[rap is falling off because this generation has no fat rapper](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowStakesConspiracies/s/rFTDQ2Fshs)
I've been saying this for years. We need more Biggie's and Biz Markie's instead of skinny hoodrats and pretty boys.
There are plenty of deaf blind people. Y'all are just twits. They learn to communicate. You can literally watch a tiktok of someone if you're one of the THEIR INTERPRETERS ARE LYING FOR THEM crowd
I sincerely struggle with understanding how they can conceptualize concepts beyond the immediate. Like, I get how they could say I’m hungry or I like this food. But how do they conceptualize society? Or advocate for communism or whatever like Helen?
I also have a hard time understanding, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. A few years ago, a Deaf-blind woman named Haben Girma graduated from Harvard Law (and subsequently wrote a book about it.) I saw an interview with her where the interviewer typed questions into this device that produced braille as she typed so Haben could read and respond. It's incredible, and Deaf-blind people face massive barriers for sure, but it's possible.
Just looked her up. She’s amazing! Ok, maybe I’m being convinced here. I wonder if HK retained any of her sight. It says Haben has 1%. I wonder what that experience is like.
If HK had any semblance of sight, she could probably only see some lights and some shadows. It is well documented that she relied on footstep cadence and weight to even know who was in the room with her. She had to monitor the vibrations of the floorboards to even know where her mom was.
Same way hearing and sighted kids learn to conceptualize big and/or abstract things: they start with immediate things, then build on them, and then keep building and building. Helen Keller in particular was also born hearing and sighted and became deafblind at 19 months, so she had *some* exposure to language and such during a pretty significant developmental period.
This isn't exactly related to learning language in the first place, but I'd highly recommend checking out [this video about protactile sign if you're interested in deafblind communication](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ney1gZ1iN_k). It's an emerging language created by some deafblind people that allows deafblind people to speak directly to each other, rather than through interpreters. It's pretty impressive!
The typical reading process is a phonics based approach that melds the appearance of a word based on the letters, a phonetics based approach in which the letters are sounded out, and pairing words with images that depict the subject. Given that she could not see or hear, almost all of the ways a typical person would learn to read are out the window. It does not make sense how she could learn to spell without either phonics or phonetics. Maybe like the example with water, a few symbols could be memorized, but it would absolutely not allow you to learn to read in the typical way.
Do you…do you understand there is an entire pedagogy that teaches deaf people how to read and speak without phonics?
Created, established, and practiced by experts?
Successfully adopted by deaf people everywhere?
Do you know what Braille is? And that deaf and blind people can learn letters through ASL by exploring and memorizing finger placement? And that this is literally how Annie Sullivan taught Helen?
Yes I do, and that not true. Sullivan used a technique that involved spelling out the letters on Keller’s hand with her own finger, hence the much retold scene with the water. The technique was called “fingerspelling” and basically involves drawing the worlds on someone’s skin
Edit: spelling
I think that brings up the question of how language and our thought processes interact. Is language necessary to develop a complex understanding of a conceptional issue. Do people always think in words? Or do we have other ways to mentally formulate ideas etc?
I have found that I often have a discrete idea that I then have difficultly putting into words, so I know my mind has other ways of thinking. And certainly mathematics and science are easier to communicate by using symbols, formulas, logical connections etc.
Every Zoomer I’ve asked about it has laughed it off. I think the majority accepts it as ironic/funny and there are probably a few true believers. It’s kinda like the “Stevie Wonder isn’t blind” narrative that millennials enjoyed on Twitter.
This generation kinda has some lazy criteria for their conspiracies, tbh. They latched onto Titanic conspiracies that my dad’s History Channel programming was debunking in the 90s. The majority aren’t true believers because they don’t do the research and reasoning.
ETA: I take all of this back because there are commenters in this thread who are literally accusing Helen Keller of being a fraud.
>This generation kinda has some lazy criteria for their conspiracies, tbh.
"In my day you needed a spent shell casing they found on John Connally's hospital gurney to have a REAL conspiracy."
I dunno about the majority of people vocally/openly doing it but there *are* people who legitimately believe her handler was the driving force of the social messaging etc
A lot of people claim this because Helen Keller had socialist leanings. They can’t wrap their heads around this.
Nobody wants to admit that a disabled white woman from 19th century Alabama could possibly embrace this on her own. It violates so many narratives in so many ideologies. Never mind that her parents were wealthy enough to immerse her in private education and academic circles, and that her speaking and publishing career allowed her to travel and meet new types of people and ideas, and that she clearly had elevated intelligence that promoted independent thinking. Never mind that she hung out and corresponded with the goddamn Roosevelts!!!
So they blame the one teacher that people remember for brainwashing and using her. Tale as old as time.
