How Stupid Can People Be…?
Jamie Berke and Mishka Zena broke the story on the blogs about a Deaf man in Texas who was assaulted by a store clerk. The news story is found here.
I am just boggled at the sheer stupidity of some people. What is wrong with this clerk? Assaulting someone with a crowbar because they did not say hello back? Clearly, this clerk has some mental stability issues. This, however, is not the first time it’s happened to a Deaf person. If you read MZ’s blog, you will see a story about how a Radio Shack clerk assaulted a Deaf customer several years ago.
As a Deaf person, I always hate interacting with hearing strangers in public. I like to go in, get my thing, then right out with the interaction done at a minimum. I’m always careful to look around, to make sure nobody’s talking at me, and if the cashier talks to me, I just smile politely. If I’m asked a question, I just usually give a questioning look then they’ll say it again. I can usually lipread those simple sentences.
But I’m just generally uncomfortable when I go out in public. There are far too many opportunities for misunderstandings. People will get annoyed with you, sneer derisively at you because they think you’re the one who’s stupid or rude, when half of the time, it’s them!
I’ve even dealt with people who were at a near-panic when they realized I was Deaf. Verbal altercations are never fun, and believe me, it happens far too often for us Deaf. Ask any Deaf person, and they can tell you stories all night long about hearing people who just do not know how to deal with us.
An incident that happened to me, and while this is nothing like the poor dude in Texas, it sure as heck annoyed me. I was lost, so I pulled over at a gas station. I went up to the clerk to ask where the maps were. So I signed writing. It’s a very simple sign, and any hearing person should be able to understand it. You hold your left palm up, and with your right hand, you mime the act of writing on the left palm.
I do that to the gas station clerk, and he stares at me like I’m an alien. He looked a bit afraid of me too, which I found bizarre since he was twice my size. So I sign it again. Same response. Then I gesture it – like I’m writing in the air… His stare deepens. After repeating this two more times, I lost it. I snapped with my voice, ‘Pen and paper, dude!’
At that point, the light bulb finally went off over his head and he gave me a pen and paper so I could ask him my question. I don’t know if my speech was intelligible to him – ironically enough, I’ve been told that my speech gets clearer when I’m angry. But that’s beside the point…
Like that guy in Texas, I don’t like using my voice. I don’t see the need for me to use it, either. Why do I have to use my voice so people won’t think I’m rude, an idiot, or whatever they’re thinking?
And like Jamie Berke wrote in her blog, there’s always a little, tiny voice in the back of my head warning me often when I go out in public – I could end up in a physical altercation with some hearing person because they don’t get it. The odds of that happening are extremely low, but it’s higher than for the average hearing person.
So if a hearing person is wondering why Deaf people are always looking around at their surroundings in public, you know why now.
20 Comments
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Deaf Pixie said,
October 5, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Agree wuth you about these. How can they do that to deaf who is not able to hear what the clerk say. Dont need to threw at him a coins. I think they are very very rude and dumb-ass for assulted on deaf person which he did pay $. Sound stupidest.. How can they know hearing people who cannot talk back. he can hear.. but deaf man cannot hear and cannot talk same thing!
WTF in the world know about deaf or deaf blind customer. I beleive that’s scary for Cody who was assulted by the pea-brain clerk and I pissed off the clerk’s boss erased the tape. Glad he’s arrested.
handsgiventofly said,
October 5, 2007 at 5:50 pm
“It is a really big problem,” Robinson said. “Businesses should be professional and sensitive to deaf people. There are training workshops about the deaf culture and what to expect in interactions with us.”
No shit!!! That’s where we need to be more louder about…
You are right, DP, that we have plenty of stories to share with clueless hearies with a simple request – by gesturing for paper and pen.
Watch out for those hearing parents of CI children going, “See…..”
Just want to say up front here, I’ve got CI already and that doesn’t make a frigging difference, a’right?
The solution here is TRAINING the hearing people, not the DEAF people.
Deaf Pixie said,
October 5, 2007 at 6:17 pm
handsgiventofly,
I agree with you, It is really annoyed to being hassle with hearing people are not educated the about deaf world.
Several years ago, I watched 911 dispatch TV program. the man was thanked 911 for his save life. he lost his voice. and his voice is no longer because of damaged and he was accident freak into wire-barred and torned his voice. he had to learn ASL and he can hear. That’s amazing for me to watch interested and he can hear but his voice is something lost of his voicebox were damaged. Make sense?
