This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

I just moved into a new house, so my partner, Randy, and I have been constantly unpacking, organizing, and going through stuff from decades ago. A couple of weeks ago, we opened a box that had some things from Randy’s days at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf.

Among the things was a stack of letters and reports about certain pranks Randy and his friends had pulled in school. I laughed as I pored over them, appreciating the fun times the kids had.

But as I read on, I noticed something interesting: all the reports from the hearing resident advisors or teachers were negative and discouraging. Those from deaf resident advisors or teachers were full of high praise for Randy. “Excellent communicator; great leader; focused; excellent athlete; has strong sense of principles,” they wrote. Mind you, they didn’t excuse Randy from the pranks, but they clearly knew the difference between a troublemaker and a fun-loving student.

So I asked Randy about the negative comments. His nonchalant response was the same for each person: “Oh, he couldn’t sign very well. Hearing.”

With this response, I was reminded of a story I did once about a deaf football coach who also worked as a dorm resident advisor at a deaf school. A student came to school one day with a bruise, which had been caused by an incident outside of school. A hearing faculty member asked the student what happened, but misunderstood what the student said. The faculty member then reported to school officials that the coach had inflicted the bruise.

The coach was suspended and banned from campus until the facts were finally cleared up. Needless to say, the coach was humiliated, especially since he was from a prominent deaf family who had all attended the school. All because the hearing faculty member couldn’t understand ASL.

And we wonder why deaf education has failed for so many years.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

“Education of the deaf.”

“The field of deafness.”

I used to consider these phrases absolutely acceptable. But then a friend pointed out that people wouldn’t dare to say, “Education of the oriental” or “the field of blackness.”

She further said that if we truly want to be considered a cultural entity, then we need to stop accepting “the deaf” or “deafness.” She reminded me that we are individuals, not “the deaf,” so we should be called d/Deaf people. Also, we are not afflicted with “deafness” (such as one would be afflicted with dizziness); rather, we are d/Deaf. I found her comments absolutely eye-opening.

Of course, this opens up a can of worms. Do we change “School for the Deaf” to “School of Deaf People”? What about “Club for/of the Deaf” – would we need to change that, too? Self-Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH) doesn’t say, “of the Hard of Hearing.” How about the National Association of Deaf People? Hmm.

I think I’ll stop using “the deaf” and “deafness.”
_____

On a separate note: In an earlier issue, I asked if anyone knew of deaf people working at captioning companies. So far, only one has mentioned a deaf/hard of hearing person (who can speak well) working for NCI. Yes, folks. ONE person.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

I was reading the newsletter of a deaf organization the other day, which reported that the organization was experiencing a $350,000 deficit.

I wrote to this same organization many years ago asking what they did for the grassroots deaf community. When I wrote them, I was thinking of my own upbringing within that community. They responded, insisting that their advocacy was beneficial for grassroots deaf people. They also reminded me that they didn’t provide direct services.

Okay. But here’s what bothers me.

In the newsletter, some of its “Grassroots Advocacy” activities are listed. They:

• Gave a presentation at a graduate program for deaf education on “the need to improve services for Low-Functioning Deaf [sic] adults.”
• Participated in a reception honoring new members of the Brown vs. Board of Education’s 50th Anniversary Commission at Howard University.
• Keynoted a state Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf conference and the Parents, Resources, Interpreters, Deaf and Educators Conference.
• Attended a world conference on disability.
• Presented at a judicial college on rights of deaf people in court.
• Worked on revitalizing the Political Action Network.
• Spoke at a Transportation Research Board meeting session about making airports accessible.

I can see, in the big picture, how these affect grassroots deaf individuals. But are these activities really “grassroots advocacy”? I looked up the definition of “grassroots”: The ordinary people in a community or the ordinary members of an organization, as opposed to the leadership.

Maybe it’s me, but when I think of grassroots deaf people, I think of people at bowling events, sporting events, and smoke-filled deaf clubs–people that I grew up with and socialize with today. These people usually don’t give a damn about conferences or university receptions; they just want to make ends meet and to have a good life.

