What is one thing that Americans in the United States sees as some sort of symbol that represents the American people for hundreds of decades? The White House which is the residence for the United States president, even though it is not the permanent residence for the United States president because each president can only run for a term and each term is four years. Every elected president can only run for two terms but after that, the elected president cannot run again for the third term and must move out of the white house for the next new elected president to move in. But still the white house itself represents for the entire nation, as it is the national’s capital located in Washington, D.C., regardless who the presidents of the United States are the white house administration is responsibility for everyone who lives in the United States and the laws of United States; Civil rights, human rights and even disabilities rights. While the white house represents for all Americans, recently they have failed to do so which that means they forgot that there are diversity of Americans such as races, genders, people with disabilities including the people who is Deaf and Hard of Hearing although we don’t agree that being so is disabled because of culture.
Why did I say that they forgot about the diversity of Americans? White house have their own media team where they would release what is going on with the white house administration and the current president of the United States which is Barrack Obama this year and it is his last year as he have run two terms in presidency.
The media team for the white house administrations releases news, sometimes news article and sometimes news video. Every Americans in the United States have the access to information especially from the videos to let all of Americans know what is going on at the white house and update everyone with the progress of what president of United States is doing. For few years now they have posting videos to their own white house website, also to YouTube which is where everybody goes to watch more than anywhere else and recently the White House media team have set up Facebook page for the White House where they could upload videos or share some information with what is going on at the white house or with the current president of the United States. That is good… Only for the people who’s able to hear because half of the videos that the media team of white house uploads to YouTube have the closed captions for the people who is Deaf to know what they were saying in the videos and same with at the white house own website. Now recently they created white house Facebook page where they uploads videos there too for everybody to watch but the problem is, almost every videos uploaded to white house Facebook page have no closed captions and that upsets the Deaf community.
Two days ago one of well-known Deaf person who advocates for Deaf, Braam Jordaan made a video protesting that the white house must add closed captions to their videos on Facebook and everywhere else as well by starting a campaign calls WHccNow with hashtag on social media. Since then everyone joins the WHccNow protest including myself as in the beginning I am one along with Braam Jordaan himself as well noticed that the white house did not take both of us serious enough, because at the first the white house listened then added closed captions to only one or two newest videos and then stopped adding closed captions for more latest videos since two or three weeks ago.
I was the one who sent in a letter to white house administration, their media team and some of their staffs who is responsibility for press release letting them know that it’s unfair of them for not making sure that the vital information that white house releases to be accessible to the Deaf individuals. I discussed with Braam via Twitter direct message (DM) about this matter, he told me that he was invited to the white house for an event and that he would ask about the closed captions when he goes to the white house which he did. Mailing the letter to the white house administrations about closed captions issues isn’t the only thing I did as I have also emailed them and posted on social media to pressure them to add closed captions for the Deaf people so that the Deaf people can finally have the access to vital information coming from the news video on the white house Facebook page.
Funny thing is that the white house celebrated 25th of American with Disabilities Act this year and yet they forgot that there is over four hundred thousands Deaf Americans living in the United States who needs to know what they were saying in their videos released by their media team on their Facebook page. Thanks to Braam Jordaan WHccNow protest campaign are being rehashed everywhere on social media by everybody else who agrees that the white house should add closed captions to all of their videos and if they have already done closed captions for their YouTube videos then it wouldn’t take them more than a minute to upload the closed captions file that they made for their YouTube videos to their Facebook page videos.
If you would like to support the protest to get the white house to add closed captions for their videos every where including their Facebook page you are more than welcome to do so by using the hashtag #WHccNow on social media like Twitter or Facebook. We greatly appreciate for any supports we can get because the more support we gets the more pressure the white house administration gets and hopefully enough for them to give in to make sure that from on now that their media team to start adding closed captions to all of their videos all over on the social media even before releasing the videos because sometimes they would upload the videos then add closed captions at later times which is unfair to the Deaf community.
Click here to read #WHccNow at Twitter.
Thank you for reading and hope all of you have a great day today!
~ Joshie.
Be sure to follow Joshie on Twitter @JoshiesWorld or on other social media!
