It is that time of the year again, as we are at the beginning of September in the year 2019 and it is the month of International Deaf Awareness Month! Every year in September is a celebration for the deaf and hard of hearing community but at the same time, we also use that opportunity or a platform to raise awareness to the public so as to educate the public about the community. Educating the public about many things that are valued in the Deaf community, such as its culture and as well each sign language. As for me here in United States, American Sign Language is not the only sign language because every country have their own country such as British Sign Language (BSL), Mexican Sign Language (LSM), Australia Sign Language (Auslan), French Sign Language (LSF), South African Sign Language (SASL), Korean Sign Language (KSL) and others so you get the idea that most of the countries have their own sign languages including the one here in the United States of America which is American Sign Language but the United States is not the only one county that use American Sign Language since Canada also use American Sign Language as one of their primary sign language along with another one which is Quebec Sign Language (LSQ). So, a lot of you who are hearing don’t know a lot about the Deaf community and unfortunately there is a lot of you hearing people who refuse to respect us.
What? There is a Deaf community, who have a culture and has its own language or more so sign languages? There is and if you are not aware of that then this is a good time for you to do some research to see what the Deaf community is all about because like I said that there are a community, culture, and languages – all that beautiful things but they also have some ugly sides.
International Deaf Awareness Month In September!
International Deaf Awareness Month is in September every year, thanks to the World Federation of the Deaf in the year of 1958 and now it is Deaf Awareness Month in every country, we typically say Deaf Awareness Month for short. Originally, it was International Deaf Awareness Week starting the last week of August to the first week of September and now we call it a month instead of a week now starting in September so Deaf Awareness Month.
Sign Languages
I already mentioned that every country has their own sign language, there is also another sign language is called International Sign Language (ISL) which is a sign language that we use to communicate with the people from all of the countries. As I being American so my primary language would be American Sign Language (ASL), meeting someone from say Africa who’s primary language is South African Sign Language (SASL) so I don’t know SASL and that someone does not know ASL so that is where the International Sign Language (ISL) comes in so to communicate with each other coming from a different country or know a different language. No different than a person who knows English meeting someone who only speaks in French and well, you are stuck but not for us Deaf people because we can use International Sign Language to communicate. We are ahead of you all when it comes to communicating with others that are not from here or from there and there is no international spoken or written language. We are that awesome.
Although the only thing that we do not have is the written sign languages, however, there are some attempts and they are work in progress. For example, one of them is called SI5S or ASLWrite.
We can go out swimming in the sea, in the pool, in the river or a lake and be able to communicate under the water perfectly which is something that you who are hearing people that don’t know any sign languages cannot do otherwise you would be drowning. Can you communicate with a person from inside of another building? No, and we can. How about through the windows? No, and we can. So, sign languages have a lot of benefits that the spoken languages do not have and that is the beautiful thing. Even there are studies that have proved where the toddlers can develop languages in a very short time with more words than spoken languages using sign languages.
Even an article by Parents magazine (with over 2 million readers) wrote an article about this, about a child of theirs coming home from preschool learning sign language with more words than spoken languages which you can read it here: Start Signing! Why Kids Should Learn Sign Language.
There are a lot of things that not just me but many others can go on talking about sign languages, including the fact that by learning sign language or sign languages if more than one would mean that you are bilingual meaning knowing two languages. That is what I am, my primary language is American Sign Language because American Sign Language is a recognized language and my second language is English obviously. No, American Sign Language and English are not the same because both are wholly different, as American Sign Language have their own grammar syntax too and whatnot. Not just American Sign Language but also other sign languages as well.
The Culture
Just as any other cultures, the Deaf community takes pride in their culture with art, literary, traditions, history, values and institutions. The main thing for the culture in Deaf community is their sign languages to socialize, also their economic bloc known as Deaf Ecosystem where we would see a lot of Deaf business owners along with some hearing people that invest in that ecosystem especially the Video Relay Service providers and equipment or tools that help the Deaf people to live more independent such as door alarms, fire alarms, and whatnot. We even have our own expo every year where we market the products that we make along with the art, equipment, tools, technology gadgets, sharing information and many more.
As I mention the art, the art in Deaf is actually large as in our culture as a community for the art is called De’VIA which is abbreviated for Deaf View/Image Art which represents the Deaf experience (good or bad) and the culture itself. You can read more about De’VIA here via Wikipedia.
