David Barnes is a friend of mine. Intelligent, college educated, spiritual, all around good guy. He’s also an advocate for the deaf. We communicate better on facebook because although he speaks fluent American Sign Language, I can fingerspell my name.
Today, he posted an open letter to the Mayor on facebook, and with his permission, I”m sharing the letter with my Village Thinker readers.
Dear Mayor Baldwin and members of the City Commission,
My name is David Barnes and I ask that you respect the Deaf Community and advocate for our needs:
1. We need closed captioning at the local Movie Theater and the District Manager is avoiding us and not responding to our emails. Can you help us make contact with him?
2. Police and Fire should be working with Deaf Community in their training to prevent our frustration with the communication barriers. Deaf Community, Police and Fire should take time to learn American Sign Language.
3. Battle Creek employees should provide post-storm cleanup to Deaf people with disabilities at no charge.
4. We need to set up a Deaf Awareness Week in downtown of Battle Creek to provide education to people.
David can be found on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidbarnesjr
If anyone on the City Commission is interested in learning more about Deaf culture and the needs of the Deaf community, let me know, and I’ll introduce you to a few friends of mine, including Valoree Boyer who is the Executive Director of DeafLINK.
