I don't mean "eugenics" in that sense. I mean the sense of purposefully developing the Wakandan national populace towards their maximum potential in all things good.
Yeah, but that's the logic of all eugenics programs--Maximum potential. No one views their eugenics program as oppressive, or evil; they see it as "for the common good", "the betterment of mankind" or "maximum potential."
Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell used to promote the concept that Deaf individuals should not be allowed to marry other Deaf individuals, so to reduce the chance of Deafness being passed on to children. I'm sure he saw it as a good thing for the betterment of mankind, to help children reach their best. The Deaf Community still views him as an oppressor and evil. (He was wrong about the premise, too.)
Right, now, if you were to say there are no Deaf individuals in Wakanda, the Deaf Community would label that as Audism (the oppression of the Deaf).
They would be wrong. Because the fact is, the OTHER people who professed "eugenics" weren't actually trying to better humanity...they were racists, elitists, and corrupt people in power trying to enforce their racist, elitist, and/or corrupt idea of a specific ideal on a people that initially didn't share such ideals and would not have naturally developed such ideals en masse on their own. Like a blonde hair blue eyed "super race". Or whatever. Wakandans have all kinds of advantages and the track record to end all of that. Ending all forms of sicknesses and maladies is not the oppression of the sick; it's the result of using natural foods, remedies etc to prevent sicknesses and maladies, or curing sickness and maladies once introduced to the healthy via outside forces. In order for deafness to happen? There has to be dysfunction of the cochlea, inner ear, or brain. If this dysfunction never occurs? That's not intolerance of deaf people. That's promotion of health.
In order for Audism to happen? There first have to be an inclination toward OPPRESSION OF DEAF PEOPLE. Is curing the damage to the cochlea, inner ear or brain the same as OPPRESSION OF DEAF PEOPLE? Not. At. All. That's CURING DYSFUNCTION. There are no deaf, blind, etc people in Wakanda to oppress. There's a very significant difference between oppression of the deaf and ensuring that deafness, blindness, sickness, etc never occur by NATURALLY preventing and correcting the in vitro imbalances and dysfunctions that lead to deafness AND USING TECHNOLOGY TO RESTORE HEARING, SIGHT, ETC. ONCE IT'S BEEN TAKEN BY OUTSIDE FORCES.
Wakandans are very much NOT disposed toward OPPRESSING ANYONE. Oppression? Is a prolonged, negative, controlling response aimed specifically at one or selected groups and forced upon said groups to the lasting detriment to said group or groups. It is a negative, destructive, systematic response aimed toward a specific group of people which grows from a philosophical bigotry, prejudice, etc that has ingrained itself within the institutions of a society, government or civilization. No such philosophy exists in any part of Wakanda, because the people of Wakanda are too culturally, spiritually, mentally and emotionally mature for such pettiness to exist within them. This is precisely the same reason that such stupidities as Rape Camps cannot exist within Wakanda because the corruption of the heart that allows rape to happen doesn't exist in Wakandan hearts. If a formerly hearing person ELECTED to REMAIN deaf and forego treatment for whatever reason? That person would NOT be mistreated.
There ARE exceptions to the rule. Baron Macabre. Zenzi. Tengu. Etc. But their presence makes the rule...the rest of the 99.9% of Wakandans and Wakanda...shine even brighter.
In precisely the same way that a deaf person who undergoes surgery or whatever in order to correct their dysfunctional cochlea so they can hear IS NOT ENGAGING IN AUDISM, so too is Wakanda NOT engaging in Audism by preventing and/or curing deafness from happening in the first place. The same way there are no cancers, or any other form of sickness naturally occurring in Wakanda doesn't meant that the Wakandan people are inclined toward bigotry against the sick; rather it shows Wakanda's unmatched, unequaled successes in promoting universal health at optimal levels.