In the culture itself, the Deaf people evolves around institutions such as the Deaf university namely Gallaudet University, back then most of the states have each of their own school for the Deaf but now that are dwindling because of two things which is some government refuse to help especially from Republican party which is unfortunate and also some was or is being taken over by the hearing people in positions for principal or superintendent that does not have any clue in Deaf education especially bilingual-bicultural (bi-bi) program. Most of the states also have an organization that represents the Deaf people in the state, such as here in Ky is the Kentucky Association of the Deaf and we also have national Deaf representative which is the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) since 1880. Also, even we have organizations that represent different groups from the Deaf community such as National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) since 1982 to represent Black Deaf, Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf (RAD) since 1977 to represent Deaf LGBT, Deaf Women United (DWU) since 1985 to represent Deaf women, Jewish Deaf Congress (JDC) since 1956 to represent Deaf Jews and many more but these are the most popular ones in the Deaf community.
The deaf community has their clubs, even own some of buildings for the Deaf clubs such as SVCD aka Shenandoah Valley Club of the Deaf in Staunton, Virginia, some in Texas, even they have some camps such as Aspen Camp of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Snowmass, Colorado and few more of others.
They also have Deaf sports, known as Deaflympics where Deaf athletes from different countries get to compete against each other in different types of sports such as track, shooting, diving, swimming, tennis, handball, basketball and many more. Like the Olympics except that the contestants are all Deaf and Hard of Hearing. You can get more information, also the dates and whatnot about Deaflympics here: Deaflympics.com and on Wikipedia.
As we have a national representative like I said, for the Deaf community which is the National Association of the Deaf we also have an international organization that represents the Deaf community from all countries is called the World Federation of the Deaf.
We have a lot of things that any of the other community’s culture has, including our own magazines, news, blogs, vlogs, and media – JoshiesWorld.com is one of them.
I can go on talking more about the Deaf community’s culture but that probably would take me all night to at least share half if not the most about the culture, if you want to learn more about Deaf culture I highly suggest that you do a research on search engines like Google or Bing about the Deaf culture because there are a lot of things that you can learn from the internet.
Education
Having education is vital for the Deaf community, education is becoming harder for the Deaf people to get especially the ones that accept us and have the tools to properly teach us. If a Deaf child were to be sent to public school, it is almost a guarantee that Deaf children would be immediately put in special education and doing that is not the right way of teaching the Deaf students. Now, there are indeed some Deaf children that may need special education but not every one of them and the problem here is that every time the public school see that they have a new Deaf enrollee that they immediately put them in special education without evaluating that Deaf student to see what kind of education would be proper for the student. That is one of the biggest problem going on in the Deaf community because the public school or mainstream school are the very reason that Deaf children are deprived of their language, which delay them from developing language to communicate because they think that the spoken language is the way to go when they are not even close to being recommended as the very beginning is to help them to learn their native language which is their sign language from that country that they are in and by doing so will skyrocket their education levels. In order to be able to learn from something is to learn through their native language, which is sign language and from there they would be better off. It is no different than trying to teach a child using English when that child only knows French, in order for that child to receive proper education is to learn using the language that the child knows which is French in that case so same concept for the Deaf students.
Deaf education strives on a bilingual-bicultural education program, which is with the use of both sign language and its written language equally. For example, here in the United States, it would be American Sign Language and English equally (not all, as not everyone in the United States uses English or American Sign Language as the United States has no official languages). It’d be best to have a teacher who knows the same language as the students do, I mean that is common sense, right? Duh. So, in that case, a teacher who knows sign language to teach the Deaf child to develop the language for the child and then learn other things through sign language including the written language.
Here’s information about bilingual-bicultural education so you can get a better idea of what it is all about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual%E2%80%93bicultural_education
The deaf and hard of hearing people are known for having 3-4 grade levels in writing and reading is due to not getting proper education, putting them in special education when they should never even be near them and IEP does not really work. This is why I always advocate for the public school to at least have a program in to ensure that the deaf children aren’t deprived of their language or delaying them from learning their native language which is sign language, especially for anyone who does not want to go to the deaf school or does not have the deaf school in their state and also that we need to get our government legislature to pass a bill calls LEAD-K (Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids). http://www.lead-k.org/about/
The public and mainstream schools fail the Deaf children miserably because most of them do not have a program or even know how to teach one.
