LA Times Article About Being Deaf & Living With It Is Such A Triumph!

This is cross-posted to my personal blog on The Deaf Edge, but I think it’s appropriate for me to post it on here as well. There’s a slight furor in the deaf community about the LA Times article about a deaf football player at California School of the Deaf - Riverside.

This reminded me of an essay I wrote several years ago, and I think it’s apropos for this situation. Hopefully this will bring awareness to some hearing people if they stumble across this blog.

I am stone-cold Deaf. I do not consider myself to be disabled. I can read and write far better than the average person at my age. I can do anything just as well as any average hearing person. The difficulties I have with being Deaf is how people judge and treat me.

I have been asked if I could read and write. My hearing friends have been questioned about my mental capacity from strangers who have never met me. My friends and I receive dirty looks when we use ASL to converse in public. People have approached me, only to blanch and leave when they realize I am Deaf. One woman, jealous of my writing skills, submitted me to public humiliation by standing up in class and accusing me of turning in a paper written by my mother in order to receive an “A”.

My Deaf friends have been abused sexually, physically, emotionally, and mentally, simply because they were Deaf. Furthermore, they cannot get justice for these inhumane acts, because just by being Deaf, their credibility is in question.

Hearing educators, arrogant in their assumptions, have integrated Deaf people into hearing classes. Most Deaf students go through school without a bilingual education, therefore forcing them into a system about which they are unaware. Through social promotion, they are advanced without learning anything. The highest level that my Deaf classmates ever attained was a sixth grade education.

People keep decrying, “How do the Deaf know when they are in danger?”

Being Deaf is not dangerous. We have ample warning if we are in danger through pagers, phones, television, strobe lights, and our own eyes.

People then ask, “How can the Deaf really experience music?”

One need only experience a small portion of the songs and poetry in ASL to realize that they are some of the most beautiful works ever composed. Our hands are our voice. Our faces convey our emotions. Some things expressed in ASL can never be properly translated.

One needs only stand still and feel the rhythm, to feel the vibrations course through one’s body, to realize how we hear music that hearing people create.

To hear the rain drops patter down, we simply just have to place our hands on the windows. To hear the thunderous applause from an audience, we just have to look at the hands applauding.

We hold a baby, and see it’s laughter on it’s face. A toothless grin. To hear how people feel, a simple glance is only needed.

I can sit in the middle of a forest, and enjoy it. I see the birds and squirrels flit from tree to tree. I smell the freshness of the earth. I feel the gentle, warm breeze that carries wafts of various scents.

I can see a rainbow. I can see the pure white snow. I can see the beauty that is here on the earth. I can feel, smell, and taste it.

With a swish and twist of my fingers and hands, I can tell a joke that will cause a room full of people to burst out in laughter. With my hands, and my eyes, and my body, I can tell a story that will move people to tears. I don’t need a voice or ears to do it.

I can even sit anywhere, with people or alone, and simply enjoy the so-called silent world I am in.

I cannot properly convey the full beauty and depth of Deaf culture with words, because there are no words to describe it. As Deaf people, we cannot fully grasp hearing culture, and hearing people cannot fully grasp Deaf culture, even when one is immersed in the other. Therefore, all we can do is wonder how the other side truly experiences life and try to accept each other.

©Jeannette Johnson/Deaf Pundit