Ken Levinson Really Thinks We're Idiots

Ken Levinson Really Thinks We’re Idiots

October 23, 2006, 12:57 pm
Filed under: Editors

I’ll let Ken speak for himself here:

http://news.gallaudet.edu/?id=9602

Statement from Board of Trustee Ken Levinson

Sunday October 22, 2006 8:15 p.m.

 

“I want to reassure the Gallaudet Community that the recent negative statement attributed to me about deaf peoples’ abilities is totally inaccurate. As a long-time member of the University’s Board of Trustees, I know better than most that ‘deaf people can do anything.’ a statement I have made several times publicly, most notably at President Jordan’s retirement announcement. My work with the deaf community has always been about working together toward our common collective goals. I strongly believe everyone has the ability to make significant contributions to this world. This is another thinly veiled smear tactic used by some to further divide our wonderful community and to discredit the Board’s appointment of Dr. Fernandes as president. It is completely misleading, and it is false.”

Contrast this with:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/soundandfury/culture/voices-levinson.html

Sound and Fury – Released October 2000

Ken Levinson, 53, Former Executive Director, The Children’s Hearing Institute. Transcript.

 

“About 25 years ago, I had a drop in my hearing, so I could no longer use a hearing aid, and we decided that the technology was ready by then and I wanted the sound back. I was without sound for about 14 years and I really wanted that sound back … The first sound I ever heard with the cochlear implant was really a lot of noise, but that was when I was first hooked up, and I think the first sound I clearly remember that was different from anything else that I’d heard before was probably a bird chirping. I’d never heard the bird chirp and with the implant, I was able to hear that … When I first got the cochlear implant, I wasn’t sure what direction it was gonna go in, but since I’ve gotten it, I’ve been more than delighted with it. I’ve had very positive experiences. When I’m in a store or I’m with some people, and I start walking away and my back is to them, and they say “Have a nice day,” I hear it. And I’m able to turn to them and say, “You, too.” Rather than walking out of there, and they’re thinking I’m an idiot and I didn’t respond and they say, “And yeah, and you, too, buddy.”

Ken, totally inaccurate? I wonder. I truly wonder. Not to mention that the people who visited you in San Francisco are highly intelligent Deaf professionals with no reason to fabricate your words. In addition, Bobbie Beth Scoggins says that you said the same thing to her a few years ago at a softball game.

 

Stop LYING!

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