were talking with him, I could see that my presence as a white person was influencing him, and he was being selective about his words. He talked about when he became Deaf at the age of 8 or 9, and that he was absolutely frightened. He thought he was the only Deaf person in the entire world. I asked about Gallaudet University. It was right there, didn’t you know anything about Gallaudet University? He said no. That’s different. And he stopped at that moment. He just said it was different. Carolyn and I discussed what he meant by that. But I, because of my presence, “stopped” him from saying that. Because we did not have that commonality between us as interviewer/interviewee. Eventually, we learned how to elicit that kind of information better. It was definitely helpful to have artifacts or to use those artifacts as triangulation.
Dr. Moore:
Thank you, Dr. Bahan. Was there a comment, Dr. Ralph? Okay. We will go to Dr. Humphries.
Dr. Humphries: I am not a good person to talk about boundaries. Most of my life, I have broken boundaries. They have never stopped me. But my advice would be to manage risk. If you are going to cross boundaries, you want to manage the risk. What will be the cost to yourself as a researcher if you break that boundary? And ask yourself if you are right. It is worse to break the boundary and be wrong. And that will end badly.
So, I think you do have to consider that this is a case of needing to respect the things that we don’t know about, the things that we are not.
I am not Black. So, I need to respect that.
Also, I’m not a woman. So, I need to respect that. So, there are many things and many possible ways that I need to think very carefully and weigh the risks. Take steps that will keep me safe and not ruin your reputation as a scholar. Honestly, in our environment, we need to think more about breaking boundaries because we will have to at some point in our lives if you’re doing this work. Because we are often backed into a corner.
But manage the risks that may ensue.
Dr. Jowers-Barber:
The last thing I wanted to say was a comment you made when you said Mr. Shorter and I knew him well, he encouraged me to do my work. I don’t know if it was so much that you were white, but that you didn’t know the history of what was going on. Because then you would have asked it a different way. So – and I think that’s what we need to do when we go into these situations, we need to understand the history before we go in. We need to know what was going on. We may not be able to relate to it because we weren’t Black or we’re not a woman, but we need to be aware of the challenges and whatever the biases were of that era. And then that helps you also shape your questions and understand why a response is given.
So, I would just say, as we’re doing this boundaries, just make sure that whatever the arena is we’re going in, we have versed ourselves in the historical aspect. So, we don’t go in and ask questions that are triggering without understanding why they’re triggering and without understanding what the historical legacy of that question is.
Dr. Ralph:
Well, I was going to say quickly about boundaries. I appreciate what all the panelists said. I think of it like there’s – you want to be attentive to the safety and care of the populations you work with. Not jeopardize the circumstances. For instance, I have done a lot of work teaching in prisons or working with formerly incarcerated and incarcerated students. And to be attentive to everything they’re dealing with. And I think also in a way, I guess thinking concretely about students’ material needs, even the more conventional students at universities, sometimes faculty talk to them about school without talking to them about how to make sure they go to a place and get the resources they need to do the work they want to do or the resources they need for their family situation. As if it’s merely an intellectual endeavor and not a livelihood.
So, working to build the trust and thinking concretely about someone’s material needs. And the trust goes both ways. It’s probably about safety and care. But it’s also about them trusting us to tell a story with integrity. Because there will be a distance between the experience they have and the story they will tell. And hopefully, if the trust goes both ways, they will accept our narrative even if it’s not the same as theirs.
Dr. Moore:
Thank you. Thank you. Questions and answers from our audience. So, if there is an audience member who has a question, please ask at this time.
You can come up front.
Audience question: Again, thank you for your presentations during this panel. I have been wondering about the future. Particularly in the Americas. We have a history of three groups of individuals: Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous peoples. Oftentimes, there is a Spanish language barrier between African Americans and those who speak English and have communication with hearing families. There are cultural and linguistic considerations for Latino communities. So, I’m now curious about Africana Studies and how the discussions are happening to integrate Latinx languages like Portuguese and other languages in the Americas? I think this would be a great opportunity for linguistic research. Linguistic research in the Americas, easy to travel south, would be a great opportunity for diaspora studies. It’s time. Gallaudet still has no ethnic studies.
I’m grateful for California. Anyone from California? Thank you very much. That is something that’s present there in California. But I also want to see ethnic studies here at Gallaudet University.
Dr. Ralph:
Yes. Beautiful question. I appreciate it.
So, I would say there was a nice moment in your presentation where you were talking about African Studies at Howard and how they wanted to form African American Studies and Africana Studies and how they respected and appreciated African Studies and wanted the studies of the Black people in the U.S. That’s a conversation that goes on.