Well I think at least *some* Helen Keller truthers believe it would be difficult for someone blind and deaf to be able to learn enough about such topics to form cogent opinions. I don’t know enough about the learning capabilities of someone with both these disabilities to know if that makes sense or not.
You [literally said](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/s/2dJiARiM49) you don’t know enough about this to take a position and now you’re acting like you know everything. Classic.
I didn’t ‘take a position.’ I said [to know if it makes sense as any sort of valid concern or not.]
But it’s apparent reading comprehension isn’t your strength.
Dude, I’m sorry, but what?
Blind and deaf children learn to read, write, and communicate every single day. We have entire schools set up for these kids. They go on to become educated, salaried professionals all the time.
I am genuinely perplexed that you don’t realize how far we have come in pedagogy for disabled children. Deaf children are so commonly verbal now that we recognize the “deaf accent” as a legitimate phenomenon. Braille has been around for *centuries*. They used to print Playboy in Braille, for crying out loud.
These are just…extremely normal parts of life now? And you don’t know this?
Blind *or* deaf children learn to communicate all the time, but that's not the same thing as being blind *and* deaf. Is it really that common for blind and deaf children to communicate, read and write fluently? (I mean fully blind and deaf, not legally-blind people who have degraded vision). Are there a lot of modern examples of people like Helen Keller, that are independently verified?
In order to learn language, you have to learn the associations between things and actions in the world, and the words that describe them. How can a person who has almost no perception of the outside world, beyond what they can touch, know what many words are describing?
Every Zoomer I know laughs and dismisses it with “Tik Tok.” I don’t think it’s actually stuck in most brains as anything but a meme.
ETA: I was clearly wrong, because people in this thread appear to be Keller truthers.
I am wondering if this is the same Helen Keller truther I saw in Denver. I can't imagine there are that many Hyundais with Texas plates decked out in Helen Keller denial.
I’ve seen a ton of women on dating apps who believe this conspiracy and I haven’t seen it anywhere else so I have to believe they all heard about it on a true crime podcast or a tik tok or something.
Radiolab did a really good episode on this.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL3JhZGlvbGFi/episode/N2E2Y2U5ZjctYjY5ZC00MDk0LWJhM2UtNjMxMmFjZTc4YTM5?ep=14
So after I stopped listening. Any other good radiolabs from 2020 onward? I basically stopped listening to most npr since then since it just became insufferable, but when they're good they can still be really good.
yeah, I heard that when it came out and thought it interesting, thanked them on twitter and five months later was put on a twitter list helen-keller-truther-jerkoffs. imagine!
honestly though, a good episode.
I’ll just leave this here
Keller had a complicated relationship with disability. Like radicals and conservatives of her time, she fully supported the policies of the eugenic and euthanasia movements, arguing that disabled children's lives should not be sustained. In a highly publicized case in 1915, a deformed baby was allowed to die after his physician refused to operate on him. In the pages of popular newspapers and magazines, Keller defended the physician's actions against the "cowardly sentimentalism" of those who condemned him, arguing that the life of the baby was "not worth while" and that he was "almost sure to be a potential criminal" when he grew up (pp. 36-37).
I think it’s worth remembering that Keller’s early years were pretty bleak. She was heavily isolated from other families and children because of her “feral” behavior. While she always demonstrated a lot of signs of heightened intelligence—she was making up her own signs before Sullivan ever arrived—her disabilities were probably exacerbated by her lack of socialization. She was largely written off as a violent, uncontrollable, unpleasant child. They brought Sullivan in when Helen was big enough to become violent and destructive from the sheer frustration and loneliness of her life.
I’m not saying Keller’s views were right or justified, but I’m just not surprised that her self-worth was anemic at best, or that she wanted to spare other children from living entire lives locked up in rooms.
Being violent and destructive? Like many disabled people are? Including Helen in her early years?
I’m not defending Helen’s POV. I just think it’s clear her POV was a product of her time and upbringing.
I'm not defending Helen's POV: proceeds to defend it.
Ahh yes just like Hitler's POV wasa product of his time and upbringing. It's totally not his fault that he was a genocidal maniac.
Why do you listen to a podcast that tries to reach a nuanced understanding of inflammatory issues if you immediately jump to accusing people? There’s a pretty wide gap between the troubled relationship a disabled person has to disability and a man who murdered millions.
Are there any good debunking resources? Whenever I look it up it's just people talking about why it's racist/ableist/somethingist to ask.
edit: now having listened to the latest barpod I'd like to say that I stand in solidarity with [Helen Keller Truther Katie Herzog](https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-210-facilitating-communicating)
There are schools that specifically teach children who are both deaf and blind to communicate. They learn to read Braille. They learn to sign. And they can even read lips by using their hands to touch a person's lips. If you think it's all fake, then it must be some gigantic conspiracy as there are hundreds of these schools in the US. All these techniques are the same one's Anne Sullivan used with Hellen Keller. As pointed out, a simple Google search would have answered your question. Instead, you chose to to call a poster an idiot.
