150 years later..

Recent disability (UK), support for 150years of disability media, feels like a damp squib.   In reality, it tends to suggest nothing has happened since.  1944 saw the first attempt to include the disabled in the workplace, via the law.  1945 saw it overruled when the war ended when the able-bodied demanded their jobs back.  Employed areas developed FOR disabled-only (Remploy/Monwel etc), guaranteed regular work and good pay for a few years, until able-bodied who were suffering unemployment wanted disability subsidies stopped so the work came to them instead.  Every step forward entailed another step backwards.

Disabled/deaf are more vocal, more visible, and more 'adopting the position', we need a change of direction. Many suggest only the disabled read disability media, so preaching to the already converted springs to mind, just activists chatting amidst themselves. Charities do it too.  We have become issues to exploit, rather than advancing things. We are talking cash basically, e.g, £6B is spent yearly, supporting  15,000 deaf people, and that DOESN'T include funding that charities get and the UK has 17,600 of them dedicated to ONE area of people disabled by profound loss. 

With lots of money and employment involved, these deaf quickly lost any control over it all, as corporate charities cashed in on them.   Major charities also use corporate strategies to head-hunt staff from others, and in effect caused the closure of many of them, any system that didn't provide cash inflow, wasn't entertained. Running at a loss wasn't a proposition, despite many well-meaning support areas, claiming many support approaches took precedence over profit.

You won't read a single disability or deaf area that believes all that has contributed to their inclusion or equality. Anecdotal evidence suggests we actually have fewer rights and support than 30 years ago when a plethora of equality and inclusion laws came into being.  The catch 22, was that a pandemic of individualism was created, which led to 'each to their own' approaches, so cohesive action was unable to gain traction, via numerical support. Disability and deaf areas are fragmented into more secular, and singular approaches by degree of disability, or type, or as in the deaf case, by language, background, social, and loss degree.   

In essence disabled areas and deaf ones created their own form of discrimination and made them the norm.  Legal action neutered the ability of disability groups to set a precedent, each individual had only a success, (or a loss mostly), for themselves. Another person had to DIY, but the state took away legal support for them to do so. 10m disabled and 11m with hearing loss, but the lack or actual support for these inclusive areas means it is basically nil where it counts.  Charities have next to zero as regards to membership support, but, the total power to speak for everyone else. It's tails wagging dogs. The few at the charitable 'top' getting the kuds/recognition, but the bottom line we are interested in, is as far away and in the smallest print, as it ever was.

SS 'Hearing Loss'

 "10,000 Welsh patients waiting for hearing aids"

It's essential hearing aids are issued quickly.  Going deaf costs the UK in excess of £6 Billon a year and that is just deaf support, that doesn't take into account 10m have hearing loss, or, helping 3 million with severe loss, who are refusing to wear one, because they experience ridicule from peers.  

Most of those with hearing loss suffer traumas, and many difficulties getting a job, or holding one down,  managing a social life, even accessing the 999 services, is a lottery for all except a few deaf who use sign language, estimated at 6-700, which pale into insignificance given Wales has near 3/400,000 with  hearing loss issues, who are the majority area of hearing loss NOT being supported in Wales at all, as hearing loss, is a 'loss loser' to charities who raise funds to support them, indeed many in Wales have pulled out of doing it concentrating on sign users instead.  

It is overkill, given Wales hasn't a deaf school, and very few who need specialist schooling either. It is a total and false economy to ignore hearing loss, be it in Adults, or children, as if it cannot be managed or addressed then the NHS/999 and the Senedd will have to foot the bills for their care and support as the hearing gets worse. Which they aren't even doing for the minority who have been deemed eligible for an Hearing aid.  There is an increasing pandemic of hearing loss, being hidden or obscured by technology, to make up for no hearing aid, which increase their isolation, and inability to hold down any conversation for more than a few minutes.  Those who struggle to hear properly are 10% of the Welsh population and the numbers are rising, we live in a world of noise.

The Welsh government throws much support being sign-using deaf, who now have the best deaf support in the UK, but it has been at the expense of 300,000 others, in Wales, and millions of others UK-wide, displaying, that appalling indifference, bias, and profile hunting is behind that area of Senedd support, as they ignore the majority in actual need.  Easier to address one small area of hearing loss, and hoping nobody realises there are many many more. So they blow own trumpet to deaf ears. It is no secret mainstream are fed up of charities asking them for money, and in these difficult times who has money to spare anyway.