We’re two departments, African American Studies and African Studies. The faculty wants the two departments, but wants to talk about the history of the African and Black worlds and the overlapping interests.
Part of what the question speaks to is how important it is to continue to expand the voices and perspectives to think about the geography and the nuanced complex ways, think about language. And I was very excited about the question. It seems like the person who asked it may be the person to start doing some of the research. Her take on it was so nuanced. Often, we look for research that reflects our unique insights, and when we can’t find it, it’s exciting. Maybe we’re the people to do the research. To that point, I feel like I had an exciting conversation with your President during the break, and a woman I just met. It was like they each had this unique take on intersections around policing and incarceration and Deaf Studies and Deaf communities. And it seems like there’s a lot that can be done to launch research and try to find funding for exciting new innovative research endeavors. I hope we can make the most of the opportunity we have here together in the panels and informally in breaks and evenings to explore that.
Dr. Jowers-Barber:
And I want to say that I’m happy for the question, too. Because there are a lot of departments that are doing Latinx Studies. And I think – and I don’t mean fight in a negative sense, but you have to fight for these things. No one is going to give you – and I don’t mean that negatively either. But you have got to make your case. You have got to start. Your papers have to start talking about the importance of Latinx Studies and making connections with technology now. Find some of the programs that already have an ethnic program and a Latinx program. Find those connections there.
Start your networking. And provide courses. One of the things that makes lives easier for a lot of people if you say, well, there’s already a course that’s being done that I think we could offer in Africana Studies or whatever you have going on that you can offer it. But be part of that push for that. And always support the idea that when you have the forum or your meetings, you talk about Latinx. Look at the conferences, and ask to go to conferences.
Make those connections and continue to press for it. It is important. You will find that programs and departments are expanding, and Africana Studies is expanding. There is BIPOC and Latinx. Is it a lot at this point? I don’t know. I’m happy to say there are so many programs across the country that I don’t know them all. I would research to see what’s out there. But continue with the push. Is it needed? Yes. I firmly believe that we need to bake a bigger pie. And include all of these voices. I refuse to get on that bandwagon of there’s, you know, not YUF, we don’t have enough, we don’t have enough. Then let’s get more. Let’s expand it. It can be expanded. And the Center for Deaf Studies is part of that expansion. We look at the history of 1968, when the first Deaf Black Studies started. You have to push for it. Push it out. And as you’re pushing, you’re including. That’s what you have got to do.
Dr Bahan:
If I could add to that. Look at the administration’s plan to establish a Center for Latinx Deaf Studies. They made that announcement recently, so more is coming soon. It’s a positive announcement.
Dr. Humphries:
If you are teacher-researchers, we also have to look at our teaching. It wouldn’t be fair for them to go to any other place or have any other culture as we think about cultural studies, we have to think about the language of instruction. In my courses, nothing prevents them necessarily from engaging in this work. Being able to have these expressions and focus on the problem of people and people of different colors, cultures, and ethnicities, we know that other people have already defined us.
And it doesn’t necessarily include Latinx writers or the Latinx community. So, we have to make sure that we’re bringing in all of that type of literature and researchers who encompass a variety of perspectives. So that entire focus for us will become a force that has to be dealt with. As a Deaf person, a person in the community, I can’t necessarily teach that. But I can benefit from learning about it.
As a researcher, I’m not necessarily limited to doing what I know. I know there are others out there who know other things and have other areas of expertise. So, I can use my teaching in the field and create a field and a discipline where we’re able to research other people’s studies and the writing of others. So, not just being narrow-minded in our focus. I will shut up now.
Audience question: We know our history between HBCUs and Black Deaf schools. So, I’m just wondering if perhaps Dr. Ralph and Dr. Jowers, what would happen if our Black Deaf individuals were to engage with your communities? We have both white and black academic institutions across the United States. We see the policies and rules that are often guided by those individuals.
We know that Gallaudet University has resisted Black Deaf Studies for a long time. Some HBCUs, we have seen they have stopped providing support for our services and that has caused frustration for us. We see a lot of young individuals who are eager to attend college and higher education institutions. But those institutions were not created or designed for us. I’m thinking of those who want to join academia and are trying to navigate this world, which is like a labyrinth with these rules and the designs of the institutions. And one mistake can drastically impact us, and we are then viewed as the angry Black Deaf people and put in a position to do things we did not plan to do.
So, I’m questioning what we can do? So, within the Black Deaf Studies, if a person is Black Deaf, we either have somebody who can go to Gallaudet because you’re Deaf or because you’re Black, you can attend an HBCU. So again, how do we break down those barriers if someone has an intersectional identity?