Looking that guy who assulted to Cody from Texas. It is not really necessary to assulted him for what? It made me angry about the many people did not do good or do not treat them as dumb and mute. It need to reduce to be label on people who is native.
* Wink *
seekgeo said,
October 5, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Amen! Good post! That goes the same with Jamie Berke & Mishka Zena.
That is the thing I don’t get it.. What the hell were that person thinking? “hello?… hi? hello..’ Um.. “Are you ignoring me? That’s it I’m gonna hit you!”
Umm.. doesn’t that person ever have a clue that we have hearing loss, deaf people out there in this world, eh?
I feel the same about run into strangers out in public because I don’t want to deal with if I happen to run into an ignorant. It will just ruin my day if I do. Like you said, just get in there and do what need to do or take when need to get then leave is all I want.
Especially simply asking a question about paper/pen. I ran into a few of them where they’d be like.. uh? uh?
That’s the part we all have to face every single day…
Again, good post, I’m with you 110% !
-SG
Jean Boutcher said,
October 5, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Excellent commentary, DP! Even with fancy university degrees, most hearing people areso hostile towards deaf people who cannot hear. To them, deafness means the lack of language; therefore, deaf people are languageLESS. They are not aware that not only are many deaf people able to read and write but they beat most hearing people for knowing two or even three languages. My weapon is to write in Latin or French.
Thank you, DP, for your outstanding essay!
Jean
Bill said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Maybe if you where buttons like Banjo’s PreLingually Deaf….Nevermind, if they can’t tell from the fact your signing “writing”, the probably aren’t literate enough to read the button
Bill said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:13 pm
*wear* Dang, I need a grammar checker….
A Deaf Pundit said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:14 pm
*grins at Bill* Yeah, but it’s a good thought!
Deaf Pixie said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Hi Jean Boutcher
Oh, Thank you so much for positve attuide about my essay since,I dont expected to be outstanding essay that I don’t really thought of that.
Honesty, I am speechless! Thank you for sharing with me.
* Wink*
Noelle said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:27 pm
My favorite story to tell people is about the gross ignorance that I faced one time from this hearing guy. I was at the coffee counter when he approached me to ask me for directions, presumably. I gave him the directions that he wanted, and then he asked me if I knew Braille. WTF?
I stared at him blankly, and said slowly to him, “Braille is for the blind. I’m deaf, not blind.”
He got embarrassed and left. I do not suffer fools gladly.
A Deaf Pundit said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:30 pm
*chuckles* I bet he *was* embarrassed!
Deaf Pixie said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Noelle
OMG! Yeah, Right sound likely he is dumb-ass and what is big difference?
I appuaded you to insulted him back.
Thank Goodness! he is pea-brain.
A Deaf Pundit said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Deaf Pixie, please stop the name-calling.
Thanks.
Noelle said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Deaf Pixie:
There are a lot of people that aren’t aware about the differences between deaf people, or about disabled people in general. Ok, let me put it this way, hearing people assume everyone they meet will be hearing, and they’ve never met a deaf person before, so when they do meet one, it’s a bit of a shock to them. They wonder, “How do I function? How should I treat them?” They may get scared and decide not to interact with that deaf person, or interact with that deaf person in an attempt to be nice, but still come off as being ignorant due to lack of awareness about deaf people.
For instance, all my hearing co-workers know I went to an oral deaf school, and they’ve never seen me use sign language because I work in a hearing environment (and I don’t know ASL). One of my co-workers asked me if I knew ASL, and I said no. She was surprised and had assumed all deaf people knew ASL. I had to tell her about the differences in deaf culture, and she still thinks it’s strange how there’s the division between the oral deaf and the Deaf.
Hearing people are always surprised to hear about how different deaf people can be from each other, and what the divisions are. They don’t get it because they were never informed about it, or never came across a deaf person before.
For my hearing coworkers, I’m the only deaf person that they know so therefore in their minds, I’m the sole representative for all deaf people, so I get asked questions all the time whenever something about Gallaudet makes the news, and I didn’t even go to Gallaudet!
A Deaf Pundit said,
October 5, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I think it’s a bit silly that people think all deaf people are alike. We don’t think ALL black people talk like they’re from the ghetto.
But you’re right, Noelle. A lot of hearing people *are* surprised to see and hear about the differences between the deaf, because they are ignorant. Ignorance does *not* always equate to stupidity… Most of the time, anyway.
