Okay, so now that I’m educating myself about the Deaf community and learning ASL, I’m having to face the facts about discrimination against the d/Deaf. The prejudice itself is called “audism.”
Here’s a basic look into how that works:
People who are deaf are considered broken or inferior.
People who are deaf apply for jobs at Deaf schools—like being a principal—but are passed over so that a hearing person gets their job instead.
People who are deaf are not provided even the most basic accommodations, including a translator or a flashing light in their dorm room or office that would alert them to the fact the fire alarm is going off.
When a hearing person has a conversation with a Deaf person via a translator, the hearing person looks at the translator instead of the Deaf person, thereby making the Deaf person feel invisible.
If you take the time to stop and think about it, all these examples are incredibly painful and unjust.
Another basic fact to consider is the difference between the phrase “hearing impaired” and “deaf” or “hard of hearing.” The term “hearing impaired” is not accepted by the Deaf community in North America. The reason why should be obvious: “impaired.” This word implies inferiority.
We don’t call people who wear glasses or contacts “visually impaired”; we just say they wear glasses or contacts. Eye conditions are so common no one thinks anything about it. But while it is more common than people think to meet someone who is hard of hearing—the actual numbers would surprise most people—it feels rare to meet someone who is fully deaf and a native member of the Deaf community/speaker of ASL (or another sign language).
And just like the entire world operates right-handed, thereby making it difficult for people who are left-handed, the entire world assumes everyone can hear and operates on that assumption.
So consider instead the opposite phrase to “hearing impaired” or “hearing loss”: “deaf gain.”
Deaf gain is the concept that being deaf provides people with advantages, such as better peripheral vision, better facial recognition, and a better ability to scan one’s environment and notice when something is off. For a more detailed explanation, see Jolanta Lapiak’s article “Deaf Gain.”
A Deaf vblogger on YouTube, ChrissyCan’tHearYou, listed among her deaf gains the ability to sleep without noises waking her up.
As someone who has been losing hearing in one ear for over 20 years now and now basically deaf in one ear, I found the concept of deaf gain to be a positive challenge to my typical hearing-based worldview. I am gaining things here. I’ve actually been aware for at least 15 years that my peripheral vision is better than average—my eye doctor even commented on it—but I hadn’t considered where it had come from. In fact, I was surprised by it. It’s refreshing to consider that this is a deaf gain.
I would say that the biggest thing happening to me as I research my new community and learn about them is the way all these issues suddenly pop out to me. I’ve been very focused on my personal experiences instead, thinking about hearing aids, the problems with room acoustics, and what happens in loud restaurants and crowds. I’ve wondered if I’d be fired from my job if I became deaf, and I’ve struggled to hear well enough at work sometimes. I previously despaired about successfully learning ASL when there are no classes anywhere nearby and my one previous attempt to learn a second language in high school and college (Spanish) went so poorly. (As mentioned previously, thank you to TouTube and all those ASL content creators for saving my ass.)
But the truth is that I’m finding learning ASL to be incredibly easier than learning Spanish, and I think it’s fun. Also, I am experiencing deaf gain, and it’s a much healthier mindset than my previous hearing loss/hearing impaired mindset. And on top of that, I can see ways to be an ally to the Deaf community and am aware of things I would have said before that are actually offensive.
Since I’m an educator, I find I love to learn.
Since I’m a writer, too, it’s time to create some Deaf characters in my upcoming novels.
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