I say this organization needs to understand what “grassroots” means before claiming it performs grassroots advocacy. Only when the organization can really reach grassroots deaf people will its membership grow.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

On a recent episode of 60 MINUTES, Mike Wallace reported that African Americans were moving back to the south to reclaim their heritage, intentionally choosing to live in black neighborhoods and areas. As I watched the segment, I quickly saw the similarities among deaf people who intentionally choose to live a “deaf life”–marrying deaf people, living in areas where many deaf people live, and using ASL without guilt or shame.

I just moved to a “deaf-school town”–a deaf school is located here–nearly 20 years after swearing I would never live in one again. Back then, I felt as if living in a deaf-school town was unrealistic and unhealthy. But you know what? I love living here.

I appreciate living in such a deaf-friendly town. I love having so many resources at my fingertips. I love being in a Deaf environment. Mind you, I socialize with hearing people, too (it’d be impossible not to).

But most of all, I love not having to explain my language and life choices. Perhaps it is best explained by a comment on the show: “I was so excited about being at a place where I could just kind of be myself and let my hair down,” remembers [preacher Cynthia] Hale. “I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody. And I think that’s what causes people of any race, any culture, to self-segregate.”

I nodded in understanding when Wallace said, “But for blacks, it’s coming back to their roots. Many who’ve moved South say they feel they’ve come home.” I certainly feel like I’ve returned to my roots.

See the full 60 MINUTES story at
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/12/60minutes/main558375.shtml (link no longer active)

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

Picture this:

You arrive at work and find out an interpreter who you don’t directly work with has spread a rumor, in both ASL and spoken English that you were in a “serious car accident.” You confront the interpreter about this ridiculous rumor. The interpreter denies everything to the point of panicked tears and wild gestures, even when witnesses support you directly.

After weeks of faxes, e-mails, and calls from concerned friends wanting to make sure you’re alive, that you’re annoyed. Then you find out from an interpreter agency that the same interpreter used your name as a reference two years ago (while you were living elsewhere), even though you never worked with this interpreter in a professional capacity at any time, nor socialized with him/her. In fact, you’ve always stayed away because you feel s/he cannot understand your ASL.

So you decide to file a grievance with the certifying organization. After six months of a failed mediation meeting (where you are literally prevented from leaving three times, though you are told you can leave the meeting at any time) and unnecessary delays, you lose the case. The ethics committee has decided that even though you have e-mails, letters, and verbal accounts that verify what happened, it’s all hearsay because you didn’t directly see the interpreter say the rumor and that the rumor was spread out of concern for a colleague rather than to deliberately harm you.

Would you be pissed?

I am.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

Yup. The Americans with Disabilities Act is here to nip us in the bud.

Two weeks ago, a friend went to her eye doctor to get much-needed glasses. They told her they had tried to contact her, because the interpreter wasn’t able to appear. My friend wanted to go ahead with the exam without the interpreter, but the office refused. She was told she had to sign a waiver in advance and would have to reschedule. Never mind that she had to take time off from work for the appointment.

I called America Online last Friday and two different “customer care consultants” told me they weren’t allowed to take my relay call because there was a TTY number available. I protested, saying I preferred to use relay. No luck; I had to resort to the TTY line. Whoever answered the TTY number was manning several different TTYs at the same time, so responses were v-e-r-y delayed. The delay was almost worse than an answering machine, so I politely signed off. I called back later via relay, and insisted that I be allowed to use the voice line. Thankfully, the third “customer care consultant” relented.

One of my roommates broke her leg in college, and went to the emergency room in Washington, DC. The hospital refused to put a cast on her leg until an interpreter could be called. She was told to come back in 48 hours, and had a temporary splint put on her leg. True story.

Welcome to the aftereffects of ADA lawsuits.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

It sounded pretty good. For less than $20 a month, I’d get legal advice. I thought Pre-Paid Legal was a great idea, especially since I work mostly on a contractual basis. Plus the PPL representative, a person who works within the captioning industry, emphasized that PPL was deaf-friendly. They even had a toll-free TTY number. So I signed up, and was assigned a law firm in Chicago.

Every time I called the firm for a matter, it was a major hassle. The receptionist would say, usually after the relay operator explained what relay was, that an attorney would respond via e-mail. That never happened. I called the customer service TTY number – and got an answering machine. My representative assured me PPL was looking into this.