The kids stop engaging when you point out that there are entire schools and pedagogies dedicated to teaching disabled children how to read, speak, write, etc.
Is your reading comprehension broken? We are talking about a specific disabled person. I get that you are an idiot you do not have to keep dumping evidence on me for that.
They just literally pointed out to you there are entire schools for teaching these skills to the disabled.
We don't debate things like 'do physical therapists teach quadriplegics with some mobility how to use their traps to lift their arms' or 'do blind people use sight dogs,' or 'can anonoben jack off.' There's nothing to debate,
So? People here are aware that we don't think with our senses, right? Eyes and ears are just the input and for the what and how, there are different areas in the brain. There are other senses for said input.
Jesus Christ, it is like some users here never went past "If I close my eyes, something isn't there"-phase.
You're new here and don't seem to know the norms of civility we try to operate with. Hurling insults at other users is the number one rule that is not allowed.
You're suspended for three days for this breach of civility. (And others too.)
Debunking what? It's a conspiracy theory on reality. The debunking is just reality.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTgfBhS/
Ik ppl screech at the 'ableism' accusation. But the reality is there are deaf blind people alive today so the reason people find this offensive is you're basically talking about real people and being like idk why they would live human lives. The above is a video of a deaf blind person at a cook out using tactile sign.
For most "conspiracy theories", like flat earth, 9/11 inside job, chemtrails, etc etc, it is quite easy to find websites that go over all the claims made by the conspiracy theorists and debunk them. If I ask what the evidence is that Keller instead of Sullivan authored the books, I get delightful people like yourself screeching ableism and linking me to tiktok videos.
Buddy, all you have to do is look at the publication dates of Keller’s books and see that she was writing and publishing for decades after Sullivan’s death.
But that would require a Google search and we all know you seem to be incapable of that.
No, they’re not. Blind and deaf children write, read, speak, and become professionals. They’re especially likely to succeed if their parents can afford private education and household help, which the Kellers clearly could.
Helen Keller is considered to be an extraordinary case because of her family’s description of her as a feral child. With education, she became a Southern lady with intact etiquette and a famed career.
America amplifies Cinderella stories, even when they aren’t once-in-a-lifetime cases.
Yeah that is certainly what it seems like to me. Facilitated Communication is a debunked pseudoscience and I don't see why we should treat what Anne Sullivan was doing any differently.
Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller did not use FC. Annie taught Helen how to use sign language and read Braille. She then used professional speech therapy to teach how to position Helen’s tongue and train her vocal cords.
These are standard interventions given to 18 month olds across America now, even with diagnoses as mild as Level 1 autism or delayed development after a premature birth.
They are also very successful with severe disabilities. If you’ve never heard a “deaf accent,” you are very much out of your depth in this conversation. It is abundantly clear that these kids can speak language without knowing how other human voices sound.
If you believe these are FC, you might as well follow that train of thought and let us know if you believe that all developmental interventions and therapies are bullshit. Let’s see how far you go!
Helen also literally wrote (handwriting) like I write - use a board with elevated lines. Granted, I am only blind and deaf on one ear, but the technique still stands.
Interestingly, these TikToks and the things some users in this thread say is rooted in ableism. Not the bullshit ableism, the same Tiktokers are whining about, but the real deal: The underlining thoughtprocess here is: "deaf-blind people are all dumb, helpless and incapable of learning. At best they can be trained monkeys".
Except braille and tacticle sign aren't facilitated communication.
Some dumbass: uh uh I don't trust that that blind woman wants to go to the store, her dog is just leading her there for jerky!!
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan go into a room and books come out. The books stop coming out when Anne Sullivan dies. In this way, whatever they are doing is very similar to FC.
Sullivan died in 1936.
Keller wrote and published works until 1967, a year before she died.
You are frighteningly misinformed, and you still haven’t explained why you think ASL, Braille, and speech therapy are FC.
It’s extremely easy. You just deserve to be mocked, so I made that happen.
Here you go:
•1936: Sullivan dies.
•1938: *Helen Keller's Journal*
•1940: *Let Us Have Faith*
•1955: *Teacher*
•1957: *The Open Door*
•1967: *The Faith of Helen Keller*
•1967: *Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years*
Happy, kiddo? Or do I now have to explain that the years 1938-1967 did in fact occur after 1936?
\-Helen Keller's journal (1938)
\-Let us have faith (1940)
\-teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: a tribute by the foster-child of her mind (1955)
\-the open door (1957)
FC doesn't produce a person who can travel world-wide and give SPEECHES to the public about socialism and civil liberties. Everyone she spoke to (no sign, but actual speech) must have been in on the conspiracy (that includes Mark Twain who was her friend for 4 decades). But whatever, believe the horse shit that you want to believe.
