In his doctoral thesis, Tom Humphries (1977) defined the term audism as "the notion that a person is superior based on their ability to hear or behave in the manner of he who hears” (Humphries, cited by Harrington 2002). Humphries explains the negative stigma created based on the pathological thinking that doctors and professionals have heard about anyone who is deaf, deaf or hard of hearing. Is it right to limit, judge, or label people based on whether or not they can hear or whether or not they choose to speak? For my research project, I decided to ask individuals this question. After posting a number of questions on Facebook, a social network, that many people are unfamiliar with the term audism, confuse it with autism, are afraid to express their views, and don't think it is right to discriminate against deaf people. or hearing impaired. The first step I took in finding out what my peers knew about deaf culture was to find out if they had ever thought of deafness as a culture. It took ten minutes for anyone to respond to my first message. Ariela Melchor responded by saying, “Yes, I went to the state talks in Fresno” (personal communication, April 9, 2014). Shortly after his comment, a number of other people responded saying they thought it was actually deaf culture. I responded by asking why? Nobody answered. One of the girls who responded to my post is a close friend of mine. Instead of adding to my message, she sent me a personal message that said the following: "I'm sorry for not responding, I just don't mean anything is wrong. I don't mean to offend person, so I prefer to just send you a message” (E. Rodriguez, personal communication, April 9, 2014 I now understand why no... middle of paper ......this, personality and genetics that we). We all share (p. 5). Although we do our best not to discriminate or oppress humans, we are unfortunately taught to categorize. We are born with the ability to quickly gather information and categorize it. way that makes sense to us We categorize people based on what they say, how they act, what they look like and, in this situation, the language they choose to speak. This way of categorizing often leads to superficial stereotypes. or hurtful; these thoughts are unavoidable. By judging, assuming we have created a negative stigma and forming ideas about what or who we think we know. Works Cited Ogden, PW, (1996). The silent garden: raising your deaf child. Washington: Gallaudet University Press. Harrington, T., (2002). What is audism: introduction. Retrieved April 9, 2014 from http://libguides.gallaudet.edu/content.php?pid=114455&sid=989379