Hearing Person Repellant

Hi everyone,

I want to talk about a common phenomena that I have observed many times over the past several months. This phenomena doesn’t have a name, at least I don’t think it does, so all I can do is describe it.

It is the thing that happens when you are at a store checkout and the cashier is chatting away and you have no idea what they are saying or if it is important. You stare at them blankly for a minute, and slowly you say “pardon me?” The voice tips them off that English is not your first language. They repeat it slower and you still miss a lot. At this point you say “I’m Deaf.” Maybe sign it too. Then you look at the persons expression, they look like a deer caught in headlights. They look around nervously, and gesture violently. You tell them “Please, just write it down.” You may even offer them a piece of paper and a pen to do so. They smile awkwardly and maybe jot down the price for you, and ask if you want a bag. Then they stare at you, smiling awkwardly still. You pay, they continue to smile awkwardly and gesture violently as you leave.

After discovering that this was almost always the reaction I decided to make it work for me. A few days after this realisation I was walking downtown, on a very main street. On the sidewalk there were those people that try to fundraise for an organization, like Greenpeace, or a children’s hospital, the ones that wear a funny looking oversized vest and hold a binder with the name of their organization and it’s logo on it. They stop people as they walk past and try to convince them to donate their money. Sometimes they are very aggressive and chase you several feet while they yell information about their organization at you.

I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street and one of these fundraising people started talking to me. I looked at them said “I’m Deaf!” and pointed at my ears and gestured that I was Deaf as well. The girl did just what I expected. She got a nervous look, panic stricken almost, her glance shifted from side to side, she clenched her binder so tight her knuckles turned white. Her eyes caught mine once again as she threw the awkward smile on. I couldn’t hear her but I could tell she was giggling nervously. She looked around once again and apparently found her escape route that time. She said something that I didn’t catch because of her extreme enunciation and hand gestures. Then she ran away. She actually jogged through the crowd away from me.

Now, sometimes this “hearing person repellent’ is great. It can provide me with hours of entertainment, as I watch people crumble in fear at the prospect of non-verbal communication. But, sometimes it is the worst thing in the world. It is a horrific feeling when your peers are afraid of you. When your peers don’t know how to communicate with you and therefore treat you with an awkward distance that clearly marginalizes you. I am not saying that is all my peers. I know I could be doing more too. I am a shy person in those situations, and I realise new social situations are awkward for everyone. However, I don’t think I should need to go out of my way to prove myself to my peers. I treat them just like I would treat anyone else. That is all I want, to be treated like the rest of my peers, by my peers.

I do acknowledge that equitable treatment is required in some situations, but that is already in place within my classes. I already have interpreters there to bridge communication gaps, I don’t need anything extra from my peers. That means that when we are doing group work I want to just blend into the group like anyone else. When I join a club I want to be able to participate like everyone else. That isn’t what happens though. There tend to be two common outcomes of those situations. The first one, and the most common, is that they ignore me. They treat me like I have the plague and my ‘hearing person repellent’ seems to be on full strength. The other common outcome is that my peers go out of their way to include me, and as a result make me stand out and feel excluded more than when they ignore me.

When they ignore me I can continue on with what I was doing before. I can pick up my BlackBerry and pretend to be busy. I can make myself look like I don’t care. When they try to hard it makes me feel oppressed almost. I know that may seem extreme but when they talk down to me, or always ask how I feel -- always trying to provide me with opportunity to speak it makes me feel like I am below them. I am not below them, and I do not need their permission to give my input. If I have something to say I will say it. I guess it is sometimes hard for my hearing peers to understand but I am a normal person. I just can’t hear and I communicate with Sign Language, not Spoken English. Those that take their time to get to know me know that I can communicate and cross every and any communication barrier placed in front of me.
While sometimes I enjoy being able to scare people away, especially when it saves me hours of my time because I don’t need to listen to lengthy fundraising rants. Most of them it is just annoying. The amount of time I spend with my hearing peers greatly outweighs the time that I spend wanting to repel fundraisers. If having peers that will acknowledge me means giving up my ability to repel unwanted fundraisers I would do it in a heartbeat. What does it take for me to be recognized as ’normal’ in society? Not even normal, I don’t want normal, I just don’t want scary anymore. I just want to be me, and I want people to accept that and see me. Not just “Deaf girl”. I embrace “Deaf girl” and I embrace all of my other labels and socialized identities, I just want other people to do it too. Embrace me as an equal member of society, treat me as an equal. I will take care of equitable treatment, and others will too, just focus on the equal part please - until I tell you not to!

That's all for today!

Jenny