From Pity to Pride

"From Pity to Pride examines the experiences of a group of wealthy young men raised in the Old South who eventually would have ruled over this closely regimented world had they not been deaf. Instead, the promise of status was gone, replaced by pity. In this history, Hannah Joyner depicts the circumstances of these so-called victims of a terrible "misfortune." She delineates the ways in which the cultural rhetoric of paternalism and dependency in the South codified a stringent system of oppression and hierarchy that left little room for self-determination for Deaf southerners. From Pity to Pride reveals how some of these elite Deaf people rejected their family's and society's belief that being deaf was a permanent liability. As they came to adulthood, they joined together with other Deaf Americans, both southern and northern, to form communities of understanding, self-worth, and independence."--BOOK JACKET.