We Are A Minority
We are a minority ourselves as a Deaf community, being a minority we struggle greatly because of how others behave towards us especially the hearing people along with other organizations, businesses or agencies that have the goal of oppressing us – the perfect example is Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf. There are so many incidents where they would deny the Deaf people of doing business with them, even with Americans with Disabilities Act law here in the United States since 1990 they still deny us. They will find everything within’ their power to come up with excuse to continue denying us to do business with them, that is a perfect reason why there are no closed captions in most of theaters or cinemas (with the exception of Hawaii), even still to this day we are fighting for our access so that we can enjoy what others enjoy and be part of the society but they are trying so hard to not let us be part of that. There are over 360 million Deaf people population overall on this earth, putting us as a 5% population of the earth and that put us as a minority among other minorities.
With that, since we are a minority that means we hardly have any voice when it comes to getting the government and business/corporations. Even with the statistic saying that there are over 360 million of Deaf people on this earth that still does not convince any of them and because of that we actually have to fight as twice or three times hard to at least get something little done to make things better for the Deaf people. The most common trend going on around in the Deaf community is fighting for the education for the Deaf children because like I said we are considered minority which that we barely have any power to put a stop to the government shutting down the Deaf schools or the schools that offer bilingual-bicultural or some sort of program in some schools or colleges such as NTID or others.
Speaking of jobs, the Deaf people actually have to work two or three times harder to get a job over someone else who does not even come close to having the qualifications or the experiences that the Deaf people do. A deaf person could have a Ph.D. with several experiences or skills to the list while the other person who is hearing that have dropped out of high school and have no experience or skill for that specific job – that hearing person gets the job over the overqualified Deaf person. Equality? Please, there is great inequality between the Deaf people and the hearing people. One of many examples is a lot of Deaf customers have been denied of service when ordering some foods at some drive-thru restaurants while the hearing customers order the same or even less gets the order immediately comparing to the Deaf people who basically beg to order for the foods to being threatened to be call cops upon if they refuse to leave the drive-thru. There are so many articles that you can find on search engines where they were denied of their services at the drive-thru restaurants, it is becoming the norms and that is unfair.
Even there is a Deaf Drive-Thru Discrimination group on Facebook filled with several videos and articles showing that the restaurants with drive-thru denying their service and if refusing to leave that they threaten them with calling the cops on them especially when Deaf complain how it was unfair of them to deny them of their service. Here is the link to the group on Facebook that you can lurk around: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2366416370253678/
Plus don’t let me get started on how police behave towards the Deaf community, Deaf people seems to have targets on them for the very happy-triggering police as they have been shooting them lately without asking the question first such as if they are not being able to hear them then that should give them the clue that there is a chance that they may be Deaf but no, they rather shoot first and ask question later. Example? I even wrote an article about one person being shot by the police here: https://joshiesworld.com/police-doesnt-protect-deaf/
That article does not have to be the example, as you can research them for yourself by heading over to the search engines like Google or Bing and search for the news about the Deaf people and the police.
So, this is just the tip of the iceberg of that the fact we are a minority and the struggles that comes with that. This world is full of ignorance, we continue to educate the world about us so that the people out there in this world to understand and to be aware that there are Deaf people among them people on this earth.
Respect And Inclusion
Put Sign Languages In School!
The bottom line is, all we ask is to be respected and to be included when it comes to society and everything else. By that I mean, we would like to have sign languages to be one of the options with other languages offered at public, private or mainstream schools along with the colleges or universities. If you have Spanish, French, Italian and other languages then isn’t a sign language included those options? There is not an excuse for a sign language to not be included because it is considered a language, a sign language of each own country. For instance, here in the United States, it would be American Sign Language (ASL). In the United Kingdom, it would be British Sign Language (BSL), in Mexico, it would be Mexican Sign Language (LSM) and whatnot. I think that there should be a sign language in addition to the other languages that a school, college, and university that want to offer a class for different languages within’ their country including here in the United States.
Denying Us Service Or Business!
