the (deaf) Second Coming: by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

A gyre is a vortex, a spinning whirlwind. My take on this is that we in the deaf community are caught up in this storm, this whirlwind surrounding the appointment of Jane K. Fernandes as the President of Gallaudet University. We are the falcons, spinning and flying about.. Jane is the falconer, the human who thinks herself separate and given the ability to control the bird. But alas, us falcons cannot hear (literally), nor do we recognize her authority.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

One of the biggest Deaf centers in the United States is that of Gallaudet University, where we all come together to partake of and share in the beauty and joy that is Deaf culture, to be welcomed into and given the opportunity to learn about our Deaf brothers and sisters. With the storm comes divisions and the jagged barbs of misunderstanding. Truly, Gallaudet is starting to crumble under the persistent grip of Irving Jordan and Jane Fernandes against the empowered masses of Deaf everywhere. Without a viable leader, there can be no law, and a state of anarchy is found.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

Our children are our heritage; their innocence and purity give us a reminder of hope within the world. It’s a sad place when our Deaf children are unable to look forward to making their pilgrimage to the Deaf Mecca of Gallaudet. And now, blood has been spilt in front of MSSD, on Mt. Bison. The students saw it all… The tide is coming in, and there’s blood in the water. If things remain the way they are, there will be nothing left for our children or ourselves.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Board of Trustees, why do you falter? Those of you who believe in who you are and the future of Gallaudet, why do you abstain or hold back your vote? The worst of you push their agenda forward with an intensity that threatens to destroy one of the greatest symbols of Deafhood today.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Surely Fernandes will resign soon.. surely, the Board of Trustees will step in and put an end to this madness.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

“Spiritus Mundi” is latin for the spirit of the world. What world? The DEAF-WORLD! We are all united in our vision and beliefs of empowerment and identity for Deaf everywhere. We must throw off the shackles of Audist oppression.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

I want to say that this beast is Audism. The head of a man signifies that it has a human face, like Irving Jordan and Jane Fernandes. The body, however, is that of a lion – deadly and terrible. Lions roam the wastelands, with claws to pounce and teeth to devour. The damage that a lion can do is great, and we’re seeing that here. The lions of audism threaten to tear apart the fabric of our Deaf culture. The empty stare, with no pity, signifies to me the coldness that the administration has treated us with. An empty stare is one devoid of understanding and caring.

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

I am tempted to say that the moving of the thighs is a slow, sexual thrusting motion, symbolizing the acts of desecration and disrespect upon the DEAF-WORLD. Or it can simply be the lumbering motion across the wastelands of this great and terrible beast as it sniffs out its prey, looking for its next meal. Blood drips from its jaws and spreads across the gates of MSSD. We are the indignant desert birds, circling the beast and trying to frighten it off, attack it so it can no longer do us harm.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

The Deaf President Now movement happened in 1988 – this movement put Irving Jordan on the throne of Gallaudet, and we thought we had light once more. We thought we had a noble leader who represented all of us. In the past 18 years, he was silently, sneakily laying down a deceptive foundation with his appointees to the Board of Trustees. We were sleeping, blindly trusting, as the machinery was put into place to oppress us all. For all the progress we’ve made in the DEAF-WORLD, the current controversy with Fernandes threatens to set us back twenty centuries and we’ll have the Congress of Milan all over again.

The cradle that rocks, upon the bough that shall break, is the administration of Irving Jordan and Jane Fernandes. What a nightmare we find ourselves waking up to!

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Indeed. Can we afford to allow this “rough beast” of oppression to take root? If we lose at the gates of Gallaudet, we lose everything. The whole world is watching, and if we give in, we send the message that we’re not good enough, that we are back under the iron grip of the mouth-movers. Our civil rights are in danger, along with peoples’ perceptions of who we are.

No. We cannot give up hope or identity. It is we that must be reborn, with an intensity and a flame that burns brightly and illuminates this world of shadows that Irving Jordan and Jane Fernandes keep trying to thrust us back into. No more silence.