Weekly round-up on HoH social media. This item was critical of Nyle Di Marco's recent video about deaf discrimination.
#1 "This man is deaf and uses sign language. This is not the same as HOH or a cochlear implant recipient. Without workable aids, communication with hearing people is way more difficult. I have a profound loss and underwent CI surgery but it didn't take. Most people I've encountered on the service side have been very gracious. The greater challenges I've encountered have been in my workplace, where the roles are flipped. There were a couple of supportive co-workers, but when key people, such as the manager, or the customer are impatient or inflexible, it's next to impossible to do my job. The typical viewpoints I ran across was that communication is way more difficult for others to handle then it is for me."
#2 "While hearing people may genuinely desire to please, they often panic and get defensive because they don't know how to deal with it, especially on the first experience. The general expectation at my work was that the person with hearing challenges should be doing all the 'adapting'. I also realized that hearing loss is not quite viewed in the same way as other disabilities. When people became aware that I couldn't hear, and were not being provided with a workable coping strategy, they tended to treat me as if I were invisible. So there are really two sides to the challenge. We can ALL work more strategically at helping each other communicate better. It takes two to tango."
#3 "It annoys me that this is about deaf discrimination yet there are no subtitles."
#4 ATR. "This is the 'cultural' approach, to discriminate by 'preferred' access demands. Basically, it is a fear, a fear captions kill sign language awareness, viewers will always gravitate to the text, and sign cannot compete. However, via this deaf protectionist approach, it seriously undermines access for HoH, not only online, but in creating access and awareness of HoH issues with their systems of support, currently, HoH in the UK do not HAVE a support system, they have a hearing aid or CI and pray it helps. There are no 'communication/language' classes run to help them in the UK, the lip-reading ones failed years ago.
Most is aided and abetted by vested interests e.g. BSL interpreters themselves (to keep the work flowing), and BSL people 'selling' the signing dream to hearing people creating work for themselves. Colleges also cash in on the novelty of learning sign by running courses. The conundrum is why with all this effort, BSL is still hugely unsupported? We just feel when we see output like this thinly-veiled as awareness but in essence a direct plug for the sign language user only, then we have object to it as being anti-inclusive.
A lot of the problem is the apathy of the HoH and their reluctance to challenge 'Deaf and HI' remits, or the sign user, despite the deaf activists and their charities abusing it on a daily basis, in case 'discrimination' is a charge hurled at the hard of hearing. HoH have now backed off and left these deaf to distort the issue entirely. The Deaf claim we need to work together, but campaign apart entirely via own need. They want our numbers but they don't want us because we don't use or really support sign and support clinical definitions of loss challenging the social model of deafness.
I was reading yesterday in the UK, of a BSL charity media campaign declaring there were no less than 10m deaf (aka BSL using people) here. The statistic they used was an HoH one pertaining to clinical hearing health registers, but there are only about 30-50K who are assumed deaf and declared sign using. If we were to examine that statistic, the BSL stat has never been surveyed or proven.
The only resource FOR statistics comes from own dedicated charities, not research and fact. They can claim any figure they can get away with. Systems say only ONE statistic is viable that which registers people asking for support. Then we see stats in their 100s, not, 1,000s.
A UK census put BSL users as low as 15K in England. First, they insist deaf sign, then ALL deaf sign, then all HoH sign too, it's a 'numbers' and hype approach, the more the issue is seen, the more support and awareness presumably goes the BSL way, it is a pity it works via our unsolicited support. Hearing loss equals deafness, deafness equals sign language equals culture. Worse systems buy this blatant lie.
Hard Of Hearing sadly, have abandoned their campaigns and left the deaf a free run at the systems, then find when they need access themselves all they are being offered is sign language, not a lip-speaker, not a loop, not text support. There is a view that Hard of hearing have cracked their access issues mainly by simply embracing text and technology approaches, so don't care what the signers do. In real terms Hard of Hearing can be more stressed, more isolated than any deaf signer is and, less supported in jobs or education too. Buying into social media as an alternative lifestyle still means they are isolated...
For people like Di Marco who express anger because they walk into a cafe or something and sign away and find people don't understand them, and, then blame others for not understanding then, would the same argument be true if e.g. someone walked into that same area talking Cantonese? should they expect to be easily understood? As regards to being abused, there is no statistic I can find in the USA that says this is a real issue, most reports are isolated cases, in the UK we find most try to assist, I'm deaf I do NOT expect everyone I meet to be able to sign, or feel it discrimination because they can't, I don't carry my deafness like an albatross around my neck.. there are people a LOT worse off! As one poster stated, it 'takes two to tango' yes, and that SHOULD include us too."