Hearing aids can be a great asset for me, except when the “hearing” part doesn’t work anymore. Then they are of no “aid” at all. One time, my hearing aid started malfunctioning. During this particular period, work was extremely busy so I couldn’t take time off to go get the instrument repaired. As a result, I was without sound for a while, which was fine with me. After all, I am not one of those people who live and die by the hearing aid.

The office area I was situated is a patch of open space, and there were a few people working there alongside me. Questions or quick commentary are usually shouted across the room, and I’ve done my fair share of shouting. Occasionally, though, I would have my hearing aid (when it worked!) clicked off so I wouldn’t be easily distracted by the din. Colleagues usually knew what was up when that happened, and would either wave their arms or stroll over and tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

So it was a no-brainer that people quickly got used to my non-hearing-aid-wearing self and treated it like business as usual. All saved for one.

It was a typical busy morning for my department. We were rushing to meet last minute deadlines, while simultaneously juggling several major projects. A worker from another department came around our group. Apparently she said something to me, because T, my coworker who sat directly from me, waved at me and pointed in the direction of the worker.

“Excuse me?” I politely uttered. “I didn’t catch what you said.”

“I see that!! Where’s your hearing aid?” B barked, looking up and down my head in search for the missing hearing aid that is usually perched on my ear.

“It’s broken right now.” I responded. “So if you are trying to talk to me…” I started to explain the usual methods of getting my attention.

“Why is it broken??” B interrupted me in mid-sentence. “Why don’t you get it fixed??”

“I don’t have the time right now. The office is really busy, as you can plainly see,” I retorted, gesturing towards the few workers swarming like bees around some papers on a nearby desk.

“Well, you need to get it fixed fast. How can you function without it? It’s too much hassle to not hear anything!” B exclaimed, shaking her head and crossing her arms in a disapproving manner.

I was taken back by the last two sentences. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw T slowly sink into her chair a little. A couple of coworkers stopped in their tracks in disbelief. The waves of ignorance emitting from this woman was blatantly obvious.

“Why do I need to fix the hearing aid right now?” I asked puzzlingly. “My hearing aid has no effect on how I do my work at all. You don’t see it jumping around on the keyboard typing out this latest document.”

My sarcasm was lost on B. “It’s just a matter of what makes life easier for everyone,” she declared in a knowing tone. “And what do you mean by ‘easier for everyone’? You mean, easier for you at your convenience, perhaps?” I shot back.

In a defensive tone, B stated, “I had a relative that’s blind. We had to help him out so many times. We even hired a caretaker to make sure he didn’t walk off a cliff somewhere.” She then fired off a litany of questions. “Well, how can you function without hearing anything? I can’t imagine. What if an emergency is going on and you can’t hear it? How can you hear your kids? How can you do anything for yourself?”

For the first time in a long time, I actually felt offended by the entire exchange. I’m sure many people with varying degrees of hearing loss and communication methods have had to endure lines of questioning of this nature. Over the years, I’ve learned to pick and choose my battles. There were some I shrugged off, a few I waged against passionately, and those that I chalked up to just plain denseness that no amount of education could cure.

But B’s patronizing demeanor just irked me so, with her “I-know-just-what’s-good-for-you-better-than-you-do” smirk plastered on her face. Then the chorus of a song called “I Am Not My Hair” by India.Arie ran through my mind:

I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am not your expectations no no
I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am a soul that lives within

In the first verse of the song, parallels can be drawn between the search for the right hair and the search for the right “equipment” to deal with deafness:

Little girl with the press and curl
Age eight I got a Jheri curl
Thirteen I got a relaxer
I was a source of so much laughter
At fifteen when it all broke off
Eighteen and went all natural
February two thousand and two
I went and did
What I had to do
Because it was time to change my life
To become the women that I am inside
Ninety-seven dreadlock all gone
I looked in the mirror
For the first time and saw that HEY….

A friend of mine fit this scenario perfectly. The “press and curl” could have been the hearing aid she received when she was little. Then in her teens, she obtained a “relaxer” in the form of a cochlear implant, which at the time were bulky and very visible. She got teased for being a robot hell-bent on world domination, i.e. the Borg. After about a decade, she decided to ditch the cochlear implant altogether. She is now comfortable in her own skin, as a deaf woman.

