Let’s have a quick talk about Clint Barton. This little shit is an orphan who grew up in the circus and somehow managed to become an avenger. This DEAF motherfucking ARCHER was asked by Tony Stark to be Captain America and he said no. He said NO to becoming Captain America. He finds out some random 20 y/o girl becomes Hawkeye while hes “dead” and what does he do? He tells her the world is big enough for TWO HAWKEYES and they form a team and he tries act as a mentor. They are both Hawkeye. Not Hawkeye and lady-Hawkeye. Just two Hawkeyes. He fights street crime when he’s not on missions. He’s friends with his neighbors. He made an ultron costume for Halloween. When his brother stole all his money and bought an island, he got over it. He rescued and adopted a one eyed dog named lucky/pizza dog. Did I mention he’s deaf? And can’t hear without hearing aids. And he wears his own merchandise. He wears Hawkeye underwear. Hawkeye wears Hawkeye underwear.
Squirrel Girl texts with Bucky in Squirrel Meets World by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
I have just started reading this and the first friend Doreen makes after Tippy-Toe is a Deaf girl at her new school! Doreen tries talking to her in the cafeteria, and the girl shuts her down, saying she can’t understand her over the din. (Hearing aids suck in loud environments, yo.) So, rather than being deterred, Doreen goes home and brushes up HARD on the ASL that she learnt from her Deaf cousin, and tries again the next day. After being startled at Doreen knowing sign, she tentatively accepts her friendship.
*sighs heavily* So okay here’s the thing. It actually does matter that Clint wasn’t deaf. It really really really really matters. And you know why it really matters? Because for YEARS I have been super self-conscious about being Hard of Hearing, to the point that I didn’t tell people. I’d just pretend to know what people were saying even if I didn’t (believe me, I didn’t). If I had, at an earlier age, seen a deaf superhero asking his colleagues to speak up, to face him so he could read their lips, wearing hearing aids– god I would’ve been so much less embarrassed about doing those things too.
I think about the kids I see at my work in the grocery store and at Lush, kids with hearing aids, whose hands fumble over signs, and I feel this pang in my chest for them. Not because they’re “pitiful”, but because there are people who don’t realize what kind of community they’re going to grow up in. People who don’t care about the way the world works for them, for us. They don’t know they could be superheroes. Because people like Joss Whedon take that away from them without blinking.
Representation really matters. Especially when it comes to some sort of disability or shift in the perspective of what is “normal”. The same way you wouldn’t write a fic in which Matt Murdock wasn’t blind, you shouldn’t film a movie in which Clint Barton isn’t deaf. Because that is part of who he is. And by writing a script in which his deafness isn’t recognized sends a very clear message to the deaf/hoh community, which is: “people like you could never be superheroes” and even worse, “representing your community is not worth the effort”.
Secondly, I need you to read this very clearly: I will never ever write a fic in which Clint Barton is hearing, or a fic in which he does not utilize ASL. If that “bothers” my audience, or they feel disrespected by this fact, they are very kindly directed to this website and may follow the directions as follows.
Clint Barton sketch. He’s signing “deaf” since, in some verse, he is in fact deaf. I support this not only because it’s enabling to have a super hero that has a disability and STILL kicks ass, but also to show support to the deaf community. I went to school for American Sign Language and appreciate a lot that the culture has to offer. I support Deaf Clint!
2nd Steve picture in this series. You can see his shield tattoo in this one and I added the wings from his helmet. The dog tags are his father’s. Bucky sometimes teases him about his big boots and big hair trying to make him seem taller but it must work because Bucky often forgets Steve’s not 10ft tall unless he’s curled up around broken ribs or something.
Fandom: Modern, Non-powered AU of MCU Characters/Pairings: Pre Serum Steve Rogers Rating: G Content: Punk skinny Steve Artist’s Notes: Pose very much inspired by this awesome Supernatural cosplay. I’ve been wanting to draw fighty, bitey, righteous skinny Steve for a while. I know there are quite a few punk versions of the guys out there but I still couldn’t help trying my own. I have a few more art works to do in this series. I’ve got a punk/rockabilly Bucky drawn and started on another and plans for Peggy, Natasha and Sam too. Oh and a couple picture of Steve and Bucky. I really wish I could write. Or draw story comics. I want to know more about these guys. Steve goes to protests and ends up in fights with counter protestors or just guys on the street who are shit to women or who use the word gay as an insult. He’s got a complicated relationship with pain.
I tried to fit in hints of his Cap uniform. I really want his boots though.
