Talk:Helen Keller

Hellen Keller jokes

As a european I do not know much about Hellen Keller humor or jokes, but having found some referencies around the internet I came to Wikipedia to look for more info. Unfortunately there is absolutely no mention of that on the Hellen Keller wikipedia page even if there are tons of results on a google search for Hellen Keller jokes.

I think this is deeply wrong. The way I understand Wikipedia and the NPOV policy this kind of informantion should not be hidden even if they are tasteless and probably insulting to most people. <--- Nuts to that! It's called free speech.NPOV is different from beeing politically correct, it means (to me) reporting those facts or opinion that exist even if I dislike them, even if most people dislike them.

Failing to mention popular culture tasteless jokes is not an act of respect, it is bad information. It is probably the worst thing a wikipedian could ever do to Wikipdia.

--Muzzle 13:23, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I added a line about the jokes based on the info I found on the net. I really wish someone more in the knowledge would check that.

--Muzzle 15:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

• You could mention the fact of the jokes, perhaps, but I don't think the actual jokes would be appropriate. I don't really see how it's important anyway. --ShadowPuppet 03:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Per the above: You could probably mention the fact of the jokes, but also keep in mind it should be kept tight, as people will try to come in and just dump crude jokes like the ones I just reverted. --Shadow Puppet 22:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Jeph Loeb included some when writing Daredevil: Yellow. When some bar thugs taunt the blind attourney with Helen Keller jokes he first humiliates them playing pool and then teaches them a lesson when they attempt to school him in a back alley.

• I'm all for mentioning the jokes, but only stating one as an example, or something along those lines. But at the very least, mention them.

zero one zero zero one! Taco325i 00:47, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

(I'm just disappointed that her dog's name was Kamikaze-Go, rather than Hrrruuugggghhhnnggggrrr. The truth is so dull...) --Eric TF Bat 05:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Socialism

Considering Helen Keller herself wrote so much on socialism, a better presentation on Keller's socialist politics would include her own words, and not some obscure quote from her early life. As a recent biographer noted, "[Helen] was very violent in a lot of her political opinions, and she supported really violent measures."

Removed:

She favored revolutionary socialism, as opposed to the reformist socialism later adopted by the socialist party.

From http://www.btinternet.com/~neuronaut/webtwo_features_keller.htm

The Russian writer, Maxim Gorky, met Helen in 1906 and afterwards wrote: "[She] made an unpleasant, even grim, impression on me. She appeared to be an affected, very temperamental and extremely spoilt girl. She talked about God and how God disapproved of revolution. In general, she reminded me of those blessed and holy nuns and 'pilgrim women' whom I have seen in our villages and convents." Another telling incident was an embarrassing episode when Helen wrote a fairy tale which so enthused her friends that they had it published in a newspaper. The story (about King Frost painting the autumn leaves in bright colours to console people for the coming of winter) seemed especially touching coming from a woman who could not see. But it turned out that Helen had unwittingly retold an old fairy tale she had heard as a child. A sympathetic public was eager to see in Helen a noble mind triumphing against the odds. But the reality was that Helen was so cut off from the world that she found it hard to tell the difference between her memories and her imagination. She had learnt to juggle words, but it is questionable how much understanding lay behind the fine sentiments that so pleased her audiences.

Who cares?! Socialism is a sick mental disease!! Why does wikipedia put political things in here about most people anyway? Keller was NUTS. She worshipped Lenin. Didn't TR warn the US about 'Mad Women" (68.227.211.175 23:14, 14 February 2006 (UTC))

Also take into consideration that it was just a popular idea of the times. Don't emphasize it to the point of POV and nausea. --Shadow Puppet 22:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Reverted this page to previous version due to minor vandalism by 165.138.192.9

re: Wikipedia edit

I think due to the popularity and prevalence of Hellen Keller jokes, they have even found there way on to NPR multiple times, it would be worthwile to mention that they exists.