In the second verse of the song, India.Arie crooned:

Good hair means curls and waves
Bad hair means you look like a slave
At the turn of the century
Its time for us to redefine who we be
You can shave it off
Like a South African beauty
Or get in on lock
Like Bob Marley
You can rock it straight
Like Oprah Winfrey

In African American culture, good hair usually means black hair is chemically straightened out or pressed neat with a hot comb, with the kinks ironed out. “Good hair” is considered more acceptable by society at large. Whereas black hair in its true state and formed in hairstyles such as braids and dreadlocks, is “bad.” In that sense, the “good” deaf people would do almost anything to help assimilate themselves into the hearing culture at the expense of themselves. Those people who are either very proud of being deaf or not overly concerned about hearing are labeled abominations.

I am not a pair of earlobes walking around. When I grip the steering wheel of the car while driving, it isn’t my ears that are in the 9’ o’clock (or 12’ o’ clock sometimes) and 3’o’ clock positions. That honor belongs to my hands. It’s not my ears that my kids or my husband reach towards to give me a kiss. The body parts are the forehead and mouth, respectively. It’s not my ears that take me from point A to point B. My legs do an adequate job of that task, thank you very much. When friends want to talk, do my ears stop me from listening and sympathizing? Nope. I got a heart and a mind that is not tied into the performance of my ears. The bridge of the “I Am Not My Hair” song breaks it down succinctly:

(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair make me a better person?
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair make me a better friend? Oooh
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair determine my integrity?
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
I am expressing my creativity..
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)

And the most important part the entire song can be found in the aforementioned second verse. This resounded with me loud and clear:

If its not what’s on your head
Its what’s underneath and say HEY….

In my case, it’s not what’s on my ear that defines me, but who I am all about as a person. I am not an invalid or a slave to my disability. And that is what B needed to understand. Just because my hearing aid wasn’t working doesn’t mean that the rest of me is automatically no good.

B was waiting for me to answer her intrusive questions. I looked at her straight in the eye, and I said:

“I am not my ears.”

This morning when my MARC commuter train arrived at Union Station, another MARC train in the adjacent track had several cars “decorated” with graffiti.  Here’s what I saw:

(Click on the photo for a larger size)

First time I’ve seen any of our commuter trains with graffiti spray paint on it.  Then again, I’ve only been taking commuter train for nearly a year.  I’ve been riding the Metro since 1980, though, and have never seen graffiti on any of its cars.  So, seeing this on several MARC cars was a rude shock.  Better (uh, worse) than coffee in the morning.

Hope we ain’t morphing into New York City.

So I’m about two weeks slow on the uptake, but I’ve been watching the reaction to a federal judge’s decision that the powers that be over at the Redskins’ home stadium must caption all “aural content.” (I’m obsessed with that phrase and am gonna abuse it as much as earthly possible. Be warned.)

Find more coverage of the decision here and here.

In a nutshell, the Redskins’ people, at one point, begrudgingly said they’d caption certain things they deem important in certain places. The plaintiffs in the case weren’t prepared to have those decisions made on their behalf and pushed for equal access, importance be damned. After what seemed like forever, the judge agreed.

The response in the blogosphere has been interesting.

There seems to be quite a big to-do over one specific part of this aural content: the song lyrics. I’m not sure why it’s so provocative.

Naysayers say the song lyrics are irrelevant, and therefore the decision is too forceful. Supporters say it’s about equality and access, not relevance, and therefore the decision is appropriate.

Wow. I’ve never seen the song “Who Let the Dogs Out” invoked so much in protest. Apparently it’s ridiculous to be informed when annoying lyrics blare out over the loudspeakers.

And the ripple effect of Marc Fisher’s rhetoric is strong. You may remember his piece on Jane Fernandes back in October of 2006. Well, October must be the deaf community’s lucky month with Fisher — he’s done it again, this time admonishing the plaintiffs for having the audacity to ask what the aforementioned lyrics were. According to him, captioning things like this is a threat:

More important, however, the court’s ruling threatens every public performance by a sports team, musical group, theatrical troupe or any other artistic endeavor.

He doesn’t say just how captioning endangers the efforts of athletes, musicians, or any other sort of entertainer, other than a fleeting suggestion that the words would be too distracting to audiences.

