Following on from my last post, I had a realization: Audism and phonocentrism disconnects Deaf people from hearing people. Altthough it is great if some Deaf people choose to interact only with Deaf people, most people in the world are hearing. That is just reality. Deaf people need the option to interact with hearing people too in accessible ways.
And no, not through interpreters please. Direct communication!!!!! Interpreters are there for very specific purposes: when two people are having long or complex conversations or which have specialized terminology, that’s when to use an interpreter if one of these people do not know the native language of the other.
For far too long, Deaf people have been left out of society. I am not talking about “diversity” or “inclusion” or anything of that sort, as we multi marginalized people know that strategy has failed.
Rather, society needs to center Deaf people. And no, that does not include using interpreters all the time, only where necessary.
Society needs to integrate Deaf people by:
- teaching hearing people the majority sign language of the area in which they reside – make it mandatory in elementary education just like spoken languages are mandatory
- accepting Deaf people
- stopping being audist and phonocentric
- giving Deaf people jobs
If Deaf people cannot socialize well with most hearing people except through interpreters, what hope is there of having friends or creating family with hearing people? We need choice.