Deaf Australians get the finger

Minefields are something Australia’s military should know all about, especially how not to wander into one. Political correctness, though, that’s a trickier matter altogether. Take the ADF’s latest bid to persuade taxpayers its chief duty is to promote gender equality and favourable Twitter mentions, rather than standing ready to deliver wholesale death and destruction to Australia’s enemies. That bearded warrior above, the one with the partial pink manicure, is the perfect example of good intentions’ treachery.

A Quadrant reader deaf since birth and with tongue in cheek writes:

“I am grossly offended by the ADF’s pink-pinkied poster boy, who is engaging in the most brazen and offensive cultural appropriation I can imagine.

I appreciate that the brass make some very strange decisions — ordering nuclear submarines, for instance, which will have to be rebuilt from scratch (at stupendous cost) to make them diesel-electric; also those F-35s, which are so expensive the RAAF will be reluctant to fly them lest they be damaged doing what they were purchased to do.

But that poster trumps all the other strange initiatives shaping the national defence.

Why is the ADF telling hearing-impaired Australians that gender equity in the military is ‘unpleasant, harmful and naughty‘?

I am offended, deeply offended, and demand that this campaign be dropped immediately and those responsible sent for sensitivity training.

I’m guessing the modern ADF has more sensitivity trainers than pilots or submariners, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

To illustrate his disquiet, our correspondent attached the illustration below from the Auslan handbook, the signing guide for the deaf.

For a video of more Auslan signs the ADF might wish to avoid, follow this link or the one below. Warning: the clip is NSW, as they say: not safe for work.

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