False Prophet David Call 2013 Linocut Ink on French cotton paper When hearing parents learn that their baby is Deaf, they become lost and in need of help. The eugenics plague doctor saw their vulnerability and appear to them as the god-like saint with a bloated moneybag under Madonna robe. He offers to “heal” their child of so-called deafness for a price. He claims to be the prophet of the Deaf community who could lead them out the valley of despair and hopelessness. Then he utters “EPHPHATHA” and the parents fall under his spell and sacrifice their Deaf child to him and pay heavily for his service. The doctor proceed to use the cochlear implant hand drill to drill deep inside the baby’s skull and suck the Deaf soul out. The baby’s soul goes inside the doctor’s body and become a dead Deaf soul skull. There are thousands of dead Deaf souls under the robe that began to overflow out of the robe. Once the Deaf baby got his head drilled and lost his Deaf soul, he become one of those countless sacrificial baby cherubs with incessant ringing AG Bell bells as their new ears. His head get covered with burlap bag with buttons sewn on as the eyes to blind him. Their oversized gloves are slapped on and tied up tightly to remind him not to use their hands to communicate. Also their mouth has been crudely sewn on to reflect the doctor’s futile attempt to make them speak clearly. He submits to the doctor’s oppressive power. Under the doctor’s oppressive power, he is struggling to flap their battered wings to keep them aloft to receive the doctor’s endless oral/auditory trainings. He is holding up the pampered pillow high with the doctor standing on it. He is carrying the burden of appeasing the doctors, parents, and audists. He represents millions of Deaf victims all over the world… Symbolism There are so many symbols in False Prophet which are familiar to the Deaf community. But emphasis is being placed on the symbolic meanings of plague doctor and “EPHPHATHA”. They reflect what is happening in the Deaf communities everywhere. The bubonic plague doctors during the Dark Ages were common throughout Europe during a series of bubonic plague pandemic outbreaks, which was also known as the Black Death. They were second rate doctors who didn’t do well in the medical community. They took advantage of desperate people who wanted their service to heal their plague stricken loved ones and they would pay him at all costs to heal them. The plague doctors knew their quack doctor remedies such as bleeding or placing toad on bubonic pus are no cure for bubonic plague victims and claimed that they can be used to cure them for a steep price. They used beak-like mask with goggle-like lens filled with aromatic herbs to keep the stench of the dying victims out of his face. They wore their bubonic plague infected, waxed protective trench coat and it spread plague everywhere they went. They made a huge amount of money. The same thing happened with the cochlear implant industry with their quack doctor remedies which are about more than 90% failure rate. They spread their audist ideological everywhere like a plague. There are many Karl Whites everywhere and they appeared as the “saint” to the misguided parents of Deaf baby. Now I am sure some of you are wondering what the word “EPHPHATHA” means. It is an ancient Aramaic phrase from the biblical lands meaning “Be Opened” based on a so-called story about Jesus curing a Deaf man when he uttered “EPHPATHA”. The cured man suddenly can hear and speak very well. Actually some scholars believed he was a hearing man who just lost his ”hearing and speech” due to some sort of traumatic experience and his hearing and speech just got restored. Unfortunately, Gallaudet adopted EPHPHATHA as its official motto from the days of heavy paternalism. It is still on Gallaudet emblem with EPHPHATHA written in Aramaic writing. Gallaudet University is still under the spell of the plague doctor’s EPHPHATHA too. False Prophet linocut print was created to commomerate the 100th anniversary of legendary George Veditz’s ASL preservation presentation film, which was done in 1913. He warned of false prophets appearing everywhere as the wolf in sheepskin. He warned about the dangers of oralism. He warned us that we needed to be more vigilant and defend our God-given language, ASL, at any cost. His prophecy came true as today there is a huge wave of oralism sweeping upon us. He knew it would happen today 100 years ago! Lastly, the eugenics plague doctor posed as false prophet in Madonna’s robe is my interpretation of Veditz’s presentation about false prophet as the wolf in sheepskin. With this linocut artwork, it shall keep Veditz’s words of wisdom alive for many centuries to come…
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 19:27:07 +0000
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