Dr. Jowers-Barber:
Professor Dunn, thank you. Look, I understand firsthand. Someone asked me if I wanted my daughter to go to Howard or UDC? And I wanted her to go to Gallaudet or NTID very clearly because I wanted her to have an experience of Deafness and the ability to communicate more easily. I love Howard. I love where I work. But I have seen the challenges of our students that we have accepted that are Deaf. And yes, they have interpreters. But I have also had many conversations with faculty about how you are teaching in a diverse classroom; now the diversity has expanded because you have a Deaf student. It’s not that you’re teaching lower, but could you turn around so the interpreter can see what you’re saying when you’re talking to the blackboard? So, the student is keeping up with everything? Could you have the opportunity when you are doing your feedback, have the interpreter there? You are not writing a note to this student. That’s not happening. And if the student is on Blackboard and it’s telling you that they don’t understand the feedback, then I’m expecting you to step up and do whatever you have to do to make sure this student understands. Just like you would do with any other student.
I don’t expect you to come to me and say, well, I just don’t think they get it. Well, why don’t they get it? What are you doing to provide assistance for them in getting it? The challenges are real. And without having faculty there, I’m the first person to say if the interpreter is not there on time, then the student is penalized. That’s not saying anything against interpreters. But if you’re going to be an interpreter for the student in the class, you’re expected to be there when the class starts at 9:00, and I expect you there at 8:45 so you can position yourself. So, there are a lot of pieces that need to work together that penalize a student who is trying to enter a hearing institution, whether it’s an HBCU or PWI that are challenges that I have not figured out a way to smooth them out.
I am not – and this may be the radical me, I may be siding with you being radical and baking brownies, I have no problem. I would love to see an institution of higher education that’s an HBCU that’s Deaf. I have no problem with that. I don’t think it’s a negative. I would love to see that. I would love to be able to say to students like my daughter, who said I’m not going to Gallaudet. I have had enough. I’m not going to say, okay, well, here is an HBCU, and there are Deaf instructors, and they’re bilingual, and this works.
So, I’m not adverse to having a conversation about what that looks like.
Also, by informing our instructors more at HBCUs of the need for that recognition by embracing diversity without imposing a conventional mindset as to what a student looks like.
Dr. Ralph:
I will be quick. That was a great response. Amazing question. And I would say concretely, I’m excited by the notion that there is interest in an HBCU that’s also a Deaf university. I would love to talk about that. And in addition to being a department chair, I’m the director of a research center. So, I’m learning how complicated these questions of funding, philanthropy, and institution building are. But I also embrace them. I would love to talk more about how to channel resources for things like this that are meaningful and important.
I was also at an HBCU myself, Morris Brown College in Atlanta. And now at Howard. I don’t know the history of Deaf students at HBCUs. But I can imagine why it would be challenging for many reasons, including the fact that faculty often have a much more traditional/conventional notion of pedagogy. And it is borne of maybe a sense of desperation. Like, sit down, be quiet. Be disciplined. Learn in this way that we have always been taught you’re supposed to learn. Memorize these things without students who have different ways of processing information. It’s well-endowed, professional, wealthy white schools that are more imaginative in their curriculum. That’s the well- endowed universities that are more open-minded about how learning should unfold and more accommodating of students, oftentimes. I think there is that unfortunate and problematic approach that faculty can often have at an HBCU, which is more conventional: we teach the way we have always taught. And not being aware of the need for accommodations. And thinking that accommodations mean lower standards rather than realizing that by accommodating students, we can unleash their best capabilities.
Dr. Anderson:
This is an outstanding question from Professor Dunn. And it is definitely not easy to respond to. We need more people like Professor Dunn. You make a lot of noise here at Gallaudet University, and we need more of you. We need more of you.
You’re talking about systematic change. Systemic change. And it happens, as we know, very, very slowly in institutions. You all know that from your institutions, not just here, but at all institutions.
One key to this is that there needs to be more of us joining the discourse and joining at higher levels where we have voices at these institutions, where we have power, and we need people outside of the system and inside.
People who get frustrated and leave, and then progress, don’t continue.
So, my preference is to be a part of this system and work hard to change it from the inside.
Dr. Moore:
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Anderson—a round of applause to our distinguished panelists. We have run out of time. It’s actually past noon. We need to wrap up here.
What has become clear to us in higher education is that there is a shift occurring in terms of equality, equity, and justice issues. Looking at the institution and institutions of higher education. And we are called to a greater good, a higher responsibility.
I look forward to seeing you at lunch. We are dismissed. Please give a round of applause to our panelists.
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