UK Council on Deafness 2008 Annual Conference - speech by Jackie Ballard - 07 November 2008

If you were disappointed by the Ballard Interview then I’m afraid Ms Ballard’s latest speech will not provide much relief. She opens by saying that RNID ‘has a proud and long history as an organisation,’ which makes me wonder if she has read ‘Really not interested in the Deaf’ by Doug Alker, a former chief executive of RNID. I don’t want to get too distracted by the issue of Alkergate, but here’s an excerpt from the resignation letter of Jim Toohill, RNID’s former head of strategic planning:

“We might also note the irony that RNID declares itself to be striving for Equal Opportunities and an organisation which is ‘honest with others and with itself’. I for one would find it very hard to convince staff that the publicly held values of the organisation are other than sham.”

You might like to read the whole letter (worthwhile) pp179-181, or even better, the whole book, but the words ‘proud history’ do not really spring to mind.

However, let us take what little we can when Ms Ballard makes concessions. She goes on to state that RNID ‘often attracts the most attention and the most criticism, which in [their] case has sometimes been deserved.’ Although this is somewhat guarded, it is significant. If you accept that a criticism was deserved, it means that you are acknowledging the integrity of the critic's intentions. Therefore it's time to put away the personal slights against the critics.

Unfortunately that appeared to be as good as it got. Ms Ballard did go on to talk about making partnerships, but it sounded more like platitude than principle, as RNID have shown a rigid propensity to dictate terms. It is not a true ‘partnership’ if your so-called partners have to yield to everything that RNID want. RNID bulldoze aside anything that does not sing in harmony with their own scripted song sheet.

The vast bulk of Ms Ballard’s speech seemed to have the flavour of the old RNID arrogance dressed up as new reasonableness, a British Empire in India approach to deaf people. There were certainly some genuinely reasonable intentions, such as with young deaf people and employment, but there appeared to be various intellectual gymnastics designed to allow RNID to have several cakes and to eat them. For example, Ms Ballard seems to want anybody who feels that RNID does not represent them, such as cultural Deaf or those who espouse the social model to go away and be represented by some other organisation such as the BDA. Yet at the same time she wants to retain the “right” to claim to work for and more importantly, collect money on behalf of us all. Well no can do.

Instead of asking ‘May we represent you? How can we represent you? What are your priorities?’ RNID just go steam rollering into anything deaf related as if they have a divine right to be there and just say ‘this is what’s going to happen’. This is not respecting or fulfilling deaf people's autonomy, it is paternalism and bad paternalism at that. It is all about keeping us objects of pity, charity cases to make money out of.

Thanks to MM for the heads up.