Media and the Deaf

Quote from: Questioner Three on August 4, 2006 

What’s your take on references to deafness in popular culture?  (For instance, when Gil Grissom was going deaf on CSI.)  Do you see it as being informative for the hearing public, or as pandering to the deaf community, or even exploitive?  What would you say are the best and worst portrayals of deafness in pop culture?

Whoa, excellent question!  First of all, let’s define “pandering” here.  It basically means “to make happy”.   I don’t see that happening.  Secondly, are the “references” in media regarding deafness/hard of hearing accurate and thus informative?  I have yet to see anything that was accurate or informative.  So that’s another nay.  Then thirdly, you ask about “exploitive”.  That’s a mighty word to use.  However, considering the popular culture is what currently shapes people’s perspective on many things, if not most things, I would say yes.  Why yes?  Well, look at how your perspective on lipreading was before reading this topic.  Then think about where did you get that perspective from?  Many people have thought that most (if not all) deaf people should be able to lipread them perfectly and easily.  That they should be able to voice fairly clearly (as in being understandable).  They’re shocked when this turns out to not be true.  That perspective is usually pushed by the media. Cultural expectations and views of the deaf are very out of track of what they should be, thanks to many things, but I believe most thanks can be attributed to popular media. 

So thus, there are no best or worst portrayals of the deaf.  They all suck, period. One thing I want to stop in tracks here before anybody wants to think about it.  A popular deaf actress, Marlee Matlin – what about her?  This is a question that may be thought by people.  Well, my response, along with my friend’s:  She’s the representative of the deaf people, just like G.W.Bush is the representative (I really should say, embodiment, as he is the representative, heh) of the American people.  Makes sense, eh?

Blessed Be!!

More deafieisms!! (not as long! lucky you!)

Or should I say unlucky you? 

Fairy helped me some with the answering.  Some of the answers are her own wording, but I haven’t pointed out exactly where or what, because all the below is from a post in a forum that I go to.  And no, I won’t be saying what forum.    I removed the questioners’ names for privacy’s sake. 

These two questioners had questions that had answers that I and Fairy felt were worthwhile putting up on the blog for all to see. 

So here goes.  Enjoy reading and learning…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quote from: Questioner One on August 02, 2006

I’m a minorly linguistically-obsessed type of person, and this conversation also brings out a few questions of my own. “Typical” communication between people is done via a variety of senses, so when you take one (especially one as present as hearing) out of the equation, the changes and alternate methods a deaf person uses in order to attain the same “functionality” as a non-deaf person is most interesting.

From a neurolinguistical perspective, I wonder how one who was born deaf views the letters of the English alphabet in their mind.

And finally, a last question, but something I’m equally curious about. For someone who lost their hearing, the answer is predictable, but for someone who never had it – if there was a way (via cybernetics, for instance, or even through some other sort of surgery) for you to have hearing, and there was no negative risk associated with it, would you take it? That might be a stupid question, but I have seen other people in situations (born in a manner that is not “typical”) who live just fine as they are and have no desire to “correct,” or in their perhaps more accurate perspective, alter their situation.

Sorry if that was way too long, I get very wordy/rambley with linguistics *giggles*

That’s like asking uh, a Chinese or Russian person how they think.  It’s just misleading, a red herring, really.  You should really be asking, “How does everybody learn?”  That’s a whole lot more accurate.  There are three basic learning styles.  Visual, audio, and tactile.  Everybody has a main style, with some sprinkles of the others.  I’m mainly tactile with some visual.  I suck at audio (and not because I’m deaf).  Audio does not mean hearing, in this case.  It means listening to somebody tell you all about something, taking in information orally, verbally, so forth.  Many different methods that are done in the audio style.  There’s a lot of deafies who excel at learning via the audio style and suck majorly at the tactile style.  The same is true for hearies, sucking majorly at audio style but excelling at learning via the tactile style.  So never be it said that being deaf or blind or hearing or whatever makes a difference in how one learns.  What matters is the person’s brain’s dominance in things, their preference in how to do things, so forth.  This also is a factor in why some people just cannot learn to lipread, no matter what.

As for the surgery question, most people who have been deaf since birth or toddler age – they are unlikely to want to have surgery to regain hearing unless they do not accept their deafness for whatever reason.  The late-deafened people are much more likely to have surgery, the parents of newly discovered deaf babies are more likely to have them receive the surgery when they are old enough. 

Even if such surgeries had “no negative risks” – the deaf adults would still unlikely want the surgery.  That’s equal to asking a black person if he wanted to have an operation “with no negative risks” to become a white person. 

