BUG

Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution

Christopher Jon Heuer

• Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781563683572
• eBook ISBN: 9781563683886
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Social Sciences

"What you have in your hands is a bomb. But it is the kind you need to hold on to for dear life, not run away from."
—From the Foreword, John Lee Clark

Christopher Jon Heuer lost his hearing early, but not before "being able to hear a lot as a kid." He also received a good education, both in a speech-oriented setting and a signing environment. These varied experiences provided him with the perfect background to write about biases he faced, not only those of a mostly oblivious hearing society, but also those of ideologically restrictive members of the Deaf community. BUG: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution combines new work of Heuer's with his best columns from The Tactile Mind Weekly and the National Association of the Deaf's Mind Over Matter. He addresses all topics – exit interviews, baldness, faith healing, marriage, cats, Christmas trips, backyard campfires in boxer shorts – with a withering wit that spares no aspect of life and deafness.

Being "bugged" for Heuer began early: "When I was growing up, my mother's response to every problem I had was: 'Well, he just needs to adjust to his deafness.' Bloody nose? 'Chris, you need to adjust to your deafness.' Homework not done? 'I know it's hard adjusting to your deafness, honey, but ....' Acne scarring? 'Lots of teenagers get zits, Chris. I know it's hard for you, dealing with this while trying to adjust to your ....'" He rebelled then, and continues through his even-handed irreverence in BUG, a bomb that should go off in everyone's consciousness about being deaf and Deaf.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: On Small Things Easily Squished (and Alternative Destinies)
• I Choose the Green Crayon
• Bald Men Grow Hair When They Want To
• The “Must Put Pickle” Mentality
• Campfires in Boxer Shorts—Confessions of a Hearing Aid-Less Exhibitionist
• Pushed into Faith Healing
• Deaf Man Killed by Flying Golf Ball—A Eulogy of Small Accomplishments
• I Am Not Your Poster Child
• Corresponding Oval
• Chris, Amy, and the Floating Motion Sickness Pills
• Five Beers Away
• Christmas Is Filling Up a Dinky Little ‘01 Toyota Corolla Gas Tank
• Responsibility Is Not a Burden
• Full Circle
• One Guy vs. Seven Billion! Can He Win? Can He?!?
• “I Don’t Understand” vs. “You’re Not Making Yourself Understood"
• Praying for the Hell’s Angel
• Noise Paranoia
• I Stopped Being Disabled and Nobody Knows
• a lot of bullets
• Value beyond ASL, Value beyond Breasts
• Plastic Souls
• Koko Want
• Point A to Point B Should Be a Straight Line
• But I Don’t Want to Buy a Deaf Person!
• Fares
• Babes from Space!
• I Worship Cochlear Implants!
• Have Cell Phone, Am God
• Shark and Camel
• One Roll of Tape and Your Whole World Collapses
• A Bit Less Hearing, a Bit Less “hearing,”But a Bit More of Both
• Minority = Pathology?
• The Real World—Bigger than You Think
• Hangman
• Cash My Check, You Flying Brick-HeadedRat-Pole Witch!
• What Criteria for “Well-Meaning?”
• Popping the Normal Pill
• Stuck
• Empathy Is Not Pity
• Reborn, Karma-Style
• He May Not Understand, but He Still Ranks a Five
• Why Must We Know?
• Red Is Stop, Deaf Is. . .?
• That’s You, That’s Your Beer—Keep Them Separate
• Guess What? My Hearing Ancestors Had Sex Too!
• Deaf Rumor Mills—The Surest Path to Absolute Freedom
• Backstabbers Aim for Your Back, so Why Cover Your Ass?
• I Am a Crab
• Who Says Oralism Failed?
• He Wrote about Ring Bologna and Disappeared
• Spleen Gone Blues
• Rubella Bulge
• Footballs at $1,400 Each
• You Don’t Have 100 Percentto Give
• Those Who Play by the Rules. . .
• Never Get Mad without Your Prescription
• Departure
• Move On from Milan
• Why Deaf People No Go Boom
• Making Deaf Awareness Day Effective
• Just Duck and They’ll Shoot Each Other!
• Confl ict
• Nietzsche’s Downside
• Advice on Tennis and Pain
• Missing the Bounce
• Institutionalized Just Like You
• Dishes Done, Institution-Style!
• Research—The Best Way to Avoid Real Answers
• The Sign for Administrator
• When Your Cat Is Passive-Aggressive
• Invalidation: The Mind-Game Gift That Keeps on Giving!
• Institutions for the Deaf? Pfft
• Guys in Ties? One Tug Closer to Strangulation!
• White Dress Shirts—Making the World Safer for Workplace Projection!
• The Tyranny of Polyester
• It’s Vietnam All over Again!
• My Son, the Manchurian Candidate!
• Engineering Efficient Institutions
• The Lie of Dependency
• In the Depths of Space, No One Can Lipread Your Scream
• You’re Always Caught in Someone’s Machine
• Visible Scars
• It Wasn’t Self-Pity That Stopped Me from Becoming a Telemarketer
• If
• Grant Me the Wisdom
• The Starving African Children Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Us
• Life Is Fairer When You Get Mugged
• A Message in a Bottle from the Governor of Reality (Hopefully You Can Grab This without Rocking the Boat)!
• Man Up, Women!
• Unfortunately, Now You Can’t Get a Deaf President Out of Office
• When Enough Do, Most Will
• “. . . Anything Except Hear,” Including Believe Inspirational Bullshit
• Another Problem with “Deaf People Can. . . .”
• Learn to Recognize a Smokescreen from a Smoke Job
• The Economics of Presence
• Why the Deaf Education Teacher Went to Hell
• “We Can Save the Deaf!” (The Official Deaf Education Fight Song)
• On Being Brave
• I Thought You Were KGB!
• Don’t Stop with Dreams
• Strip Club Literacy
• ASL Is a Visual Language . . .Just Like Printed English
• Let’s Bring Back “Deaf and Dumb”
• Sometimes Things Break Off
• Parenthood in the Blizzard
• Denial Rules Everything
• Coping
• The Economy of Love and Paying Attention
• The Best Defense Is a Good Disqualification
• The Age of Digital Boob Magic
• Paternalism and Sleeping Cats
• Murderball
• Hearing Parents Know!
• Final Notes for Hearing/Nonsigning Parents
• Afterword