As the forces of power make decisions that affect your day to day living, sometimes you can feel pretty helpless. Protesting can be an option, but I wouldn’t say the George Floyd protests got results that would make people feel like they accomplished more than just letting out some anger. But not all protests are the same: Deaf President Now! is a wonderful reminder of how much can be accomplished if you can rally everyone to a joint cause. A roar like that can be heard everywhere, regardless of how well your ears work.
The President in this case is referring to the 1988 University President appointment at Gallaudet University. Jane Bassett Spilman, President of the Board of Trustees, led the vote to promote Elisabeth Zinser to become Gallaudet’s new president. But Greg Hlibok, Bridgette Bourne-Firl, Jerry Covell, and Tim Rarus had some issues with that choice. 1) Gallaudet is the only university in the world for deaf people, 2) Zinser didn’t know sign language, and 3) there were 2 perfectly good deaf candidates for the Presidency, including I. King Jordan. These 4 rallied the students, locked down the school, and refused to restart classes until they got what they wanted.
The power of Deaf President Now! is the way it shows the process of forming a movement. Recent years have really pushed protesting as almost the be all end all, and enough of them will scare the people in power to act. But Deaf President Now! puts the evolution into revolution, showing what actually has to be done. As expected, all the Gallaudet students (and frankly, most of the faculty too) are pissed; you feel that anger at this decision, especially as they hear the board of Trustees is off galivanting at a nice dinner downtown. Through this tornado of emotions rise Greg, Jerry, Tim, and Bridgette, helping guide and control the crowds and rouse them into action. Each has their own feelings on the right path, but they collectively decide on the 4 goals (President Zinser resigns, Jane Basset Spilman resigns from the board, a deaf President for Gallaudet, and not retaliation/punishment for protesters) that are easy to communicate and keep the students on board with their cause. From there, each of the 4 goes about organizing the student body to do different things: locking down the school, speaking to the Board’s reps, collecting donations, going on national TV, etc. That level of foresight shows the Board that the students are not going to back down, and also effective at painting the board as out of Touch elitist jerks. Deaf President Now! is one of the best examples of showing how to sustain a movement, right up there with Crip Camp, and just as rousing.
The other reason this documentary works is Greg, Jerry, Tim, and Bridgette. All 4 of the key figures in this movement are here, the “talking heads” of the documentary. While spearheading this movement, we also witness from them the complications and existential issues the deaf community deals with eternally. Historical treatment of deaf people before 1988 was designed to make them feel they needed to be fixed, and as a result, many in the community internalize what they perceive to be innate flaws that cascade out in their personality. Jerry, for example, feels that Greg carries that burden with how miniscule his signaling is, while Jerry is animated and boisterous. In addition, I. King Jordan also gets ire from people like Tim or Bridgette, because not only is he a faculty go-between trapped in the middle of the conflict, but Jordan isn’t natively deaf: a motorcycle accident in his youth made him deaf. Greg also can faintly hear as well, which causes friction when he’s elected to be the press spokesperson over someone like Tim, Jerry, or Bridgette. So while the movement is a wonderful study how to speak as one voice, these 4 show how that voice had to be collectively earned, and didn’t come naturally; not all deaf people are created the same. Sound is used wonderfully here, showing the beautiful irony of each 4 of these leaders finding their voices by embracing the silence, guaranteed to inspire even the laziest of streamer watchers.
Deaf President Now! also shows how special Gallaudet University is. Like Camp Jened, or HBCU’s, these are special places that create sparks, that lead to fires, which only help society grow and change for the better. Because of this 1988 Presidential protest, closed captioning now became available wide to Televisions, as broadcasters realized they couldn’t communicate to the deaf community. All because Gallaudet gave the deaf community a place to really understand who they are, and make them believe the possibilities for their lives could be bigger than what they’ve been told their entire lives. Damn straight!