Brandi Rarus > Quotes

“he and a good part of the Deaf community are against cochlear implants because they don’t believe that being deaf is a disability or that they need to be fixed. He says it would be like white people trying to paint African American people white. Some deaf people also view the use of cochlear implants as a loss of their Deaf Culture.”
― Brandi Rarus, Finding Zoe: A Deaf Woman's Story of Identity, Love, and Adoption

“felt that Gallaudet, which tended to attract deaf people who signed and didn’t speak, would not be academically challenging. No one had ever explained to me that the deaf kids who don’t speak, don’t do so because they weren’t exposed to any language whatsoever until they were toddlers—neither sign language nor a spoken language—and that affects their ability to learn. I didn’t know that they were no less smart than the deaf kids who spoke, like me.”
― Brandi Rarus, Finding Zoe: A Deaf Woman's Story of Identity, Love, and Adoption