They, and the governments need to understand ignoring it is going to cost them a lot more than a few coins in a tin, or an ad to crowd fund half a dozen people.  It is going to cost the economy and the NHS more £billions.  Basic digital hearing aids are not expensive, they can be bought for as little as £30/40, the government could afford that, given it is £100s of £1,000s a year, they are going to have to find when unaddressed loss leads to deafness.

2024, or not?

The state of the UK  Deaf and Hearing Loss Community today.

During 2024, ATR Media plans to expose many many myths portrayed by the disinformation sources centred around Deaf culture and Language, for too long  distortions and plain lies have been order of the day, each time accompanied by bullying,  attacks, and threats.

ATR Media is relatively a new outlet for MM a seasoned acquired deaf blogger, of many year standing, was amid the first to use YouTube and own captions, even sign on You Tube. Was the #1 UK blog in the USA with 6m+ accredited views, but, blocked in the UK.  ATR is an acknowledged challenger of disinformation being given to deaf people, and deliberate ignorance directed towards hearing loss and non signing deaf which is discriminatory and divisive, a threat to real inclusion, and for real access which the BSL campaigner DOES NOT REALLY WANT. Mostly comprised of scare stories and blaming everyone else.

Let us be clear, rank and file deaf do NOT support what these people are saying or doing, the state does, because deaf and HI won't elect their own representation for the same reason ATR opposes it, we get on with it and know martyrdom gets you nowhere.  Regardless, none of these profile campaigners have any mandate to speak for us, or about us.  One tail wagging a  dozen dogs.

The BDA e.g. claims 150,000 BSL using people, but the forthcoming ATR MEDIA video coverage of the GCSE will show only 700 responded to it and 76% were SUPPORT charities/hearing people, who make a living from BSL dependency,  along with a random assortment of vested interests, hoping to get work/wage being teachers for a class that has no viable curriculum.  

The consultation NEVER took place, there is no evidence rank and file responded at all, the input was amateur, cut and pasted from other promotions, and plain unsourced, essentially,  NO DEAF promoter of the GCSE class, wanted BSL to access the consultations. Why would they? as none were apparently sign using. Crucial evidence this isn't even a campaign by or for deaf people. Vaguely described as an awareness class that will empower deaf in the future, but, WITHOUT them.

Over 2023 ATR MEDIA also expressed concerns, two leading UK charities the British Deaf Association and  RNID (or whatever re-branded cover it uses today).  Both alleged to be manufacturing statistics to get more funds, using the 'nobody really knows anyway' fact to 'think of a number and double it' system,  year on year..  ALL Deaf and Hearing loss charities were rejecting devolved administration to retain overall control of support, funding, campaign directions, and HQ's,  in the Southern counties of England. Local autonomy refused.  The BSL Act was brought in and has since failed to get any foothold, in Wales a BSL Act wasn't brought in and felt unnecessary, the only UK area to make the real point.

Is Deaf culture valid? It's base had diminished by 80% (Deaf schools/Clubs), less than 20 deaf schools now exist, with Wales etc, having  none at all.  2024 is suggested as the final nail in many deaf clubs' coffins, as living and running costs mean mass closures, with deaf being reluctant to fund it themselves or simply cannot.  ATR will cover BSL too, given the 'Proof' of a language (A Dictionary),  is 20thc, not as absurdly posted by the BDA/UCLA and others, as the 7thc. 

Hearing teachers dictate the directions of BSL, NOT deaf people, so 'normalisation' and indeed the GCSE class, will mean regional signing, will go to the wall, and most translators do NOT use BSL grammar, but Sign Supported English, they don't want to make more issues for the deaf with its absurd DIY BSL grammar, a key component in holding back real deaf awareness and a barrier to accessing what deaf need to know to live and work as adults.  No BSL active campaigner uses it anyway, so why demand it of others?

ATR MEDIA will also expose deaf bullies who run BSL sites online, who ban, block, attack and threaten anyone who wants debate and facts to be rule of the day, again, most centre in English Cities where higher concentrations of deaf live but who're out of touch with everyone else, all go it alone areas feathering own particular nests, exhibiting blatant bias, and there is no real inclusive policy.

Over 2023 ATR MEDIA also expressed concern regarding BSL Deaf attacks on hearing aids, cochlear implantations, other alleviations, and genetic/health advances.  With parents called abusers and all sorts, this is NOT who deaf people or others with hearing loss are about, and we sincerely hope in 2024, the rot stops there.

ATR MEDIA. (2024)

ATR MEDIA is a TEXT-BASED medium, forget the myth of Deaf signers, we can all READ.