Stop denying the service to us at anywhere, often we would already have a written list or a typed out note on a smartphone before we even arrive so that it wouldn’t take up our time and theirs. Often their excuse would be that they are busy, the problem with that is that we already wrote the list of what we want and all they have to do is read the list to order then we go with our business. In fact, I think that we order quicker than the hearing people because when the hearing people pull over at the drive-thru they would be asked what they want and then they would take the time to voice the items of a list in their mind. Ours? A written list or typed out list on the smartphone, all you have to do is look at them and then register the order that we have on the list then we are well on our way out happily after ever – but no, they want to make it harder by telling us that they are busy, asking for us to come inside and all that but if they have already read the list to order we would be probably already a couple of miles away. So, seriously stop with that crap!
Closed Captions In Theaters/Cinemas!
No, you cannot tell me that they do not have the technical means to provide closed captions because by now I am certain that every modernized theaters or cinema have the equipment that has the closed captions or subtitle feature. There were a few of people who complained about them not providing closed captions at their theater, with the manager or supervisor who might empathize with us would take them to the room where they have the equipment such as projectors which is what put the movies on the screen in theaters to see what they can do about that and guess what? To their surprise, there was a closed caption feature built in the equipment but just wasn’t turned on. So, that means one thing and that is some if not most theaters or cinemas (especially renovated/modernized/new ones) do have the closed caption feature but just that they do not want to have it turned on because they fear that it would bother the frequent moviegoers. Well, excuse me! How about we take your audio and the sounds away then how would you feel? The vibration from the subwoofer, bass, and the audio bother us so we’ll complain to the theaters/cinemas to turn them off so that you won’t have any audio or sound whatsoever. My point exactly, you want audio and we want closed captions so how about that comprise, please? Thank you very much!
Deaf, Not Deaf In Movie And TV.
It is starting to be common in Hollywood that the hearing people take the Deaf characters in movies or television shows and that does not fly with me. While I do recognize that the numbers of movies and shows are increasing with the authentic deaf actors but the hearing people still take the Deaf characters. Wonderstruck and Van Helsing are the perfect examples because both Deaf characters are portrayed by hearing people who never have any clue of the Deaf culture or its language. I mean, come on. Stealing the deaf characters when there are still plenty of other hearing characters that they could just take on and like I said earlier that the Deaf people have to work twice or three times harder to get the job so why deny them of that opportunity for the deaf actors to portray the deaf characters authentically? When you see producers or directors are hiring actors for deaf characters, stay out of the way and give the acting opportunity to people who actually know how to act as a deaf character because they live it!
Read this article about Deaf Talent and Van Helsing after you read this article! https://joshiesworld.com/deaf-talent-and-van-helsing/
A Position Given To The Clueless!
No, just don’t. Hiring the principal, superintendent or president for the Deaf school who has no clue about Deaf education and does not know any sign language. There are thousands of schools, colleges and universities so stay out of our deaf schools please. Give the positions to the ones who truly know how to run the deaf education program, especially bilingual-bicultural education because it has been proven successful and that means to get the deaf educators there. Wait, what about CODA (child of deaf adults)? Fine, fine but only the students and the parents approve that person after having a few meetings. It must be a person who knows the deaf education, preferably who is deaf but for the alternative can be CODA and that they know the sign language (via ASLPI – American Sign Language Proficiency Interview).
The bottom line here is that we need the ones who do know Deaf education, Deaf culture and whatnot in a position like these. It is just common sense!
Label Us Right!
There are some media who label us such as hearing impaired which is considered offensive, it is like fingernails scratching on a blackboard every time I see some news labeling us hearing impaired or hearing impairment. The proper way to label us is Deaf and Hard of Hearing. In fact, I have written an article about this and I recommend that you read it when you are done reading this article. Here’s the link: https://joshiesworld.com/news-outlet-improperly-labeling-deaf/
You Deaf?! I am SORRY!
Hush, shut that mouth of yours! We have heard that so many times, where we end up telling the people that we are Deaf or Hard of Hearing and most of the time their response would be “you deaf? I am sorry!”. Like seriously? What’s that? You got a mole on your chin, I am sorry! What? You have an overly large nose, I am so sorry! Wow!? You are so fat, I am so sorry. You get the gist. We have nothing to be sorry for, some of us are happy with it and let’s just leave it be that thank you very much!
Can You Read My Lip?
