This open letter to the Springer Editors has been emailed to the editors in response to a chapter that included offensive language and highly problematic claims about deaf communities and signed languages
https://t.co/2r9GEez5Ic

cc: @SpringerEng @SpringerNature

Thank you to all who contributed, gave feedback and signed, which are too many to be tagged 😳! About 200 signatures. AND over the weekend AND during these apocarevolutiondemic days?!? Wow it’s things like these that keep me working...
Along with sharing the open letter which I hope can be the start of a template of a more general letter that can be re-used in similar cases, which hopefully are few and far between, and thanking everyone who co-signed, I also wanted to highlight a few things…
Work w the signed language communities must be done by or w the communities themselves. I invite the authors to reach out to their local communities, such as work spearheaded by @alimchandani, https://t.co/jkTED650jx, an accessible Resource & Innovation Centre of the Deaf, India
There are tons of resources about doing work with signed language communities as well as discussion about how such work should be led by the communities themselves. To start with @SLLS ethics statement (https://t.co/S0qaWCeOwJ). (ASL sign "community" from https://t.co/LaJSCNWSPr)
Harris, Holmes & Mertens’ 2009 Research Ethics in Sign Language Communities (ASL version https://t.co/kWJhT5FJ7h) among other chapters and articles, & Manual for Sign Language Work within Development Cooperation (https://t.co/yS8NxXPShd) ... everyone add your preferred ref here!
One of my favorite researchers @BenBraithwaite recently tweeted... “structural inequalities of North-South academia, extractive research methods, inaccessible publication practices, etc are part of the problem, and perhaps part of the solution…
Deaf researchers from the South should be able to forge careers in their own countries, informing research discourses, training, and calling out this crap. The barriers to this are huge & deeply connected to the ways in which academic money and power are hoarded in the North”
That pretty much caps up the very reason why I make sure my work is accessible (online, captioned, alt-text, not overly technical, etc)
As @ThomasPeachLib eloquently said, this is not cancel culture but members of the communities & allies protesting work that shouldn't have gotten past peer-review & “doesn't deserve the time of a published refutation which would elevate it to a category of acceptable discourse”
Thanks everyone for rallying to the cause and I look forward to continued dialogue with you all.
@threadreaderapp please unroll

More from Culture

. THREAD 1/x

David Baddiel is getting lots of coverage and feedback on his book which again focuses on so called 'left wing' antisemitism.

I will start by saying that I have seen antisemitic comments made by Labour members and some genuine cases.

However, I have huge concerns.


2/x

Let's look in detail at this article written in April 2019 in the @Guardian - and I will explain the concerns.

The areas highlighted guide you to believe this was all Labour - IT WASN'T.

It also occurred before 2015! Detail follows...

https://t.co/cK59FP83aG


3/x

So as you see the writer of this rather deceitful piece starts with

"THAT CHANGED IN SEPTEMBER 2015" 🙄

This was done to point the timeframe as Corbyn's leadership. Yet the article goes on to describe things that are not even related to Labour, which occurred in 2014.


4/x

So... What in fact the @Guardian writer is discussing here is this case - where a group of Neo-Nazi's spent months inflicting abuse on Jewish MP Luciana Berger

All the detail is in the Court Notes when Bonehill-Paine was sentenced by the judge.

https://t.co/wAyo6Yro5Q


5/x

The Justice sentencing remarks to Neo-Nazi explain the previous cases too. See the date 2014.

Yet the Guardian writer refers to this NON LABOUR case to effectively make her article a lie.

"Star of David" - this was Garron Helm another neo-Nazi..

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I think a plausible explanation is that whatever Corbyn says or does, his critics will denounce - no matter how much hypocrisy it necessitates.


Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel

He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:

He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:

He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party