"here's a very significant difference between oppression of the deaf and ensuring that deafness, blindness, sickness, etc never occur by NATURALLY preventing and correcting the in vitro imbalances and dysfunctions that lead to deafness AND USING TECHNOLOGY TO RESTORE HEARING, SIGHT, ETC. ONCE IT'S BEEN TAKEN BY OUTSIDE FORCES. "
By the definition of audism, that what you are describing is exactly AUDISM.
I've seen this over and over again, the Deaf community--Deafness is not a disability; they are not broken, Deaf do not view themselves as Disabled by as members of a linguistic minority that has been constantly oppressed by people who can hear to force them to be like the majority. As far as many in the Deaf Community, it does not need to be fixed; they haven't lost anything--they consider hearing as an unnecessary thing. If you try to fix them, you're oppressing them. Basically, if you assume that hearing is better than deaf, that's audism.
I've seen the Deaf refer to attempts to cure Deafness as genocide and even some will go the extreme of calling putting Cochlear Implant on children is child abuse. (Yes, I'm serious.)
"Some Deaf activists call cochlear implants the audists' tool of cultural genocide that is wiping out the Deaf community."
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audism] fixed, wrong link.
Do you that there are many Deaf who are sad when they find out their children can hear?
I have never heard of Deaf people who are SAD when they find out their children can hear...but I can possibly imagine why they might think so, or empathize with the less extreme reasons they might have for thinking so.
Brother Kip Lewis...as for your statement that "by the definition of Audism", what I described above is Audism? I would have to say then that we're operating from different definitions of Audism.
DEFINITION 1 OF AUDISM is as follows: "Audism is a set of beliefs that include: hearing people are superior to Deaf people; Deaf people should be pitied for having futile and miserable lives; Deaf people should become like hearing people as far as possible; and shunning of sign languages..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AudismDEFINITION 2 OF AUDISM: "Definition of audism
: discrimination or prejudice against individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/audismOnce again, none of these things exist in Wakanda...because of the cultural mental spiritual etc maturity of Wakanda on the one hand as an entire population as a whole. On the other hand, because they're not only a technological, governmental, etc Shangri-La, but they're pinnacle warriors, too. Warrior training and its saturation throughout Wakanda IS VITALLY IMPORTANT IN COMPLETING THE EDUCATION OF THE MINDS OF WAKANDANS AGAINST AUDISM, BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE WAKANDAN HAS EXPERIENCED DEAFNESS AS PART OF THEIR WARRIOR TRAINING.
I'm not making that up. It's actually a traditional training method that I and many people who've trained in self defense have directly experienced, or have observed similar training growing up, or read about it, or can extrapolate to it [ if you're born after the 1980's ].
I remember over 30 years ago as part of my brown belt training, my Uncle Bobby would strap DJ headphones onto our heads, spin us about in circles so that we were dizzy, take a position out of immediate sight of us...and throw tennis balls at us. Or rolled up socks. Or Nerf balls. Or hand balls. Or house shoes/slippers. Sometimes rubber band smack us. Or roll soccer balls at us. Or other objects. We had to find him while avoiding being hit 5 times by the tennis balls, hand balls, socks, toy blocks, and other objects [ as the training advanced he would change up between them, because we learned to spot these objects via specific characteristics of the drills we faced, so Uncle Bobby kept changing up the objects we had to identify in order to keep the challenges fresh and force us to continually develop instead of hit a plateau ].
In other words? We had to learn to apply our self defense skills without the aid of hearing. We had to learn what was being said to us when suddenly and unexpectedly having our ability to hear TAKEN AWAY FROM US at RANDOM TIMES [ Uncle Bobby would do this by making us wear the DJ head sets AND TURNING MUSIC ON IN THE HEAD SETS right in the freakin middle or beginning or at random interspersed times during Stance training or Weapons training or something...and WE HAD TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE MISSING PARTS OF OUR LESSONS WERE MERELY BY WATCHING HIM. As time passed and we got better at this? Whole lessons would be conducted without sound ]. We learned to relate to the world without sound.
