Ahhhh... YES!
AMY COHEN EFRON!! The owner of DEAF WORLD AS EYE SEE IT blog (http://www.deafeyeseeit.com/)... She shot to the category of the well-known, well-respected v/bloggers with her famous vlog called "The Greatest Irony" in which she explained how the hearing community would use American Sign Language (ASL) to the hearing babies, encouraging the early development of language and cognition while ASL was not encouraged to be used on the deaf babies. Luckily, I viewed her vlog before she decided to market it...
http://www.deafeyeseeit.com/2007/03/17/the-greatest-irony/
This video was a catalyst for Deafhood and Deaf Bilingual Coalition, to name a few, to become more visible to us. What she did was to make us aware of the benefits of ASL... the benefits are so great with hearing babies, the deaf babies also benefit from it, which is something we forget. From it, the arguments over which is best for deaf babies arose and to this day, we still argue over it. I have to admit I was a little suspicious of her, whether she had a motive, etc., but as she continued blogging, I came to realize that she was a honest, courteous, caring, wise person who had an ability to understand where we came from and she encouraged us to keep expressing our opinions. She listens to us, making us feel we are heard.
Over the time, she had observed, with a sense of dismay at how mudslinging rose in DeafRead and DVTV, and she attempted to blog about it. She explained the meaning of respect and boundary, trying to install in us how to v/blog in a more respectful way... at the end, it quickly clear to us that respect was relative and that everyone had his/her definition of boundaries.
http://www.deafeyeseeit.com/2009/10/
She campaigned for the better accessibility to the technological means for deaf people. She questioned Sorenson Video Relay's way of handing finances; she challenged Netflix to add closed captioning to streaming movies; she discussed her thrill with iPad; etc. She has covered a WIDE range of Deaf-related subjects with a thoughtful, questioning, positive, curious attitude, with her wide grin and her alert eyes.
May you continue blogging...
Thank you for writing about Amy. Excellent post. As you said, her "Greatest Irony" video acted as a catalyst for Deafhood and DBC. These organizations should be deeply grateful to her.
Posted by: Taylerz | 09/25/2010 at 10:32 AM