BUG: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution

One Guy vs. Seven Billion! Can He Win? Can He?!?

B U G 45 One Guy vs. Seven Billion! Can He Win? Can He?!? Okay, let’s break this down! You’re saying you don’t have to learn to sign, because that’s the way of the world! (Translation: the same tired old argument that this is a hearing world, not a Deaf one, and in a hearing world, people speak, not sign!) That is essentially the argument you’re making, no? All righty! The way of the world! Fair enough. If that’s the better argument, it should be able to hold up against a couple punches, right? So here goes! How many people are there on the planet right now? Seven billion? (We’ll round it off!) Okay, cool. How many of them do you know personally? What, you don’t know them all? Well then how do you know what the “way of the world” is? And hey, now . . . no. No rolling your eyes on this one. You started it, not me! I grew up outside this little dinky farming town (Juneau, Wisconsin!) with a population of about 2,000 people. It might be bigger by now (I haven’t been back in a while) . . . so tell you what, we’ll knock it up another grand so you’ll see I’m willing to fight fair. Three thousand people, then! A tidy, bite-sized little number! Okay. How many of them do you know? (Gasp!) You don’t know them! Well, Jeepers Creepers! Okay, how about your hometown? Population 1,000! Surely you can handle that! 46 C H R I S T O P H E R J O N H E U E R No?!? (Rubs eyes with a strained, trembling hand.) Are you trying to tell me that over the course of your entire misbegotten life, you haven’t met 1,000 people (out of 7 billion)? Yet you still feel somehow qualified to tell me about the way of the world? Tell you what, let’s reduce “the world” to one guy you do know (me). I’m real—I’m not some phantom statistic. Put us alone in a room together—now let’s make a deal. How about we leave everybody else on the planet out of it, since you don’t know anything about them anyway, and they wouldn’t come to back you up even if you were capable of giving them a call? Now we’ll just make up one teeny little bite-sized rule: If you want to talk to me, you gotta sign! So much for your argument, hey? “I Don’t Understand”vs.“You’re Not MakingYourself Understood” An interesting sociocultural phenomenon: After years of brainwashing , I am no longer capable of talking to a salesperson without apologizing. Every time I go to get a movie, the Blockbuster guy says, “glah-kaddy-pok-spuffle-blimboff.” This makes as much sense to me as it does to you. But how do I respond? “I’m sorry, I’m deaf, and I don’t lipread. Would you write down what you just said?” B U G 47 But why am I sorry? Or to put that more precisely, why should I be? If I type this book in the language of “glah-kaddypok -spuffle-blimboff,” is it you who doesn’t understand, or is it me who is not making myself understood? Who’s it on, in other words . . . the burden of making something clear? Who has the responsibility? Something has seeped through my defenses over the years and convinced me that it’s my responsibility—that I am the lesser person, and everyone else is worth more than I am. It’s my job to understand, and not their job to say something that’s clear in the first place. It’s my job to cower like a dog because the time of the hearing people standing in line behind me is more valuable than my own. I try to fight it, but it’s hard. You have to help me. Let’s make a pact. If I ever again say, “I’m sorry, I’m deaf,” kick my ass and tell me to dump the apology. And no more of this, “I don’t understand” crap either. I’m going to try “You’re not making yourself understood” instead. I will be polite. I won’t make the Blockbuster...