He would repeat these same kinds of lessons when putting a blind fold over our eyes.
He would then literally tie our dominant arm behind our backs while we had to do katas and/or defend ourselves. He would tie our legs together and make us do katas and/or defend ourselves. He would then COMPOUND OUR DISADVANTAGES by puttin the DJ headphones on AND tying our dominant arm behind our backs or tying our legs together...or both [ as we advanced in the brown belt ranks ]. He would rob us of each of our senses and rob us of a limb or 3, and we still had to operate.
Why? Because in self defense, you could suffer injuries that emulate these suddenly enforced disadvantages, yet you still had to successfully achieve your mission. Whatever that mission was.
We did this kind of thing for 6 weeks. It was very fun, and very educational. We became better human beings as a result of these exercises.
Wakandans ARE AN ENTIRE CIVILIZATION OF WARRIORS. LITERALLY EVERYONE HAS GONE THROUGH THIS TRAINING. ESPECIALLY TRADITIONALISTS. Some extra hardcore Old Skool Traditionalists of Mtindo Wa Nyoka..."Snake Style"...would actually insist on years of ZERO HEARING in order to emulate the snake's reliance on sensitivity to vibrations, etc and perfect their snake style skills.
Since Wakandans unraveled the mystery of the human DNA genome hundreds of thousands of years ago? They're essentially physically immune to aging. Therefore, the average Wakandan would have experienced YEARS of training that develops their ability to operate without hearing, sight, etc. They AVERAGE Wakandan trained to be like or better than Echo Ronin
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS before Echo existed.
This is the balancing factor which, like I kept saying before, underscores the fact that [as PRIEST then later Reginald Hudlin kept repeating throughout his run ] Wakanda has ZERO of the ills of the Outworld because Wakandans are too spiritually, culturally, intellectually, etc. mature to fall to these weaknesses prevalent in The Outworlders.
Wakandans have trained without their sight so that they're equivalent to Hand Ninja without use of their sight. That's why the populace of Wakanda was able to fight against The Hand even before Shuri and the DM and the HZ arrived to fight The Hand in David Liss' stories about T'Challa as THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE.
Wakandans have spent years honing their warrior senses and philosophies while dealing with single and multiple forms of sensory deprivation/malfunction, and have had their thoughts and feelings and the philosophies of their civilization fundamentally altered by, impacted by and inclusive of same from the bedrock of their philosophies and spirituality onward. Even the Gods in the Kemetic pantheon, or West or Central Afrikan pantheon, INCLUDE Gods whose worship requires the removal of such destructive bigotries and promotion of the mysteries and skills that come about when one is deprived of a staple sense like sight, or hearing. Or limbs.
Remember that [ traditionally speaking, if Wakanda is located in East Afrika, its spiritual traditions would include ] one of the Orisha...Babalu Aye... is the living embodiment of this lesson, and one of the most fearsome and hardest to satisfy during The Walkabout that each Wakandan must undergo.
Of course, The Royal Walkabout is many times more difficult than anything that the average Wakandan Walkabout had. That's another part of the process proving to Wakandans that the Royalty in question merited his/her/their position.
All of which underscores the critical point that is being missed.
Audism is the belief that deaf people are undesirable, less than, etc than hearing people and are discriminated against accordingly. The warrior training that every Wakandan goes through utterly destroys such nonsense in them AS CHILDREN, and as such CANNOT BE THE CAUSE OF OR PART OF the health practices that Wakandans have that prevent hearing loss in any form which IS the result of the DYSFUNCTION or MALFUNCTION of the cochlea, inner ear or brain.
Your entire argument, brother Kip Lewis, rests upon the ABSENCE of all of the above in the people of Wakanda. I assert that one cannot have Wakandans or Wakanda if Audism exists. I believe that the record, Marvel canon, abundantly makes clear that my point is the correct point and perspective in this case.
What do you think?