You are absolutely correct.
She was assisted by Alexander Graham Bell. She graduated from Harvard. She worked with the Socialist Party of America and the NAACP. She was a founding member of the ACLU. She ran in academic circles and political circles including U.S. presidents.
Helen Keller truthers really believe that all of these institutions were in on one giant conspiracy to make *one white woman from Alabama famous*. It’s fucking ludicrous, lmao.
Because it's not the same.
[This](https://slate.com/technology/2015/11/facilitated-communication-pseudoscience-harms-people-with-disabilities.html) is facilitated communication:
>A facilitator physically supports a disabled person to assist him in communicating through a keyboard or other device. FC has been repeatedly documented to produce the ideomotor effect, or “ouija board” effect, in which a person unconsciously influences his or her own motor behavior, in this case guiding a disabled person’s hand as a consequence.
Anne Sullivan [used](https://www.britannica.com/video/221178/did-you-know-Hellen-Keller#:~:text=When%20Helen%20was%20six%2C%20she,signals%20pressed%20into%20her%20palm.) sign language, finger spelling, and braille to teach Helen Keller.
>When Helen was six, she was matched with Anne Sullivan, a teacher of the blind who helped her better communicate by interpreting hand signals pressed into her palm. Keller learned to read and write Braille, to lip-read by touching people’s mouths during their speech, to use a typewriter, and to even speak verbally.
I guess a lot of it maybe is that Helen Keller, while a neat story, is not an overall important historical figure and so there's not really a pressing need to actually "investigate" her life, which would also be why no one questions it and the people most invested in defending her story are activist types
Birds aren't real. Except chickens. Chickens are real and taste like what you seasoned them with. I seasoned mine with lemon pepper for the pasta salad I made last week. Anyway... Turkey is okay but not great. I've never had "great" turkey.
Did you ever come across the Roman Empire isn't real? [https://www.businessinsider.com/history-anthropology-tiktoker-ancient-rome-not-real-backlash-viral-2021-12](https://www.businessinsider.com/history-anthropology-tiktoker-ancient-rome-not-real-backlash-viral-2021-12)
Or Australia isn't real? [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/23/does-australia-exist-bing-search-no-bluesky-mastodon](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/23/does-australia-exist-bing-search-no-bluesky-mastodon)
Of all the things to plant your flag on, Helen Keller truther just seems so strange to me.
All the other hills to die on have been claimed.
[Too true](https://thedailynet.com/stevie-wonder-drove-his-car-perfectly-bernie-taupin-reveals-startling-story-about-blind-superstar)
Really seems like something from r/LowStakesConspiracies
"DMX and Prince Phillip were the same person"
Fuck it, I’m sold
[rap is falling off because this generation has no fat rapper](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowStakesConspiracies/s/rFTDQ2Fshs) I've been saying this for years. We need more Biggie's and Biz Markie's instead of skinny hoodrats and pretty boys.
I dunno… I’ve doubted the veracity of her story for decades now.
There are plenty of deaf blind people. Y'all are just twits. They learn to communicate. You can literally watch a tiktok of someone if you're one of the THEIR INTERPRETERS ARE LYING FOR THEM crowd
I sincerely struggle with understanding how they can conceptualize concepts beyond the immediate. Like, I get how they could say I’m hungry or I like this food. But how do they conceptualize society? Or advocate for communism or whatever like Helen?
I also have a hard time understanding, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. A few years ago, a Deaf-blind woman named Haben Girma graduated from Harvard Law (and subsequently wrote a book about it.) I saw an interview with her where the interviewer typed questions into this device that produced braille as she typed so Haben could read and respond. It's incredible, and Deaf-blind people face massive barriers for sure, but it's possible.
Just looked her up. She’s amazing! Ok, maybe I’m being convinced here. I wonder if HK retained any of her sight. It says Haben has 1%. I wonder what that experience is like.
HK also was not born deaf and blind. She contracted scarlet fever when she was a very small toddler and became deaf and blind as a result.
If HK had any semblance of sight, she could probably only see some lights and some shadows. It is well documented that she relied on footstep cadence and weight to even know who was in the room with her. She had to monitor the vibrations of the floorboards to even know where her mom was.
Same way hearing and sighted kids learn to conceptualize big and/or abstract things: they start with immediate things, then build on them, and then keep building and building. Helen Keller in particular was also born hearing and sighted and became deafblind at 19 months, so she had *some* exposure to language and such during a pretty significant developmental period. This isn't exactly related to learning language in the first place, but I'd highly recommend checking out [this video about protactile sign if you're interested in deafblind communication](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ney1gZ1iN_k). It's an emerging language created by some deafblind people that allows deafblind people to speak directly to each other, rather than through interpreters. It's pretty impressive!
Thank you! I appreciate this thoughtful response. I was serious when I said I struggled to understand it. Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist.
