Deaf-initions

The gifs here are out of order compared to how it happens in the video, but I’m pretty sure the guy opens with “Santa read give you baby”, as in baby doll I’m guessing. After that it’s touch and go. I looked up what I thought some of the signs are in BSL and they don’t match what I had guessed they were. I did a search to see if anyone reported what was said, and supposedly the girl asked for a scooter.

But what you need to understand is this: deaf people always have to deal with hearing people, all the time, every single day, who just don’t want to have to deal with us and our communication access needs.  We encounter hearing people who act hostile when we ask them to please repeat themselves or write things down.  We encounter hearing people who seem pathologically incapable of grasping the concept that sometimes lip reading just isn’t going to work and yes they really will need to write it down before I have any hope of understanding it.  We encounter hearing people who avoid us like the plague at social events because they don’t want the nuisance of having to repeat themselves all the time or write things down.  This means that 99 percent of the time when we are told, “Never mind”, what it really means is, “Eff you, I don’t want to have to deal with you.”

So when you say, “Never mind,” or “I’ll tell you later” (Will you really remember? Most hearing people don’t.) or, “Forget it”?  We have absolutely no way to tell apart a hearing person who says this because they can’t be bothered with us and a hearing person who has other motivations.  

If you want us to recognize that you’re really, truly not intending to give us the brush off, then the solution is simple.  Don’t give us the brush off.  Just repeat what you said, or just write it down.  Because anything else is giving us the brush off whether that’s what you intended or not.  Even if it would never be seen as a “brush off” by other hearing people.  Saying “never mind” doesn’t have the same meaning to deaf people as it does to hearing people and no amount of trying to explain the perspective of hearing people is going to erase the long and painful history that every deaf and hard of hearing person (and probably also, people with auditory processing disorder) has with that awful phrase, “Never mind.”

Deaf Philadelphians have their own particular version of American Sign Language, with some of its own words or slight differences in the orientation and configurations of the hands when compared to regular ASL.

Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) tweeted: “This is where I MAKE NOISE. Stuff on TV is captioned but when it moves to Internet captions go away. WHY? We deserve NO LESS. #captiontheNet”

Before you get upset over what I just said, bear with me here and listen to what I have to say. 

I feel like the term was coined by a hearing person who, I believe, meant well and felt like they were helping us receive better treatment in life by our peers.. BUT. Somewhere along the line, someone used it against us. And then, that turned out to be damn near every hearing person who is not educated or refuses to be educated on deaf culture, using that term against us constantly. 

While I believe that we all can do amazing things and even the most tedious things that seems to be, oh, so amazing to hearing people, because a deaf person is doing it. I believe in all of us. I think all deafies are great. So, why do I hate that phrase? Because it’s not really accurate. We need accommodations for some things that we do, even if that one something seems so simple to hearing people, we still need it. I’m not saying that we can’t do it without accommodations; it’d just be so much harder than it should be and we always wind up exhausting ourselves. 

What pisses me off the most about this damn phrase, is how it’s used against us. Let’s say you say you can do something simple as in baking cookies, and you use that phrase. They seem amazed that you can do that, but then you pull out a special vibrating timer to help you know when those cookies are done. 

“I thought you said deaf people can do everything hearing people can do? I guess not.” 

Or how about when you’re driving. There’s no point in you having the radio on or talking to your passenger because some of us can’t understand it, or it’s too much of a distraction for us that we need it to be off so we can focus.

“I thought you said deaf people can do everything hearing people can do?”

Or you’re in school and you need an interpreter or a notetaker or CART. 

“You’re cheating!! You said deaf people can do everything hearing people can, but you have all of that. You don’t need it!” 

Deaf people are CONSTANTLY fucking watched and compared, every fucking day.

Twenty. Four. Seven. Three Hundred and sixty five days.

We’re not allowed to make mistakes. Because the exact fucking second we do, we are frowned upon. There is always that one person that says that you can’t do a damn thing because you’re deaf, and because you have trouble doing it, that must mean it’s because you’re deaf, and, yes, ultimately, all deaf people have trouble with it too. Everyone is different. People can’t seem to fucking get that. 

THAT’S why I hate that god damn phrase. It’s used against us too much. I feel like it was coined to give us a confidence boost so that we could go for our dreams or doing that one thing we were always scared to do or speak up to. But if you ask for an accommodation of some form? “You clearly can’t do anything because you’re deaf!”

It makes me angry to know how often deafies are compared to not only hearing people, but to every deafie in the world. Every deafie is different. One may excel at writing a ten page essay in an hour, but struggle to come up with a fanfic. Another may do the opposite. 

All deafies are different. All deafies have different accommodations. All deafies are able to do this, but in their own way, not the way hearing people do. One deafie may hear low pitch better, another may hear high, and another may not hear either at all or is able to tell the difference. I feel like the phrase started off as a good deed, but then turned out to be something used against us and then putting us back in that box that we just came out of.