And not just that. You know no one. No one. You have to rebuild EVERY relationship in life. You start from zero. Every single person will treat you differently, in both positive and negative ways. Your entire way of life is gone. Every interaction in public is changed.  It’s like moving to Russia tomorrow and everyone in your life now speaks Russian but your mind is still in English.  And they’re all wondering why Russian is so hard, what’s the big freaking deal?

The desire to conform is in the minds of hearing people.

They don’t understand why we, deaf people, culturally deaf people, don’t feel like we must conform, don’t have this inner drive to conform. To be like hearing people.

It’s because, of course, we know we are not.  And will not be.  They assume this knowledge is negative.  That it’s a sad fact.  That is a misunderstanding based on ethnocentricism.  People born canadian are never going to be born american. They manage to get on with their lives pretty well all the same. It’s like that, more like that than anything else.

Quote from: Questioner Two on August 02, 2006

I dated a deaf girl (very) briefly. She was nice, but she lived in a house resembling a beehive with a bunch of other deaf people who got on her case for seeing someone who wasn’t deaf.

Is this normal?

Oh, definitely.  Think of it as the pureblood Wizards who want their children to marry only other pureblood Wizards.  Be friends with only other purebloods.  That’s the mindset of a lot of deaf people which is very unfortunate and I, personally, dislike this mindset.  I consider it hypocritical. 

I am married to a non-deaf person, after all.  A lot of deaf people would pretty much refuse to be friends with me,  others wouldn’t give a shit.  So it all depends on who you associate with!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope that was enlightening!!

Blessed Be!!

Deaf Questions (warning, long long post)

Here’s MY answers to questions from Fairy’s bellamoden blog.

Q: Is ‘deafie’ one of those terms that’s fine for someone who’s deaf to use, but a no-no for someone who isn’t?

Simona: I don’t mind, but only if the hearie knows already the deafie and are friends with each other. Otherwise, I much prefer that the hearie used “Deaf”. Then again, if it came down to the usage of “hearing-impaired” or “deafie”… then by all means, use “deafies” instead of “hearing-impaired”.

First of all, us deafies hate to have the term “hearing impaired” applied to us.  I know you hearies think that’s politically correct or whatever, but truly, it’s not, it’s insulting.  Grin.  It’s akin to calling a woman “penis challenged” or a man “vagina impaired”.  Call us for what we are.  Deaf.

Q: Do you have a special place to get movies with subtitles, or do you go to your local video store?

Simona: Not much here for me to say, you two’ve said it all for me, basically. There’s a new company coming out that does a Netflix-type program for deaf people. All their videos and DVDs are open captioned. They have many old movies captioned now, many educational programs, so forth, things that used not to be captioned. I’ve gotten myself signed up for that, so I look forward to that. And the best part of that: It’s free. Their website is at http://www.cfv.org/ - so have a gander if you wish! My classic films that I want to see that aren’t closed captioned: half of Shirley Temple films, the other half of them are captioned. I find that weird.

Q: What would be the best type of sign language for me and my kids to learn?  I have heard of Signing Exact English and ASL.

Simona: I concur! ASL rulz! I grew up signing SEE, have been signing ASL in English order for years now. I still can’t sign in ASL syntax and may never do so but that’s all right, as long as I can understand others who do so.

Q: Is Sign Language international or does each country/language have a different one?

Simona: Hehehe, thanks for reminding me of my time in New Zealand. I picked up New Zealand Sign Language very rapidly and was soon signing it there as if I was a native. I also was soon talking like a New Zealander, lol. For some reason, communicating was much easier with hearies there than here in the United States. Maybe because I found the sounds much easier to pronounce there than here (the ones that are said kinda hard here, but softly there… such as the R at the end of words such as “water”).

Matter of fact, I have ended up occasionally having to fall back in the New Zealand method of speaking to get myself understood with words such as water, sauce, so forth.

Q: Do you use a ‘terp’ at work or are you a good lip-reader and use voice?

Simona: Frarochvia said it. Also, speechreading is very tiring. Think of it akin you trying to constantly shout and listen to your friend in an extremely noisy room, with the conversation being extremely vital to your life. Your entire energy is focused on your friend, but you’re working so hard to understand everything she’s saying, too…

That’s in essence what speechreading is for us. Maybe now you’re wondering where the noise is for the deaf? Well, that would be the light, the people moving around, the vibrations, any movements, every tiny little detail. We’re not merely watching the person’s lips, we’re ALSO watching his face, his body language, AND out the corner of our eyes, we’re paying attention to what’s going on around us. On our skin, our feet, our tushes on our chairs, so forth, we’re attuned to any vibrations and if we feel any, we’re going to be analyzing what it is until we’re satisfied to what and where it is and came from.

Q: What do you think is the reason for the whole ‘your English is really good’ thing.  Is it something you worked at or a different education or something else entirely?

Frarochvia: If I knew, I would be a zillionaire.