I had several contractual situations that I didn’t bother seeking advice for because every time I called the firm, I’d deal with hang-ups and non-responses. In one instance, I received a postcard, a month after I called, saying the firm had tried to call me several times (not true, according to the answering machine and caller ID). When I called to follow up, the person said, “Oh, I see you do have a request here for relay or e-mail. What’s relay? No, we didn’t call you because you asked for an e-mail response.”

I asked my representative to cancel my membership. After a flurry of e-mails full of tactics trying to prevent my cancellation, I threw a hissy fit. He finally revealed, after a couple of days, that I had to cancel by calling the voice number. As of now, it’s “being processed.” We’ll see.

Maybe I was just an isolated case. The firm did help with one contract at the beginning, and I’ve heard good things about PPL. I don’t care. When a company isn’t deaf-friendly as it claims to be and doesn’t ensure that its law firms are accessible, I’m done wasting my money.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

Within the past year, we’ve lost several deaf community members: Jerry Strom, Frank B. Sullivan, Sharon Kay Wood, Polly Peikoff, and Clayton Valli, to name a few. A deaf person’s death always seems to affect me directly, even if I didn’t quite know that person.

I was nearly 14 when my mother notified me that Greg Clark had died. I had known Greg since I was a baby. He also was my favorite camp counselor, and the first person I knew who had an earring through his left nipple. Even today, years later, I still feel a sense of disbelief about his death.

During my sophomore year at Gallaudet, there was at least one death from each class, a total of eight people. It was a surreal year. Life seemed even more vulnerable than it already was for me.

Today, as I think about all these deaths, I think about how much each person brought to the deaf community. With all the rapid changes within the deaf community, in terms of technology, does each death mean one less member of the already-dwindling community? Will their lives and accomplishments exist in people’s memories in 20 years? Will our young deaf generations know–or will they want to know–these people?

I can only hope that when it’s my time to go, I’ll have affected at least one life as much as these people have affected mine.

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This originally in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

I’ve gotten a free round-trip ticket, six coupons for free meals at Wendy’s, and a $20 gift certificate for Old Navy, simply because I wrote letters.

Oftentimes an ignorant worker does something stupid because he doesn’t know how to deal with a deaf person or just doesn’t care. Every deaf person has encountered this. A perfect example: when I called Vanguard Airlines via relay to make three reservations a few years ago, the customer representative said (I kid you not), “Oh my God. This is going to take forever. Why don’t these stupid people just have their damn relatives call for them or something?”

I do what any consumer should do when s/he doesn’t get satisfactory service: I write a letter of concern (not complaint) to the company. In response to my e-mail, Vanguard sent me a free ticket, two drink coupons, and informed me that because my particular call had been monitored, the representative was fired on the spot.

I don’t always do this for every incident; that’d be time-consuming and frivolous. But imagine if we all wrote letters to companies that weren’t so deaf-friendly–and asked, politely but pointedly, for better service. Think we’d make a difference?

Perhaps. But the freebies aren’t so bad.

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This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.

The recent publicity about a captioner screwing up a television report about Federal Reserve Board Chairperson Alan Greenspan’s enlarged prostate when she mistakenly typed “enlarged prostitute” got me thinking about the captioning industry and its job opportunities.

How come I don’t know of any Deaf person that works for the major captioning companies? Isn’t that odd?

I asked a few of my Deaf friends who work in prominent positions within the Deaf community: relay administration, education, and so on, to see if it was just me. None of them knew anyone who worked for the major companies.

This perplexes me. Deaf people are involved at practically every level when it comes to captioning issues, consumer, advocacy, and legislation. Where are the deaf people at the administration or even entry levels within these captioning companies?

I’m not quite sure why there seems to be very few or no deaf employees. Maybe, as evident from the dumbing down of captions on shows like SESAME STREET, the captioning companies think our language or communication skills aren’t qualified for whatever position within their companies. Or maybe Deaf people just haven’t applied for jobs at these companies.

I have about twenty different theories about why there aren’t Deaf employees, but I’ll spare you. Whatever the reason–captioning is an essential part of our lives; it’d be terrific if we could give back to these companies.

Perhaps, after this story runs, I’ll find out about a Deaf employee at a captioning company. I certainly hope so.

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