The First Deaf Way
I had a very interesting conversation with my mother recently. I came home and told her what happened to me in my psychology class. We watched a video clip (not captioned unfortunately – both the teacher and I were unhappy but oh well) of a woman with a very sick child. As I watched the video clip, one thing struck me as very odd about the woman. Her eyes were dead, for the lack of a better word.
So I immediately knew that woman had an anti-social personality disorder. Sure enough, as the video clip progressed, we discovered that she was making her child sick, subsequently being arrested and convicted of child abuse. Psychologists had also diagonosed her with having Munchausen by Proxy, which is an anti-social personality disorder.
I told the teacher that I knew the woman had an anti-social personality disorder because her eyes didn’t seem right. The interpreter translated her voice as being sincere and everything, but the subtle eye muscles and movement just weren’t there. It’s hard to explain, but that’s what tipped me off. He laughed in surprise then said, ‘We should develop a new diagonistic test with you! You’re always picking up on these body language cues and facial expressions and you’re diagnosing them right every time!’
My mother chuckled and said, ‘Yeah. Deaf people are always really good at picking up those cues. But I am as well, and it backfired on me when I took you to the first Deaf Way in 1989. When I took you there, I had put down on the paper that I was hearing, but I guess the staff there didn’t know. So I would always drop you off and chat with the staff there. One day as I was chatting with them, someone dropped a tray of glasses. So of course, I jumped and looked around. The staff were horrified! They were like, “You’re hearing?!” I said, “Well yea. I put it down on the registration information paper.”
They acted like I lied to them. They even said that I was trying to fool them or something. It turns out that you were the only child there at Deaf Way that had a hearing parent! And it caused us trouble later on, because your bathing suit was stolen, and they refused to investigate. I accused them of discrimination because you had hearing parents. They denied it.. but when I bought you a new, expensive bathing suit, they found your old one the next day… A bit convenient, don’t you think?’
So I found that very interesting. My mother signed and still signs so fluently that many people assume she’s deaf, and when the Deaf Way staff found out my mother was hearing, they were outraged. This does not make sense to me.
It makes sense to me that those who know ASL, not SEE or whatever, but ASL are able to pick up very subtle facial and body cues, since facial expressions are part of the syntax of ASL and a component of ASL grammar… but to be outraged that you didn’t know a person was hearing?
o_O
Commentary on Dr. Davila’s Vlog
I just watched Dr. Davila’s weekly vlog today. And I must say that I’m quite impressed with the image he’s presenting. I’ve been a critic of the protest and the protestors for a variety of reasons, but as time goes by, the more I see that Dr. Davila’s really the right person to lead Gallaudet right now.
Why do I say that? For one thing, he’s actually reaching out to the campus community and to the wider deaf community through his vlogs. For a man at his age and stature to vlog weekly, that’s astounding! You do not see that level of communication at many other colleges or universities!
While some aspects of his vlogs are a bit cheesy to me (the Utah vlog was cheesy to me), what Dr. Davila says in his vlogs is the perfect antidote for the festering anger at Gallaudet. Not only that, he keeps reminding us that we are part of the community, and we make or break it, basically. It’s good to be reminded of that. For too long we’ve been abidicating responsibility – always blaming some else for a bad result. The reality is for the most part, we usually share a bit of the blame. When we feel part of the community, we also start to own the problems and start to work on solutions in return.
I think the ‘Team Gallaudet’ is a great concept, and I had to smile at the end of the most recent vlog, where they showed a variety of individuals receiving the Team Gallaudet pins. There were several touching ones, such as the custodial staff getting one from Dr. Davila. That sends a very strong message that everyone is part of Gallaudet, from the bottom up to the very top. That is definitely inspiring.
I don’t know why it exactly was, but the most touching one was Dr. Moore getting one from Dr. Davila. The look that passed between those two then when they shook hands… Wow. I can’t put it down in writing. You’ll have to see it for yourself. Absolutely inspiring and leads me to think Gallaudet’s future fares well with those two leading.