Deaf Pixie said,
October 5, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Noelle,
That’s intersting! But still people did label on me as mental retarted. I feel it keep torture on me too many time. It is very distrub me alot of time. I have to educated them over and over. it never stopped since 30 years. Beside you were grew up and never learn ASL but, you pick the own of your language. I can understand the what you grew difference than me. I grew up in Deaf school and my dad’s sister raised me for long time until her death. I agree with you some people did not realized you don’t learn ASL. I know Something happened the situation about this comment seem surprised me. It is very common some deaf people grew up without learn ASL and keep oral school for rest of their personal life almost always never the same as deaf know ASL. but hearing people clueless often more ruded than they think that he think WE are became deaf with vision loss. Not make sense. they have a varitities of difference.
Jean Boutcher, I realized I might misunderstood you say DP. Pundit or my blog is Deaf Pixie. I am not sure you say about Pundit’s essay and mine? I know it is too confused blog names of person’s comment. I am sure Pundit’s blog has been brought up about these situation.
Deaf Pundit,
Alright! I will not use it the language. but I am apprectice of your blog about these of crime.
John said,
October 6, 2007 at 7:28 am
Send your thoughts comment to http://www.familydollar.com/contact.aspx
tinygirl505 said,
October 7, 2007 at 12:23 am
Employees at gas-stations and coffee-shops do not discriminate with their rude or ignorant behavior. Everyone has an equal opportunity to experience the hostile attitudes of customer-service professionals.
Whether you hear or not, it can be frightening to think about having to go into a store and deal with the people working there.
And, if you work at a gas-station, it can be frightening to have to think about all the jerks you have to deal with.
But not everyone’s a jerk.
And it’s not _that_ scary to think about going into a store (certainly, there are much, much scarier things).
Maybe, if we were brave enough to put up with a few jerks now and then, we wouldn’t have to run out of the place so fast that we never got to meet each other.
Maybe we’d have a lot more friends, and maybe, in a little while, there’d be a lot less jerks.
So, I’m going to the store, and I’m not leaving until somebody really cool comes up to meet me!
And you’ll know it’s me, ’cause I’ll be kind and friendly, and glad to meet you, whether we speak the same language or not.
Des Miller said,
February 6, 2008 at 6:53 am
My wife is deaf but her speech is perfect so people assume that she has full hearing & when they discover otherwise the start to talk to her as if she is stupid..
She speaks 3 languages & is an accomplished artist & can lip read most people & in French,Italian & German too.
Most people struggle with one language, go figure..
Anonynonynonymous said,
September 11, 2008 at 2:31 am
Wow. Just wow. How does one go from: “I think you’re ignoring me.” to “Therefore I should hit you on the head with a crowbar!” I can’t even comprehend the logic behind that. What happens if someone drops a bottle of soda and it breaks? Does he shoot them because they deliberately made a mess? And howcome he wasn’t just fired outright? He admitted to doing it, and why. Oh right, it’s “Family Dollar”… *headdesk*
On the one hand, I want to comment that such behavior is somewhat atypical. On the other hand, ignorance isn’t.
To use your example in the comments: some people do assume that all black people are from the ghetto. Doesn’t make it right, but it is the case. People make more than a few assumptions about me when they see my tattoos and and my trenchcoat. Even more when they discover I’m of Latino descent.
Actually, I get that from both ends. You see, my clothing and music choices make me a “race traitor”. Clearly I have no pride in my culture. In addition to that, since I’m relatively fair-skinned, I also have the distinct pleasure of hearing stereotypes get thrown around by people who think they’re “among friends”, if you know what I mean. “Uhm… dude? I’m Puerto Rican, and that wasn’t funny.”
So yeah, the odds that you’ll run into ignorant hearing people? Pretty high. Hopefully I’m not one of them, but I won’t really know that for sure until someone gives me a clue.
This is where I encourage you to not write us all off. Some of us really want to learn, but we’re not going to get taught anything sane by the mainstream media. Not for a long time.
Which isn’t to say that hearing people don’t need to get of our collective bums. We do. Period. End of story.
PS: You rock, and I have no idea why the guy didn’t understand it when you signed “writing” to him. It’s beyond obvious — I’ve seen hearing people w/ no signing experience do similar (not necc identical) in noisy environments. Even if he didn’t know that you were signing, he should have understood what you wanted. Maybe a week of dispensing napkins and pens to “love”-struck bar patrons would clue him in. Bartenders seem to get it fine.