No, and get a mint or maybe a bag of mints, please. Just because we are Deaf or Hard of Hearing does not automatically means that we can read lips, how about you go and take a lesson in sign language. I have written an article about this about “can you read my lip?” and I recommend you to read it after reading this article! https://joshiesworld.com/dont-tell-deaf-people-to-read-lips/
The Deaf People Are Humans Too!
We are just as human as you are, no less or more. We can do anything that you can do except that we cannot hear or have the difficulty in hearing – so treat us just that. I am saying this is because there are people questioning us Deaf people about us being able to drive, eat, write, type, fish, hunt, play sports and whatever else that the people normally do. Being Deaf or Hard of Hearing does not make our brain to go bonkers or affecting our brain in any way because being Deaf or Hard of Hearing just simply means that there is something wrong with our eardrums inside our ears.
Don’t Be An Audist!
There is racist, sexist, ableist, ageist, homophobia and many more then there is audist. Here is the definition of audism.
Discrimination or prejudice against individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audism
Audism is absolutely the opposite of respecting Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. There are many ways to detect the behavior of audist, thinking that it is a waste of time to find a way to communicate with a Deaf person instead of willing to write or type on a smartphone to communicate with the Deaf person. Another one is when a Deaf person tells you that he or she is deaf, he or she will find a way to communicate with you such as a piece of paper with a pen or using a smartphone to type to exchange words with each other and you ignore that by keeps on talking with your voice or attempt to force that deaf person to read your lip instead. These are just two examples of the audist’s behavior and I have left a link to Audism on Wikipedia for you to read about audism above under the quote but I also suggest that you do some search online about the audism/t as well so to get a better idea.
Sign Languages Are Not Gang Signs And Cops Mistreats Us!
I am getting quite tired of seeing the stories all over on the internet, through social media and whatnot that the people were mistaken for or believe that sign languages are gang signs. There were some story where the police become brutal with a Deaf person when that Deaf person was trying to communicate in sign language and the police quickly assumed that the Deaf person was throwing up some gang signs when it was not even gang signs at all as it was that Deaf person was trying so hard to communicate with the police in sign language. A perfect example of this was when the police officers beat up a Deaf black man driver because he wasn’t responding to the police officers commends and thought he was trying to resist when he simply was trying to communicate with the police officers in sign language. In fact, there is a video of this and I highly recommend you to watch the video below which should shock you or leave you in disbelief!
I could keep going on but I will leave it at that for the time being. Want to read more stories or find some information about stuff like cops mistreating the Deaf community or how people assume the sign languages as gang signs? Google or Bing is your best friend and there is some interesting search out there for you to find! The solution? Training? No, some sort of disciplinary? No. Hire Deaf people to work in the police departments and others so that the officers can socialize with them so that they would know when to recognize the ones out on the road or others. It doesn’t have to be a cop who is Deaf, there are other fields than being an officer. Receptionist, forensic, even a liaison and whatnot others.
Another article on how police treat Deaf people: https://joshiesworld.com/police-doesnt-protect-deaf/
Others
There are more to go on but I will stop here, if you have any more ideas that should be added to this list please feel free to leave a comment below so that other people can read! Also, there are plenty more about Deaf topics and as well about Deaf issues or other Deaf-related can be found by searching through here on JoshiesWorld.com. You can simply go to the search which can be found at the very top right corner or under the menu besides where the social icons are and type the keyword “deaf” then search! If you want to know more about the Deaf community, I highly encourage you to leave a comment below or try to find a Deaf group on Facebook such as Deaf and Hard of Hearing group to ask anything you’d like to know or even read to learn more about us there. There may be a chance that I will be coming back here to add one or more two the list when I think of something, I may not though if there is no need for me to and as the time is being constrained for me so I am stopping here.
To make it easier to search for more Deaf related articles on JoshiesWorld click this: https://joshiesworld.com/?s=deaf
The Bottom Line And The End
There are a lot more that I could go on but I must end here because this article is getting longer and I don’t think that anyone is in the mood for a long reading. The bottom line is, be aware of the Deaf people and say hello to us! We won’t bite, we may with our hands but not with our mouth. I write this article is because I am Deaf, I am proud Deaf and this is my contribution to the International Deaf Awareness Month of September 2019. For any of you who are journalists or bloggers, I encourage you to write an article or blog post for the International Deaf Awareness Month of September 2019! Feel free to pingback to this article, which in return allowing the readers here to read yours and others!
– Drop The Hand –
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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