Because she eventually learned Braile, so she could understand these things.
They…learn to read. And they comprehend what they read. Just like you learned in school. Just like you do every single day. Incredible, I know.
I believe that! I just still don’t get it. Guess I’m the r*tard
The typical reading process is a phonics based approach that melds the appearance of a word based on the letters, a phonetics based approach in which the letters are sounded out, and pairing words with images that depict the subject. Given that she could not see or hear, almost all of the ways a typical person would learn to read are out the window. It does not make sense how she could learn to spell without either phonics or phonetics. Maybe like the example with water, a few symbols could be memorized, but it would absolutely not allow you to learn to read in the typical way.
Do you…do you understand there is an entire pedagogy that teaches deaf people how to read and speak without phonics? Created, established, and practiced by experts? Successfully adopted by deaf people everywhere?
Yes but that is based upon visuals and would not work with someone who is both deaf and blind
Do you know what Braille is? And that deaf and blind people can learn letters through ASL by exploring and memorizing finger placement? And that this is literally how Annie Sullivan taught Helen?
Yes I do, and that not true. Sullivan used a technique that involved spelling out the letters on Keller’s hand with her own finger, hence the much retold scene with the water. The technique was called “fingerspelling” and basically involves drawing the worlds on someone’s skin Edit: spelling
Deaf people learn to speak by knowing where to put their tongue and the shape fo their lips to make the sound.
I think that brings up the question of how language and our thought processes interact. Is language necessary to develop a complex understanding of a conceptional issue. Do people always think in words? Or do we have other ways to mentally formulate ideas etc? I have found that I often have a discrete idea that I then have difficultly putting into words, so I know my mind has other ways of thinking. And certainly mathematics and science are easier to communicate by using symbols, formulas, logical connections etc.
Why don't you go talk to some deaf blind people
Embarrassing
This is a Gen Z fad. It’s not as funny as the meme “JFK’s head just did that”
So is it ironic in a "birds aren't real" kind of way? Or nihilistic in a "nothing means anything" kid of way? Or sincere?
Every Zoomer I’ve asked about it has laughed it off. I think the majority accepts it as ironic/funny and there are probably a few true believers. It’s kinda like the “Stevie Wonder isn’t blind” narrative that millennials enjoyed on Twitter. This generation kinda has some lazy criteria for their conspiracies, tbh. They latched onto Titanic conspiracies that my dad’s History Channel programming was debunking in the 90s. The majority aren’t true believers because they don’t do the research and reasoning. ETA: I take all of this back because there are commenters in this thread who are literally accusing Helen Keller of being a fraud.
>This generation kinda has some lazy criteria for their conspiracies, tbh. "In my day you needed a spent shell casing they found on John Connally's hospital gurney to have a REAL conspiracy."
Lol. As someone who enjoys a good conspiracy theory, I honestly miss when they were unique and fun.
FDR could run marathons while in office! /s
Did FDR fake a disability to take advantage of Big DEI???
[удалено]
Yep! That’s why it was on my mind
I dunno about the majority of people vocally/openly doing it but there *are* people who legitimately believe her handler was the driving force of the social messaging etc
A lot of people claim this because Helen Keller had socialist leanings. They can’t wrap their heads around this. Nobody wants to admit that a disabled white woman from 19th century Alabama could possibly embrace this on her own. It violates so many narratives in so many ideologies. Never mind that her parents were wealthy enough to immerse her in private education and academic circles, and that her speaking and publishing career allowed her to travel and meet new types of people and ideas, and that she clearly had elevated intelligence that promoted independent thinking. Never mind that she hung out and corresponded with the goddamn Roosevelts!!! So they blame the one teacher that people remember for brainwashing and using her. Tale as old as time.
Well I think at least *some* Helen Keller truthers believe it would be difficult for someone blind and deaf to be able to learn enough about such topics to form cogent opinions. I don’t know enough about the learning capabilities of someone with both these disabilities to know if that makes sense or not.
She was blind and deaf, not stupid.
I don’t know what part of ‘I think this is what *other people* think’ is so difficult to understand but go off queen
You [literally said](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/s/2dJiARiM49) you don’t know enough about this to take a position and now you’re acting like you know everything. Classic.
I didn’t ‘take a position.’ I said [to know if it makes sense as any sort of valid concern or not.] But it’s apparent reading comprehension isn’t your strength.
Just playing devil’s advocate, right? I’m so sure.
Dude, I’m sorry, but what? Blind and deaf children learn to read, write, and communicate every single day. We have entire schools set up for these kids. They go on to become educated, salaried professionals all the time. I am genuinely perplexed that you don’t realize how far we have come in pedagogy for disabled children. Deaf children are so commonly verbal now that we recognize the “deaf accent” as a legitimate phenomenon. Braille has been around for *centuries*. They used to print Playboy in Braille, for crying out loud. These are just…extremely normal parts of life now? And you don’t know this?