I don't think jokes bring much to the article. It definitely seems non-encyclopedic. And of bad taste. Mentioning that South Park made fun of them, for example (not that I know if they did or not) might fit in the article, especially if it raised a controversy. Flammifer 05:51, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I can see both sides ... one option would be to have the jokes discussion be in some other article entirely, and have "Helen Keller jokes" point to that article, while "Helen Keller" points to this one. Thoughts?Lawikitejana 07:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

email message to user avsa

I think the Vetter link from the Helen Keller page is a reasonable contribution.

However, the current wording gives a wrong impression. Helen "lived in her own world" only until the "breakthrough" of communication. The text of the link suggests that this was her normal state.

She toured the country, gave speeches, was aware of events throughout the world, participated in politics and the campaign for human rights. She helped to found the ACLU.

Could the reference to Vetter reflect that being isolated was a very temporary state for her, or at least not give a wrong impression?

thanks,

richard myers

Ok, agree, what would be your suggestion? Hellen keller admitted living in a world quite different from everybody else. See this note she wrote: : www.millicentlibrary.org/ hhr-100.htm . Of course she could be referring to our world also, but my point is that the she and david vetter both lived in our world but experienced it in a unique, form.

Note. Myers, wikipedia etiquette asks you to discuss a page not privately in email, but in wikipedia's talk page. So this way anyone may join the conversation. But feel free to email me if you want to reach me for any reason. --Alexandre Van de Sande 19:05, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Responding...

Here are comments on "The World I Live In", Keller's sequel to her autobiography, from Amazon.com:

(The book) "remains almost completely unknown. Here, responding to skeptics who doubted that a girl who was blind, deaf, and mute almost from birth could find words to describe her experience, Keller presents a striking word-picture of her reality. 'The World I Live In' is an evocative, inspirational, and deeply moving account of an extraordinary woman's keenest impressions."

"she grew to fully embrace her intelligence, her world and her potential . . . wow."

My suggestion for a simple change is simply adding the initial phrase:

"Like Helen in her early life, David Vetter..."

Thanks, Alexandre!

best wishes, richard myers

Amount of vandalism

Why is there so much vandalism on this page? It seems that once a week we have to revert random edits. Do all pages suffer from this, and I'm only seeing it here because I'm watching it? --Lkesteloot 06:30, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thankfully, not all pages get vandalized like this. Some pages seem like dispute or vandal magnets (Surrealism, for example, is a highly contentious page). I would assume that in this case it's because she was a disabled socialist now most often depicted as a moral but apolitical hero (or at least this was so in my childhood). So given the ability issue, the political issue, and the disorientation caused by readers possible expectations combine to incite a lot of vandalism. Hyacinth 07:57, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the vandalism is truly pathetic. For those looking for the good in humanity, here's an inspirational story (one of those e-mail forwards, but it looks like it's actually true): Perfection at the Plate. --J. J. 19:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The sentence: "She dated the movie star, Kristen Brosious, and fulfilled her lesbian fantasies." taken down on 10 Jan 2006 due to inability to find a source.

Merged History

History of some of the text that was merged into the article now resides at Talk:Helen Keller/Merged. – ABCD 20:38, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Honors

What does "native daughter" mean in the honors section? Can it be re-worded to something a little more universally understood?

It's a flowery way of saying that she was born in Alabama. I changed that sentence so it could be more easily understood. Bellhalla 06:59, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Movie

she had a wonderful movie made about her

hi, I was wondering if any body had seen the movie? Could you describe the scene where she signs out the first word? thanks.

Recent vandalism

This article has been undergoing quite a bit of vandalism recently. I believe the movie is The Miracle Worker.--Dakota ~ ° 01:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

Helen is written once as Hellen in the document. I would update it but am now allowed.

• Thanks. I've fixed it. I'm just tired of constant vandalism, but I regret that it prevented your well intentioned correction. Wikibofh_(talk) 03:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

That is quite alright. I understand you must maintain a balance between freedom to alter and freedom to deface. Thank you for updating it so quickly.

thinking intelligibly?

