Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
When having a conversation with another person, there are certain cues, clues and non-verbal communication methods that I watch out for to allow me to understand what’s going on better.
Even though there are many non-verbal communication methods that a deaf or hard of hearing person tends to use, I’d like to use this opportunity to tell you what I (subtly) look out for throughout a conversation with another person.
Virtual events like group meetings, webinars and online conferences have been around for a long time. But now that they are becoming even more popular (thanks to the pandemic), it made me realise how frustrating it is that they are not deaf accessible.
If you are an event organiser or you know someone who is one, and you’ve been thinking or running online events, you might not be aware how you are excluding attendees who are deaf from taking part but would like to take part.
I’ve been having such a hard time on working out the definition of “deaf” because of its complexity and the number of sub-categories or labels it has under it.
One of the biggest reason for my confusion is because of how it can (and has) caused rifts, segregation and even abuse within the communities, which is not something that I would ever encourage. So I wanted to share my personal thoughts on the definition of “deaf”.
Is there such a thing as a ‘deaf privilege’?
The word ‘privilege’ has some kind of stigma attaches to it. But it doesn’t and should’t have to be.
But even for someone like me, I would say that I have “deaf privilege”; where even though I am deaf/hard of hearing, I still have some privileges linked to it so that I can acknowledge what I have, appreciate what I have and be aware of what I have, despite my deafness.
I still get surprised on how I get asked both of these questions that are related to each other but completely contrasting at the same time by different people.
Most people assume that deaf people can’t speak (yes we can). If we do, we “speak well for a deaf person (yeah, don’t say that) or you don’t speak very well (yeah, don’t say that either).
So I share my own experiences of how come for one group of people, I do speak clearly, and for others, I don’t speak clearly.
Some people might assume that it’s impossible for d/Deaf and hard of hearing people to meditate (perhaps more accurately, guided meditation).
Even though there are obvious challenges when it comes to using guided meditation (such as whether it’s possible or not to hear or understand what the audio voice is saying), I have managed to find a system that suits me.
After several years hiatus, I have gone back to the cinema to watch the new Star Wars movie, which also happens to be the first time ever I watched a movie with captions.
This post is not a review of the movie nor will there be any spoilers. It’s just a personal story of how it went for me and what could be done to make the cinema experience even more accessible for more people.
Click here to learn more about my first captioned cinema experience here
Do you have the habit of apologising for not being able to hear someone and you end saying “sorry” because you feel that it’s your fault.
Don’t worry if that applies to you, as I am also very guilty of saying the above and more over the years.
And personally, I believe should all stop over-apologising, as it having negative consequences to our lives.
For many people who are considered to be small ‘d’ deaf and particularly those who are hard of hearing, we are constantly labelled as being “not deaf enough” for the d/Deaf world, and “not hearing enough” for the mainstream hearing world.
The only place left is that awkward middle bit, the intbetweener, the lonely bit, where it is tough because you don’t feel like you belong anywhere.
