I wrote this for Silent News (July 1992) and am reprinting it here after seeing someone’s recent edict that the word deaf “is to be capitalized.”
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I got a catalog in the mail this week for a collection of products targeted to the deaf community. A note on the inside front cover caught my eye. It said:
Note: In recognition and respect of the culture of Deaf people, the word Deaf is capitalized throughout this catalog.
Uh oh. Does that mean that Silent News does not recognize and respect the culture of deaf people, because we do not capitalize the word deaf?
Of course not. But it does give me an opportunity to explain our thinking on the subject.
The capitalization of the word deaf is a fairly recent phenomenon. For those who are not familiar with this topic, I’ll offer a simplified explanation: When deaf is not capitalized it generally refers to deafness as a medical condition or a physical disability. When it is capitalized, it denotes deafness as a cultural trait, much the same as Hispanic or Russian is capitalized.
Therefore, a person who grew up deaf, attended deaf schools, communicates in ASL and associates primarily with other deaf people is (capital-D) Deaf.
A deaf person who was mainstreamed in public schools, does not use sign language and knows few, if any, other deaf people is (small-d) deaf.
Some publications in the deaf community make a point to capitalize Deaf each and every time it appears in print. Like the publishers of the catalog, they feel they are showing recognition and respect to the Deaf community.
So why doesn’t Silent News capitalize deaf?
Because it’s just too tricky. To capitalize deaf at every usage would be inaccurate. For example, consider this statement: “Captioned TV is beneficial to Deaf people.” Is it accurate? Is captioned TV something that only benefits culturally Deaf people? No, not at all. It is something that benefits all deaf people regardless of their cultural leanings.
Suppose someone sent us a newspaper clipping about a deaf man who entered a burning building and saved someone’s life. The newspaper would not have capitalized deaf – mainstream publications never do. Should we change it to Deaf? Before we could do that, we’d have to track down this person and find out if he considers himself culturally Deaf.
You can see the problem. For us to presume that everyone who cannot hear is culturally Deaf would be irresponsible. To try and accurately portray everyone as either deaf or Deaf would be impossible.
Therefore we have taken what we believe to be the sensible approach and simply use the (small-d) deaf throughout the publication, with the exception of letters to the editor and opinion pieces.
No one recognizes and respects the culture of Deaf people more than Silent News, but we also recognize and respect the fact that not all deaf people are Deaf.