Right now, the article says, "Anne was able to teach Helen to think intelligibly." I know very little about Keller, but is this really true? It seems extreme to say that Keller's thinking was unintelligible before Sullivan's teaching, but if that's how Keller later characterized it, I guess it makes sense to say it that way. --Allen 00:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Helen Keller in the arts and popular culture

I find this section troubling. It only seems to trivialize the article and Helen Keller. I'd like to see it removed or trimmed down to how she has been represented in movies about her. I really don't see what Family Guy has to do with Helen Keller or how including trivia about Family Guy enhances anyone's understanding of her. Anyone agree? Brian G. Crawford 22:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and remove the off-topic references. Revert me if you have to. Brian G. Crawford 23:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree; thanks for removing them. The only caveat I have is about Helen Keller jokes. These days, sadly, if people are talking about Keller, there's a significant chance they're telling Helen Keller jokes. The sentence on jokes that you removed was unhelpful, and you were right to remove it, but I think in principle that a more thoughtful, encyclopedic mention of these jokes might be appropriate if someone wanted to write it. --Allen 02:15, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I see it this way. Most people have heard of Helen Keller jokes, and won't be helped or enlightened in any way by reading that they exist. Those that haven't heard a Helen Keller joke don't need to be encouraged to start telling them. Those who have just heard one and are checking here will quickly discover that she was deaf and blind. Then they can decide whether to laugh. I think it's one of those situations where WP:BEANS applies. Mentioning the jokes may encourage people to add them to the article. Brian G. Crawford 03:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the sentence: "Keller has been featured in both TV-cartoons South Park and Family Guy." It seems to me that it's a) not particularly relevant, and b) not particularly true. In both instances, it is not really Keller herself being directly referenced, but the play The Miracle Worker (as performed onstage by actors). I checked, and, yes, this is pointed out in the article about the play, where it is relevant. A bit picky, I know, but still... --Tellybelly 02:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The Story of My Life

The book, The Story of My Life, being a notable autobiography, I think deserves a separate article. I'll probably look into it, feel free to contribute. Brz7 02:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Progressive vs. Socialist.

I changed the sentence to read that she supported socialist causes, not progressive. The term "progressive" is a political buzzword that means nothing and, indeed, can be applied to almost anything. Being that a.) She was a member of the Socialist Party and b.) a support of IWW, a Socialist Union, the term socialist is more accurate.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.178.133.197 (talk • contribs) 15:25, May 21, 2006 (UTC)

• Do you have a citation? There are a lot of causes that can be considered progressive that weren't socialist. Suffrage comes to mind off the top of my head. Wikibofh_(talk) 15:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I re-directed the link...

I redirected the link to Ragnhild Kaata to point to Ragnhild Kåta (which I just wrote -- it's my first article, so any pointers are welcome). The Norwegian letter å is usually transliterated aa on 7-bit systems, but since we're in a brave new unicode world the change seemed appropriate. There's precedence in the Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson article. --TheBjorn 22:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

GA Failed

This is a well-written article, but it needs to have references and citations (which need to be from reliable sources). This article only has a couple of references - and that's just for one section. Also you need to extend your lead section - need to summarize some of her achievements there. Once you've done that feel free to re-nominate the article for WP:GA.--Konstable 09:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Article is influenced by the myth of Helen Keller

While this article a lot of good information about Helen Keller, it misses most of the serious historical truth in favor of the mythical Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan that was portrayed in movies such as "Miracle Worker". I have seen the truth in serious biographies of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, although the titles escape me at the moment -- I will come back if I find them.

Keller's left-wing politics is one departure from the mythical narrative that this page does explain pretty well. But the page should do more. It is true that Sullivan's first task was to tame Helen. It is not true that she had a "big breakthrough in communication". She learned to communicate gradually, just like other children. It is generally true that with communcation comes ideas and thought. One commenter here asks whether Sullivan deserves credit for teaching Helen Keller how to think. Unfortunately, she deserves all too much credit for that.

The hardest part of teaching in general, and teaching impaired children in particular, is separating the teacher from the student. Anne Sullivan didn't do this. On the contrary, she was Helen Keller's main communication link to the outside world for decades, with several important consequences.