The way that we learn about Helen Keller in school is an absolute outrage. We read “The Miracle Worker”- the miracle worker referring to her teacher; she’s not even the title character in her own story. The narrative about disabled people that we are comfortable with follows this format- “overcoming” disability. Disabled people as children.
Helen Keller as an adult, though? She was a radical socialist, a fierce disability advocate, and a suffragette. There’s no reason she should not be considered a feminist icon, btw, and the fact that she isn’t is pure ableism- while other white feminists of that time were blatent racists, she was speaking out against Woodrew Wilson because of his vehement racism. She supported woman’s suffrage and birth control. She was an anti-war speaker. She was an initial donor to the NAACP. She spoke out about the causes of blindness- often disease caused by poverty and poor working conditions. She was so brave and outspoken that the FBI had a file on her because of all the trouble she caused.
Yet when we talk about her, it’s either the boring, inspiration porn story of her as a child and her heroic teacher, or as the punchline of ableist, misogynistic jokes. It’s not just offensive, it’s downright disgusting.
the reason the story stops once hellen keller learns to talk is no one wanted to listen to what she had to say
how’s that for a fucking punchline
It’s not that I disagree that we should all be aware of what a badass Helen Keller became, because she had a long and amazing career as an activist and yes, a feminist hero. It’s that somehow when people talk about the ableism of the way Helen’s story is told they always seem to forget this: Anne Sullivan, her teacher, was blind. Seriously. From Wikipedia:
“When she was only five years old she contracted a bacterial eye disease known as trachoma, which created painful infections and over time made her nearly blind.[2] When she was eight, her mother passed away and her father abandoned the children two years later for fear he could not raise them on his own.[2] She and her younger brother, James ("Jimmie”), were sent to an overcrowded almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts (today part of Tewksbury Hospital). He, who suffered a debilitating hip ailment, died three months into their stay. She remained at the Tewksbury house for four years after his death, where she had eye operations that offered some short-term relief for her eye pain but ultimately proved ineffective.[3]“
Eventually some operations did restore part of her eyesight, but by the end of her life she was entirely blind. Also:
"Due to Anne losing her sight at such a young age she had no skills in reading, writing, or sewing and the only work she could find was as a housemaid; however, this position was unsuccessful.[2] Another blind resident staying at the Tewksbury almshouse told her of schools for the blind. During an 1880 inspection of the almshouse, she convinced an inspector to allow her to leave and enroll in the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, where she began her studies on October 7, 1880.[2] Although her rough manners made her first years at Perkins humiliating for her, she managed to connect with a few teachers and made progress with her learning.[2] While there, she befriended and learned the manual alphabet from Laura Bridgman, a graduate of Perkins and the first blind and deaf person to be educated there.”
So Anne Sullivan, disabled and born into serious poverty, learns the manual alphabet from a deaf and blind friend; passes that alphabet on to her deaf and blind student. This isn’t the story of an abled-bodied teacher swooping in to ‘save’ a disabled child; it’s a series of disabled women helping each other. Helen Keller’s story is the story not of one badass disabled woman, but of two. Anne and Helen were lifelong friends; Anne died holding Helen’s hand.
Also is there a book called “The Miracle Worker”? I thought that was the movie/movies based on “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller. But I could be wrong. And I didn’t learn any of this in school in general but that’s neither here nor there.
I can recommend the ‘62 version of “The Miracle Worker” with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. It’s blatant about Sullivan’s impoverished background and eye problems – her rage on Helen’s behalf isn’t abstract at all, it’s very, very personal. And that’s the most amazing thing about this movie: Anne and Helen are the angriest people on earth. I have no idea if that was erased from the remakes but in the original they are both allowed to have a ton of anger about what has been done to them and what they have been denied.
Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Here’s a picture of Helen Keller meeting Charlie Chaplin:
omfg I am so mad right now because not only did the kids biography of Helen Keller I read when I was younger erase all her activism, but it very explicitly completely erased anything about Anne being blind herself.
There were scenes of her WATCHING Helen from across the room or yard, and it was all very “oh my, I just MUST save this poor little disabled girl, no other deaf blind person has EVER BEEN EDUCATED and basically it was awful and shitty.
I think everyone should read Helen and Teacher. It’s an absolute brick of a book, hundreds of pages, but it is wonderful. It’s about their whole lives, right up to Helen’s death in old age. It talks about Helen’s feminism, socialism, and campaigning for everything from equal rights to sexual health. Helen Keller was not a syrupy, greeting card girl who existed to make able people feel warm and fuzzy, she was a tireless academic, political activist and writer. She was making noise about the issues she cared about from the moment her partnership with Annie Sullivan began, and she never stopped.
knitting in the dark 