The other day a well-known Deaf woman worldwide names Ella Mae Lentz made a vlog about why do some of the people, as she says especially the leaders of the Deaf community often would use the labels such as Deaf and Hard of Hearing altogether instead of just only using Deaf as a label instead of “Deaf and Hard of Hearing”. Before I get into it, Ella Mae Lentz is known to be one of most vocal activist and she has a solid reputation for advocating the best education for all the Deaf children here in the United States of America. Nobody and nothing will ever take that away from her, she has done a lot of things for the Deaf community in that area and, she is known to be one of vocal when it comes to American Sign Language too along with Bilingual-Bicultural education for the Deaf children. There is several more that can to be added to the list for what she has done, what she does for the Deaf community especially for the Deaf children and so forth – nonetheless, she is a role model to a lot of the Deaf people. As I said earlier, she decided to make a vlog in American Sign Language as she always has done so for several years, about why some people decided to use the labels “Deaf and Hard of Hearing” and that they should only just use “Deaf” instead. That vlog reached all over on social media, especially on both Facebook and YouTube but mostly on Facebook since it had several shares. Her vlog titled is what is “Hard of Hearing”? Her vlog has angered some of the people, also some of the people agreed with what she said in the vlog and her vlog became a controversial overnight.
I was the first one who decided to share her vlog in a group calls Deaf and Hard of Hearing on Facebook because I notice that all they talk about is how to get new molds for their hearing aids, asking for some feedback on cochlear implants and whatnot so I was getting somewhat tired of seeing these all over in that group so when I saw her vlog it made me curious for their reaction while at the same time I shared a bit of my thought about her vlog.
When I shared that vlog, I was being hopeful that they would share their thoughts and discuss about it instead of making a big deal out of it after all I was curious to what they would say about it. Most of them said that they don’t mind being called Hearing Impaired and they didn’t bring themselves to say, “Hard of Hearing” so instead they say, “Hearing Impaired”. In my opinion, I think that hearing impaired is offensive but again that is my opinion and I let it be known in the comment section there. After I said that I look at the term “hearing impaired” to be offensive, I started getting some agreement that they also consider hearing impaired or hearing impairment to be offensive and I ask that person about why he or she (I cannot recall) don’t look at hearing impairment or hearing impaired to be offensive but I never got a response. Sadly, I would love to hear their thoughts on why they don’t look at hearing impairment or hearing impaired to be offensive and that I also asked would they accept the term “Deaf” as for all over other terms such as hearing impaired/impairment, hard of hearing, hearing-loss, Deaf-Muted, Deaf and Dumb etc. Didn’t get the answer that I was looking for unfortunately, I think that it’s a bit sensitive for them and I understand that because I feel very weary that I am writing this article about her vlog.
Here is her vlog for you to watch, please know this that it is in American Sign Language and it has no subtitle.
In case if you don’t know American Sign Language, the summary of her vlog is that she asks the Deaf community about why they decide to add the “Hard of Hearing” in articles, vlogs, wall posts, comments, and whatnot instead of just simply calls us none other than “Deaf”.
My Thought on Hard of Hearing and My Journey
I would like to leave a disclaimer that this is my opinion only, not everybody has the same opinion as mine and I encourage them to share their opinion on this subject too. If you blog about your opinion on this subject, please feel free to add this article as a trackback on your blog so that everybody else can read different views on this matter too.
On my medical record in general, I am labeled as Hard of Hearing because I can only hear very a little in my right ear and by very a little I mean very a little – Only good enough to barely hear something that is way too loud for the hearing people. To get a good idea of how little sound I can hear, put the air horn about a couple of inches within’ your ear and push it which can be very deafening for the hearing people but for me is like hearing a rain drop from distance. However, when I am to be introduced to anyone for the first time I would always say that I am Deaf even if my closest friends or family members tells them that I am Hard of Hearing and I would find myself correcting them by telling them to tell them that I am Deaf instead of Hard of Hearing. When I see any papers, like medical records or whatnot I would grab a pen and erase it out then write “Deaf”. It’s because it’s my pride, I don’t know but I rarely let a piece of paper or anybody gets away with calling myself a Hard of Hearing or Hearing Impaired and I have been stuck with that since a several years ago. When I was in elementary, middle, and high school I would let it be known that I am “Hard of Hearing” because at that time I have never had the opportunity to meet anyone else who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing all my life. Since my birth, I have only known 3 Deaf (fully Deaf) people and one of them were my ex-girlfriend. She came from Springfield in Ohio, in that area has somewhat large size of Deaf people around and when I met her she never educated me anything about Deaf community. I didn’t even know a such as “Deaf Community” and I even didn’t know that there were millions of them here in the United States. My ex-girlfriend has cochlear implants, she uses sim-comm and at that time I only knew SEE as SEE was all I used since I was one year old or two when my mother decided to take me to the class to learn and she refused to get me cochlear implants so I am very thankful for that especially that she is hearing. She strongly believed that I should learn sign language to communicate, unfortunately she only could find some class that taught SEE (Signing Exact English) and at that time it was only choice for a communication method in sign language. I even didn’t know American Sign Language exists, until I was in high school when I had an Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting and for the first time they decided to bring an interpreter. She would start translating the meeting, out of blue something that caught her attention and she goes “you sign SEE?”. My mother nodded, so from there the interpreter changed her style and I noticed the difference. Earlier she was using American Sign Language, until she noticed I sign SEE and then she switched to SEE from ASL so from there I noticed the difference but I wasn’t sure what it was until that moment when she said, “you sign SEE?”.
