Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
Why would a deaf person wear hearing aids (or perhaps cochlear implants)? Surely if we can’t hear, then hearing aids are pointless, right?
Not so much.
This is amongst one of the most popular question I see online, and even though the question may seem obvious to some people, it’s unfair to assume that everyone will and should know the answer.
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.
The TV and film industries rarely display deaf characters.
Which is why it’s quite exciting to see that a popular soap programme in the UK, Eastenders, on the BBC has dedicated an entire episode from the perspective of a character who has lost his hearing.
And with the help of the right people in the background, they have managed to pull-off a very good episode that perfectly demonstrates the challenges and barriers that most, if not all, d/Deaf and hard of hearing people face.
Learn about my reactions to this unique Eastenders episode here
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.
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of video calls. It’s not just by people who are working from home, but also those are away or isolated from their friends and families (particularly as we are going through a global pandemic). So it’s natural that video calls is the next best option to connect with those you can’t meet in-person.
During this period where people are feeling exhausted from all the calls; so much so, that the term ‘Zoom fatigue’ has been coined to label this type of tiredness.
It sounds like a new thing…but for those who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (and perhaps many others), this feeling is just a normal part of our everyday lives.
There are so many barriers that we could focus on when it comes to deaf awareness.
But since it’s Deaf Awareness Week in the UK (as of 4th-10th May 2020), there is one particular topic that I wanted to focus in light of it being a popular trend.
A recent documentary called ‘Crip Camp’ has brought light to a forgotten part of history in the U.S which started a revolution for disabled people to be treated as equals.
This is an empowering documentary, one that got me emotional, which really hits home on how hard people have to fight to be treated as humans and equal to everyone else.
We are living in a time where more and more people are making video calls. But how do you video call someone who is deaf/hard of hearing? Is that even possible? There are so many tools and platforms out there you can use for video calls. But for all their fancy gadgets and quirky features, […]
It is critical for everyone to be informed of the important guidelines that we need to follow when there is a global pandemic and it is a life and death situation.
Unfortunately, d/Deaf people are not informed as adequately as they should be.
Even though there are government guidelines to be followed when they do their live emergency broadcasting, deaf/Deaf sign language users tend to be forgotten about.
Hence why the hashtag #WhereIsTheInterpreter, originally started by Lynn Stewart-Taylor, has been trending in the UK to do something about this.