First, it was the accidental reason that Keller and Sullivan ever became famous. (It wasn't just because Helen Keller learned to communicate, since after all the Perkins School taught Bridgman and others.) Through Sullivan, Keller appeared to write kind, mature, encouraging letters to other disabled children. These letters were published and made Keller famous. However, they were also coached by Sullivan, and led to false expectations of how much Keller had progressed. Sullivan did not deliberately plan these false expectations -- any written letter from a 10-year-old Helen Keller would have to be coached to some degree -- but she also did not manage them properly.

For example, Keller got in trouble at Perkins for plagiarizing a children's story. She didn't do this intentionally. Rather, it happened because she did not separate her identity from Anne Sullivan; Sullivan had almost certainly read her the story. Unfortunately, Keller and Sullivan did not accept the real explanation, even though the evidence of plagiarism was overwhelming.

Keller had one serious romance in adulthood that was, according to the biography, destroyed by Anne Sullivan. By then, Sullivan couldn't bear to part with Keller; she was also in a position to break off communication.

Keller later wrote an autobiography that many readers find disturbing, again because she didn't separate her own persona from what Sullivan told her.

My recollection is also that Keller never really learned to speak with her voice, although she badly wanted to and worked hard it. The Tadoma method doesn't usually work, as the page for it explains. I remember the comment that Keller would reach down into Sullivan's throat and that it was quite painful for Sullivan.

Greg Kuperberg 23:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for taking a look at the article and taking the time to comment. My only concern is to make sure that these assertions are backed up by good citations and avoiding original research. Thanks again for taking the time to comment, and I hope you can continue and work to improve the article.

The book that I read was "Helen Keller: A Life", by Dorothy Herrmann. Nothing that I have in mind is original research; however, my recollection is not quite perfect either. Anne Sullivan did describe the incident with spelling w-a-t-e-r as a breakthrough. Where the article goes wrong is in implying that it was the breakthrough. It meant that Helen understood the concept of a word, but it took a long time after that for her to learn how to make phrases and sentences. There was a long period of baby talk.

Also, it was not just Annie, but also Helen Keller's mother who did not want Helen Keller to marry Peter Fagan.

Anyway, Herrmann's book is an excellent source that would do a great deal to improve this article. (I don't have time to do all of the work myself, but people who are invested in this article should read this source.) For example, here is a quote that explicitly contradicts the Wikipedia page: "Helen Keller's lifelong dream was to learn to speak clearly, a goal she never accomplished despite years of laborious practice." Greg Kuperberg 01:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Some facts to be integrated

These sources[1][2] claim:

• at the age of 36, she took out a marriage license with journalist and her one-time secretary Peter Fagan, but that her parents forcibly removed her from the relationship.
• at her family's urging, she had her eyes surgically removed at age 30, replaced with more cosmetically appealing false eyes.
• she worked for some time on the vaudeville circuit. "In 1919 she began a four-year stretch appearing with Sullivan in vaudeville shows. On her tour, she met such celebrities as Charlie Chaplin, Enrico Caruso, and Harpo Marx."
• she convinced Israel to stop segregating the blind and disband a village set aside for their use.

-- Ds13 16:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The last point interests me. The book "The Radical Lives of Helen Keller" (by Kim E. Nielsen, ISBN 0814758134) reports that Keller (like her friend Alexander Graham Bell) viewed deafness and blindness as terrible conditions that should be eradicated, and both supported eugenics as a means of eradicating them. Keller identified racism, sexism and capitalism as forces of oppression, but saw disability as having purely physiological, and not social causes, and refused to support disability rights. Apparently Keller had been steered away from advocacy for Deaf people by Bell and Michael Anagnos, and had a personal dislike of Deaf culture and sign language. Her support for oralism naturally produced enmity from the Deaf community. Her choice to distance herself from others with disabilities fits with her opposition to segregation of blind people in Israel, and her support for their assimilation into the mainstream. Perhaps some mention of this also belongs in the article? ntennis 06:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Tadoma Method?

It is my understanding that the Tadoma method was created later than when Helen Keller learned to speak. One of the biographies of Helen Keller states this . Is this true?

Gap

The article goes straight from "She learned that water=water at age 7" to "She was writing short stories at 10" .. that's a huge cognitive leap! What happened in between?