Simona: Heh, Frarochvia, me too! My opinion lies in encouragement by family and full access to books (as in encouraging to read and discussing them) and watching television with closed captioning on all the time.

Q: Do people who are born deaf dream with sound?

Simona: My sound irritations: music but then again, I’m unusual for anybody, really. I just hate music, they’re out of sync with my body’s rhythms. And if it’s in cars, then I’m going to go insane.

As for dreaming in sound: I have never done so to my recollection, but I also do not recall dreaming in sign language either. I just know people and I chat. Do we chat telepathically? Maybe. Be interesting if that was so. Laff.

Q: What is your biggest frustration when dealing with people?

Simona: Yes, it’s annoying for people to have to repeat and repeat.  But don’t you think it’s equally as annoying for us people to have to ask and ask over and over. 

All my life, I had to deal with “Never mind” all the time because it just wasn’t easy enough for them to repeat.  For me, that is the most annoying thing ever.  It implies to me that I’m too unimportant to deal with.  That they don’t care about me enough to take the time to tell me what it was, either by taking paper and pen to write it down, if lipreading didn’t work.

Q: How do the deafies learn?

Frarochvia:  I think the way we learn is the same, except with a lot more pain thanks to how non-deaf the education is.

Simona: Yeah. Especially when teachers assume we’re not as capable as their hearing students are. And we have to prove over and over constantly how equal we are to their hearing students and it’s still not good enough for them to accept us all because there’s only four senses so therefore not good enough.

Yeah, a tad of bitterness here and there from my schooling past.

Q: Can deafies really understand everything they lipread and can they lipread everybody?

Simona: The best of the best lipreaders’ accuracy at lipreading (more accurate to say speechreading, really, which I’ll come to in a moment) is about 30%.

It’s more accurate to say speechreading, but everybody calls it lipreading because, hey, you’re staring at the lips and reading the lips!  Grin.  But in reality…

The person has to figure out what sound was just made on the lips, then conjecture what word the speaker just said, then put that all together.  So it’s mainly a game of guesswork with a bit of reading thrown in.  So it’s the context that we focus upon.

Q: If you could pick one sound that you could hear perfectly well, what would it be?

Simona: I don’t care about any sounds except to be able to hear my husband chatting away to me. I’d love to hear his voice (except when he’s mad or upset, hehe). Who needs any negativity!?

Q: Would you ever consider a cochlear implant?

Simona: I used to think about getting a cochlear implant, before I had accepted my deafness, during the times of darkness. Now I’m much happier with who I am. I realize that I would have stopped using the CI after probably a year or so, just like I don’t use the hearing aid. I hate most sounds, for the same reason Fairy does too. They’re annoying, they give me a headache, they’re useless, they serve no purpose.

And when my hearing friends ask me what do I miss being hearing or some such silly question… my simple reply is always this: “How can I miss something if I’ve never had it?”

That one liner was what led me to ultimately understand that I would always be deaf and was what taught me how to be happy with who I am. If you’ve never had something, then there is no use missing it or envying it.

Q: Are you more comfortable with your hearing or nonhearing friends?

Simona: That one is difficult for me to answer, as I don’t have much of a social circle here, but what there is of it, they’re mainly deaf peers with some non-deaf peers sprinkled here and there. My husband isn’t deaf, laugh. He’s working on learning ASL, slowly but surely.

Q: Do you feel isolated and how do you cope?

Simona: Right now, I can’t socialize much because I’m too broke to go socialize with the deaf community here, but hey, that’s ok, my time will come, and they know me and I know them.

And I have my peers online (they are non-deaf, but they’re supremely friendly! I adore online chatting).

Q: If someone were to recognize your deafness during conversation, which is more polite:  to allow you to read lips or to add signing even if the signing isn’t great?

Frarochvia:  What is even more polite is asking the deaf person for her preferences  because every deaf person if different.   Alway ask.  That’s the #1 thing. Just because a person is deaf doesn’t mean she knows ASL, or can lipread. Or both.

Simona: What she said. I learned that the hard way a few weeks ago… I met a deaf lady on the bus … turned out she didn’t sign at all. Ooops.

Q:  Are you able to drive?  I don’t know if hearing is essential for safety reasons, such as a horn honking, back up warning signals (on larger vehicles mostly) or sirens. Usually emergency vehicles have lights in addition to their sirens, so this might not even be a valid example.

Simona: yah yah!! It’s scary to see cell-phone drivers swerving all over the road!! And people wonder if deafies can drive?? They’re the ones who can’t hear themselves with music blasting so hard that I can actually hear it while on a bus, and even worse, the bus’s VIBRATING from the music!! Those drivers are gonna be late-deafened (well, earlier than the previous generations, unfortunately).

Blessed Be!