Deaf Culture

A long time ago I mentioned the deaf community's opposition to cochlear implants. Over at A&L Daily they link to a thoughtful article in Friday's The Chronicle of Education about "Deaf Culture". I particularly like this paragraph:

And is a deaf person excluded from his ethnic identity of deafness if he or she chooses not to act deaf? Some deaf people have lip-reading and speaking skills that might allow them to pass for hearing. Others might choose to avoid the more obvious deaf markers — such as colloquial ASL, physical warmth, and intensity — that I've already mentioned. African-Americans who speak standard English and do not code-switch are sometimes accused of being "Oreos" — black on the outside and white on the inside. Do we really want to go down the road of thinking of some people as deaf "Oreos"? (Or would the comparative term be "cochleos?")