Fast-forward to the real life, out of high school and I came across some videos on YouTube that happened to use American Sign Language (ASL). I was so fascinated by them, so from there I started adjusting myself from SEE to ASL after years of watching some videos on YouTube, having a video conference with a few of Deaf people through Skype and I was invited to a Deaf bowling event so I attended which was my first Deaf event more than two decades ago. When I went in the building, there were several Deaf people using American Sign Language so openly and I felt like “they are my people!”. So, from there, I transitioned from SEE to ASL overtime and I still have long way to go as I learned that many of Deaf comes up with new signs to replace the old signs or new signs for new words. So, from there I ditched “Hard of Hearing”, “Hearing Impaired/Impairment” and calls myself “Deaf”. Several years ago, I saw one well-known vlogger named Ridor which he was one among of few along with Ella Mae Lentz that inspired me to ditch the so-called SEE to a real language; American Sign Language. One of the first videos I stumbled upon, in Ridor’s vlog he repeats “it’s ok to be Deaf, it’s great to be Deaf!” and from that on there I embraced it. Even though I may have an understanding in Deaf culture, American Sign Language, that there is over 360 million Deaf people all over the world and so forth I still have a very long way to go but I feel at peace with myself in term of being Deaf.
Over the years, I learned that a lot of people who dislike being called Hearing Impaired/Impairment which at first I didn’t understand over the years ago but after getting information and being in the Deaf community for about two decades since I become peace with calling myself Deaf I realized that hearing impaired/impairment is perceived as negative. I feel very uneasy when I heard that word, because I realized that impairment or impaired means something that isn’t functioning properly or something that is broken and I don’t look at that way because I look at it as a culture – Deaf culture. Same goes for Hearing Loss, Deaf and Dumb etc. Deaf simply define that we are unable to hear, while at the same time it has no negative word such as impaired, impairment, loss, dumb, mute and what not. Now as much as I’d like to avoid calling myself Hard of Hearing, the definition of Hard of Hearing is that the people have difficulty in their ability to hear or unable to hear well so is there anything negative in “Hard of Hearing”? I am not exactly sure, I don’t really look at it to be a problematic and Ella said that there is audism in that. Do I think that it has audism in it? Not exactly. However, I would agree that the term “Deaf” should be the word to call ourselves and make it the main category if you will. There are different words has sub-categories, for instance movies and television is sub-categories under the main category of media. But the problem is that, there are too many people who calls themselves Hard of Hearing instead of using Deaf for everything and if we just started saying “Deaf” instead of “Deaf and Hard of Hearing” that would make us audism in some way or oppress these people who rather to be called Hard of Hearing. We shouldn’t be doing that, it is part of their journey and at the end it is up to them to call whichever it is that they want to call themselves. Deaf or Hard of Hearing, so that is why I think we often use “Deaf and Hard of Hearing” instead of just “Deaf”. We and they are the same people so it wouldn’t be fair to oppress them. That goes the same for them too, it would be unfair if they oppress us by only calling us Hard of Hearing instead of calling us Deaf and Hard of Hearing in general. I mean, often we all see “Deaf” being the first before “Hard of Hearing” and some of them are complaining? These people, like myself can only call themselves Deaf when they feel comfortable with calling themselves Deaf and ditch Hard of Hearing. If I did then I am sure there will be others who do the same.
So, I don’t see the problem in using Deaf and Hard of Hearing but hearing impaired/impairment, hearing loss, Deaf-muted, Deaf and Dumb is another story. This is my opinion, if you have a blog or YouTube channel please let me know by mention me using @JoshiesWorld on Twitter and or @TheJoshiesWorld on Facebook to tag me. I would love to hear them!
Sorry that I have went on a bit too long, I wasn’t planning on to share my journey and instead just telling my opinion but I felt that if I was to share some of my journey that it would give some of you at least a bit understanding of why and how I look at “Deaf and Hard of Hearing” or other words. Thank you very much for all your time reading this article, I hope that all of you have a good night or a good morning since it is at 5:28AM and it was supposed to be 4:28AM but here in Kentucky we have Day Saving Time (DST). So, yuck!
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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