Uncomfortable Comparison in "Deaf"

As Kristin mentioned in class today, it certainly seems that Solomon relies a lot on analogy to promote "better" understandings of identities. In all probability, this is related to the fact that Solomon himself does not personally identify with many of the identities he writes about, and is likely trying to better understand them by equating them to the marginalized identities he does hold. Unfortunately, this is often erasing of some or many of these identities, or reduces one to an uncomfortable point. Though Solomon himself is not always the one writing them, his decision to include analogies brought up by others is just as destructive. The passage that struck me the most on this topic was a quote Solomon included by the father of Jacob, a deaf boy who is resilient in the face of problems. "'Then you mix in the deafness,' Michael said. 'But Jacob is tough. If the Holocaust came, he'd get so pissed off, he'd figure out a way to get through it'" (Solomon 79). In the margins, I wrote: "oof." Though I have often heard difficult situations or interpersonal conflicts prepared inappropriately to the Holocaust, I have never heard someone use the Holocaust as an example of something that would be "doable" for their child. I did wonder if Michael was trying to compare Jacob's situation to the Holocaust to some extent, in order to express the extremee difficulties Jacob has faced--in which case I wonder how productive this statement actually is.

I was also very interested by the deaf children and parents of deaf children who expressed favoritism toward deafness as a disability over other disabilities, such as Down syndrome. Jacob himself stated, "If I were going to have a Down syndrome child, I think I would abort" (79). Though here there is an implication of how difficult it is to deal with a given disability as a parent, I got the sense that many parents felt ready to deal with their child's deafness because the child "appeared" normal or even attractive. Barb, mother of a deaf child, explained that her mother was less ready than she was to take on a deaf child: "In her generation, you were deaf and dumb, you were sent away. But I had this gorgeous, blue-eyed son who just beamed at me. It didn't take long for me to say, 'Who has the problem here?' Because he was perfectly fine" (80). Barb's use of "perfectly fine" in this situation is questionable, because it is a realization that she has after seeing how beautiful and normal her son looks. In wondered if, for Barb, her son's disability was forgivable because she was able to look at him and not see it--which would less likely be the case for a child with Down's syndrome.