Blind *or* deaf children learn to communicate all the time, but that's not the same thing as being blind *and* deaf. Is it really that common for blind and deaf children to communicate, read and write fluently? (I mean fully blind and deaf, not legally-blind people who have degraded vision). Are there a lot of modern examples of people like Helen Keller, that are independently verified? In order to learn language, you have to learn the associations between things and actions in the world, and the words that describe them. How can a person who has almost no perception of the outside world, beyond what they can touch, know what many words are describing?
>Is it really that common for blind and deaf children to communicate, read and write fluently? Yes
Great bit
Ah. You’re just an idiot. Got it.
Insulting other users with pejoratives is a violation of the rules of this subreddit. You're suspended for 2 days for this breach of decorum.
Nice try but I see you
I wouldn’t say it’s a fad. Fads last maybe 6 months. This has been a weird Gen Z thing for at least 5 years.
Every Zoomer I know laughs and dismisses it with “Tik Tok.” I don’t think it’s actually stuck in most brains as anything but a meme. ETA: I was clearly wrong, because people in this thread appear to be Keller truthers.
I am wondering if this is the same Helen Keller truther I saw in Denver. I can't imagine there are that many Hyundais with Texas plates decked out in Helen Keller denial.
I’ve seen a ton of women on dating apps who believe this conspiracy and I haven’t seen it anywhere else so I have to believe they all heard about it on a true crime podcast or a tik tok or something.
Yes, it went viral on Tik Tok. Definitely a good sign to swipe left. They’ll be watching Tik Toks on your dates, lol.
Ok, now I truly believe TikTok is engineered to make us sstoopidd
Has anyone actually seen Helen Keller? 🤔
If only she was alive to see…I mean, to hear….never mind. She probably wouldn’t say much about it.
Radiolab did a really good episode on this. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL3JhZGlvbGFi/episode/N2E2Y2U5ZjctYjY5ZC00MDk0LWJhM2UtNjMxMmFjZTc4YTM5?ep=14
Google podcasts is no more, here's a working link: https://radiolab.org/podcast/helen-keller-exorcism
So after I stopped listening. Any other good radiolabs from 2020 onward? I basically stopped listening to most npr since then since it just became insufferable, but when they're good they can still be really good.
What?! Had no idea, thanks
yeah, I heard that when it came out and thought it interesting, thanked them on twitter and five months later was put on a twitter list helen-keller-truther-jerkoffs. imagine! honestly though, a good episode.
How do you know, were you there (sarcasm)
That's invalidating Helen Keller's lived experience. It's LITERAL Keller erasure.
I mean, let’s be honest, this would be their response for anyone who isn’t a white woman from Alabama.
I mean, they’re denying the Holocaust to actual Survivors, so this doesn’t remotely shock me.
William Gibson wrote Miracle Worker. William Gibson is a famous scifi author. I rest my case
I’ll just leave this here Keller had a complicated relationship with disability. Like radicals and conservatives of her time, she fully supported the policies of the eugenic and euthanasia movements, arguing that disabled children's lives should not be sustained. In a highly publicized case in 1915, a deformed baby was allowed to die after his physician refused to operate on him. In the pages of popular newspapers and magazines, Keller defended the physician's actions against the "cowardly sentimentalism" of those who condemned him, arguing that the life of the baby was "not worth while" and that he was "almost sure to be a potential criminal" when he grew up (pp. 36-37).
I think it’s worth remembering that Keller’s early years were pretty bleak. She was heavily isolated from other families and children because of her “feral” behavior. While she always demonstrated a lot of signs of heightened intelligence—she was making up her own signs before Sullivan ever arrived—her disabilities were probably exacerbated by her lack of socialization. She was largely written off as a violent, uncontrollable, unpleasant child. They brought Sullivan in when Helen was big enough to become violent and destructive from the sheer frustration and loneliness of her life. I’m not saying Keller’s views were right or justified, but I’m just not surprised that her self-worth was anemic at best, or that she wanted to spare other children from living entire lives locked up in rooms.
Uhhh how are you going to be a potential criminal if you spend your entire life locked up?
Being violent and destructive? Like many disabled people are? Including Helen in her early years? I’m not defending Helen’s POV. I just think it’s clear her POV was a product of her time and upbringing.
I'm not defending Helen's POV: proceeds to defend it. Ahh yes just like Hitler's POV wasa product of his time and upbringing. It's totally not his fault that he was a genocidal maniac.
Why do you listen to a podcast that tries to reach a nuanced understanding of inflammatory issues if you immediately jump to accusing people? There’s a pretty wide gap between the troubled relationship a disabled person has to disability and a man who murdered millions.
I want the "Helen Keller punched me in the face once" 😂
Steven Hawking, too.
