I was reading a blog and it directed people to go to You Tube to see Fernandes in action -- hadn't thought of that, it's something I've really wanted to know (her ASL skills and general affect). This is short, but ooooh...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csHyOou2PCo
She's signing at the beginning, then the person she's talking to goes on for a bit, hard to see what she's saying as it's filmed from behind, then Fernandes started signing again. Her first sign is a big ol' "IF". The sign itself is out of date -- if you're gonna sign "if", that's not how you sign it. But more than that, "if" as a word has no place in ASL. It's pure Signed English. (In ASL, "if" is implied with ASL grammar -- hard to describe, can if anyone's interested but would take a while.)
That was definitely a cringe as soon as I saw that.
Still fits with my overall impression of the situation, but I can so see where there are problems and how they could snowball.
Dunno what the solution is. Problems on every side. Messy messy messy.
New take on it, trying it on for size but not sure what I think about it yet. DPN was about getting a deaf (small D) president. This is about getting a Deaf (big D) president.
I think there's a valid case to be made there if someone wants to make it, and that "not Deaf enough" is very much the center of it.