Congrats to Surdus!

I have quite a few friends who are of a similar political bent; we rant, we rave, we send each other forwarded links and articles. A few even blog about it. There are others, such as Ridor, who publicly write about politics and current affairs from time to time. But for the most part, our audience has been limited to e-mail exchanges, IMs, and an entry on our personal blogs from time to time.

Not anymore-- one of us has hit the big time. Joseph Rainmound, aka Surdus (a very likely candidate to be added to my daily reading!) has posted at Daily Kos, not once, but twice. The first time was last week, when he discussed empowerment and visibility of the Deaf in today's society. It was a relatively brief article, and you could tell there was a LOT more he wanted to say, but I thought it was a very good start.

Today, he posted again, expounding and expanding a bit more on his first entry. Unfortunately this draft was far more academic than his first, and was in essence an extension of his original offering. While the buzz engendered was far less than for his first "outing" on Daily Kos, it's a portent-- perhaps positive- that people are starting to notice we're here, we "hear" what's being said about us, and we're NOT going away. I don't know if these "diary entries" will continue or not, but Rainmound could very well end up being a spokesperson of sorts, due to his newfound visibility. I just hope he's the start of a trend, and not just the exception to the rule. If we as a minority are going to truly change things, we're going to have to start speaking up, start advocating, both on a personal and public level, as never before. Otherwise we'll be stuck with the status quo: low visibility, underemployment, continued patronization and suppression by "those who know best", among other things.

Nevertheless, congrats! Let's hope more of us get an opportunity to seize the soapbox in bigger, grander ways.