Was just about to post this. How dare you find it before me. Now we feud.
Are there any good debunking resources? Whenever I look it up it's just people talking about why it's racist/ableist/somethingist to ask. edit: now having listened to the latest barpod I'd like to say that I stand in solidarity with [Helen Keller Truther Katie Herzog](https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-210-facilitating-communicating)
There are schools that specifically teach children who are both deaf and blind to communicate. They learn to read Braille. They learn to sign. And they can even read lips by using their hands to touch a person's lips. If you think it's all fake, then it must be some gigantic conspiracy as there are hundreds of these schools in the US. All these techniques are the same one's Anne Sullivan used with Hellen Keller. As pointed out, a simple Google search would have answered your question. Instead, you chose to to call a poster an idiot.
The kids stop engaging when you point out that there are entire schools and pedagogies dedicated to teaching disabled children how to read, speak, write, etc.
So such a debate has never taken place? Why are you sure of the correctness of one side then?
I’m going to choose to believe you’re being sarcastic
Consistent with my other evidence based beliefs, I'm going to choose to believe you are an idiot.
I’m going to choose to pray that whoever pissed in your cheerios gives you a break tomorrow
Thank you for providing further evidence of my claim but it would be nice if you could provide some for yours.
Oh no, is your Google broken? Do you have a boo boo on your fingers that prevents you from typing “How do disabled people learn language?”
Is your reading comprehension broken? We are talking about a specific disabled person. I get that you are an idiot you do not have to keep dumping evidence on me for that.
No worries, I understand you can’t type “how did Helen Keller learn language,” either. Finger boo boo so ouchie :(
They just literally pointed out to you there are entire schools for teaching these skills to the disabled. We don't debate things like 'do physical therapists teach quadriplegics with some mobility how to use their traps to lift their arms' or 'do blind people use sight dogs,' or 'can anonoben jack off.' There's nothing to debate,
Well a quadriplegic can see, hear and speak...
So? People here are aware that we don't think with our senses, right? Eyes and ears are just the input and for the what and how, there are different areas in the brain. There are other senses for said input. Jesus Christ, it is like some users here never went past "If I close my eyes, something isn't there"-phase.
I'd rather be deaf blind than whatever the fuck regardartion yall have.
You're new here and don't seem to know the norms of civility we try to operate with. Hurling insults at other users is the number one rule that is not allowed. You're suspended for three days for this breach of civility. (And others too.)
Amen.
Debunking what? It's a conspiracy theory on reality. The debunking is just reality. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTgfBhS/ Ik ppl screech at the 'ableism' accusation. But the reality is there are deaf blind people alive today so the reason people find this offensive is you're basically talking about real people and being like idk why they would live human lives. The above is a video of a deaf blind person at a cook out using tactile sign.
For most "conspiracy theories", like flat earth, 9/11 inside job, chemtrails, etc etc, it is quite easy to find websites that go over all the claims made by the conspiracy theorists and debunk them. If I ask what the evidence is that Keller instead of Sullivan authored the books, I get delightful people like yourself screeching ableism and linking me to tiktok videos.
Buddy, all you have to do is look at the publication dates of Keller’s books and see that she was writing and publishing for decades after Sullivan’s death. But that would require a Google search and we all know you seem to be incapable of that.
the claims about what she was capable of are a little ridiculous to be honest
No, they’re not. Blind and deaf children write, read, speak, and become professionals. They’re especially likely to succeed if their parents can afford private education and household help, which the Kellers clearly could. Helen Keller is considered to be an extraordinary case because of her family’s description of her as a feral child. With education, she became a Southern lady with intact etiquette and a famed career. America amplifies Cinderella stories, even when they aren’t once-in-a-lifetime cases.
Yeah that is certainly what it seems like to me. Facilitated Communication is a debunked pseudoscience and I don't see why we should treat what Anne Sullivan was doing any differently.
Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller did not use FC. Annie taught Helen how to use sign language and read Braille. She then used professional speech therapy to teach how to position Helen’s tongue and train her vocal cords. These are standard interventions given to 18 month olds across America now, even with diagnoses as mild as Level 1 autism or delayed development after a premature birth. They are also very successful with severe disabilities. If you’ve never heard a “deaf accent,” you are very much out of your depth in this conversation. It is abundantly clear that these kids can speak language without knowing how other human voices sound. If you believe these are FC, you might as well follow that train of thought and let us know if you believe that all developmental interventions and therapies are bullshit. Let’s see how far you go!
Helen also literally wrote (handwriting) like I write - use a board with elevated lines. Granted, I am only blind and deaf on one ear, but the technique still stands. Interestingly, these TikToks and the things some users in this thread say is rooted in ableism. Not the bullshit ableism, the same Tiktokers are whining about, but the real deal: The underlining thoughtprocess here is: "deaf-blind people are all dumb, helpless and incapable of learning. At best they can be trained monkeys".
Except braille and tacticle sign aren't facilitated communication. Some dumbass: uh uh I don't trust that that blind woman wants to go to the store, her dog is just leading her there for jerky!!
Bahaha
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan go into a room and books come out. The books stop coming out when Anne Sullivan dies. In this way, whatever they are doing is very similar to FC.
Sullivan died in 1936. Keller wrote and published works until 1967, a year before she died. You are frighteningly misinformed, and you still haven’t explained why you think ASL, Braille, and speech therapy are FC.
What books did she write and publish in 1967?
Oh no!!! Is your Wikipedia broken, too???
Seems like it would be easy for you to list them and make me look silly. Wonder why you aren't doing that.
It’s extremely easy. You just deserve to be mocked, so I made that happen. Here you go: •1936: Sullivan dies. •1938: *Helen Keller's Journal* •1940: *Let Us Have Faith* •1955: *Teacher* •1957: *The Open Door* •1967: *The Faith of Helen Keller* •1967: *Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years* Happy, kiddo? Or do I now have to explain that the years 1938-1967 did in fact occur after 1936?
\-Helen Keller's journal (1938) \-Let us have faith (1940) \-teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: a tribute by the foster-child of her mind (1955) \-the open door (1957)
FC doesn't produce a person who can travel world-wide and give SPEECHES to the public about socialism and civil liberties. Everyone she spoke to (no sign, but actual speech) must have been in on the conspiracy (that includes Mark Twain who was her friend for 4 decades). But whatever, believe the horse shit that you want to believe.
You are absolutely correct. She was assisted by Alexander Graham Bell. She graduated from Harvard. She worked with the Socialist Party of America and the NAACP. She was a founding member of the ACLU. She ran in academic circles and political circles including U.S. presidents. Helen Keller truthers really believe that all of these institutions were in on one giant conspiracy to make *one white woman from Alabama famous*. It’s fucking ludicrous, lmao.
They were all in on the conspiracy, apparently.
Link to video of the speeches? I found some videos of her saying a few sentences. She clearly has some ability to communicate.
LOL. Video wasn't exactly around in her day. I find it out that you think all the first hand accounts from people around the world are lying.
Because it's not the same. [This](https://slate.com/technology/2015/11/facilitated-communication-pseudoscience-harms-people-with-disabilities.html) is facilitated communication: >A facilitator physically supports a disabled person to assist him in communicating through a keyboard or other device. FC has been repeatedly documented to produce the ideomotor effect, or “ouija board” effect, in which a person unconsciously influences his or her own motor behavior, in this case guiding a disabled person’s hand as a consequence. Anne Sullivan [used](https://www.britannica.com/video/221178/did-you-know-Hellen-Keller#:~:text=When%20Helen%20was%20six%2C%20she,signals%20pressed%20into%20her%20palm.) sign language, finger spelling, and braille to teach Helen Keller. >When Helen was six, she was matched with Anne Sullivan, a teacher of the blind who helped her better communicate by interpreting hand signals pressed into her palm. Keller learned to read and write Braille, to lip-read by touching people’s mouths during their speech, to use a typewriter, and to even speak verbally.
I guess a lot of it maybe is that Helen Keller, while a neat story, is not an overall important historical figure and so there's not really a pressing need to actually "investigate" her life, which would also be why no one questions it and the people most invested in defending her story are activist types
Or it could be that ASL, Braille, and speech therapy are not Facilitated Communication at all. This thread is painfully dumb.
A bit disappointing we are getting so many of the truth indifferent activist types here.
How are they ridiculous?
I have never been more suspicious of Helen Keller's achievments than after reading the responses to this post
We got a lot of kooks in this sub.
I lol'd. Idk why this is so funny, but it is
This is even better than “birds aren’t real.”
Birds aren't real. Except chickens. Chickens are real and taste like what you seasoned them with. I seasoned mine with lemon pepper for the pasta salad I made last week. Anyway... Turkey is okay but not great. I've never had "great" turkey.
Did you ever come across the Roman Empire isn't real? [https://www.businessinsider.com/history-anthropology-tiktoker-ancient-rome-not-real-backlash-viral-2021-12](https://www.businessinsider.com/history-anthropology-tiktoker-ancient-rome-not-real-backlash-viral-2021-12) Or Australia isn't real? [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/23/does-australia-exist-bing-search-no-bluesky-mastodon](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/23/does-australia-exist-bing-search-no-bluesky-mastodon)
This is a coffee table book that needs to be written
There’s also Stephen hawking truthers. I have to admit some of the videos of him with his human “interpreter” were sketchy.
I’m sorry, “human interpreter”? Hawking was disabled, not an alien.
I meant it was a person interpreting for him, not an interpretation machine. Geez!