Moving on: Julie Feldman has already responded to Fisher on this blog, pushing the “who are you to decide?” argument, and DeafMom over at disaboom also felt compelled to invoke Fisher’s column, concluding that the captioning that the Redskins must do is not only not a nuisance, it’s an opportunity for universal access — hearing and deaf alike. She writes:

If you want to talk about the real spirit behind the Americans With Disabilities Act, we’d all share the vision to equalize the access for all people with disabilities in every public arena. If we raise a generation of people with this vision, then we wouldn’t build another building without full access for all. And there would be no more lawsuits.

Coral and Opal is pretty supportive of the plaintiffs, acknowledging that it is within the plaintiff’s right to whatever aural content is available, that it’s patronizing to decide for them what should and shouldn’t be conveyed, and adding, quite eloquently, that captioning this stuff isn’t rocket science. However, he adds:

But there are two parts to every song - music and lyrics, and both mean something. And in football stadiums, the former is much more important than the latter. The lyrics are often completely irrelevant.

For example, “The Winner Takes It All” might make more sense lyrically to a deaf person at a football game than “Welcome To The Jungle” does. But just try playing ABBA to a drunk, frenetic crowd at the two-minute warning of a close game.

Okay, so the song lyrics aren’t always irrelevant. Duly noted. Would never have known if ya hadn’t told.

And of course, this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include he of the “hoity-toity” usage: Paotie calls the plaintiffs’ case “overkill:”

People like Mr. Feldman belong in the handicapped section of every sporting stadium around the world. Is life so trivial to sue over a stupid game? For Mr. Feldman and the NAD, evidently so.

So what do you think? The Redskins captioning everything that goes through their speakers: Whoo-hoo! or stupid?

By Julie Feldman

Last year, I was waiting to cross a very busy intersection in Penn Quarter. I looked to my left and there was a blind man with his telltale white cane also waiting to cross the street. Instinctively, I reached out my arm; I thought that, obviously, he needed help crossing the street. Then I stopped myself. If he was already standing on the corner, waiting with the rest of us, then he likely already knew what he was doing. And so I marveled at his agile maneuvering through the crowds as we walked across the huge street. Quite a mediocre task for this man, I was sure, but it nonetheless was a personal epiphany.

I was briefly reminded of this incident last week while passing a movie theater in downtown Silver Spring: blind people were protesting stereotypes perpetuated by Jose Santiago’s Blindness, which had found its way to the big theater. This didn’t surprise me, for there are several quite dramatic scenes and assumptions easily imaginable for any reader yearning to trade in common sense for imagination. Like how people who suddenly lose their sight will lose all their might and will to function as sane members of society. The blind protesters and I share some similar battles.

Although I don’t really spend much time thinking about it, I also have to deal with many assumptions and misperceptions. Perhaps even on a daily basis. Like the time the relay operator typed: “Oh my god. I didn’t know she was deaf.” Which, of course, preceded a not-so-polite hang-up on the grounds that they “no longer needed somebody” for the open job which they had just e-mailed me about. The other day a lady’s “common sense” led to her belief that it was okay to  make my three-year-old interpret for us. Despite all the snafus thrown my way, I continue to hold an optimistic view toward people’s inherent goodness. But sometimes it does take the law to reach that.

For many years, I had been a fan of Marc Fisher’s column in The Washington Post. Until he published “Common Sense Missing in Redskins Ruling“. Like so many others before him, he chose sensationalize a single point in the entire 22-page ruling issued by Judge Williams: the deaf community is irrationally suing just so that the Redskins will caption their music lyrics! Gee whiz, what is this world coming to?

The essential part of the case, which won’t spark the sizzle Fisher seeks, lies in the following statements from Judge Williams:

While Defendants have gone a long way to provide captioning and some access to deaf and hard of hearing fans, Defendants, in effect, do not want to be told they are required to do so by Title III.

The Court believes and declares that the ADA requires Defendants to provide deaf and hard of hearing fans equal access to the aural information broadcast over the stadium bowl public address system at FedEx Field.

But that’s not important to Fisher. He is irked by the request to simply add music and lyrics to the captioning (following that logic, none of the theme music from Cheers or other TV shows would be captioned). Who is he to decide what deaf and hard of hearing people should hear? Some of us envy Fisher for being able to hear the annoying music at FedEx Field and would gladly trade places with him. If that happened, chances are Fisher wouldn’t be working as a columnist at The Washington Post.

Very few people take the time to try and thoroughly understand the reasons behind the decision to file a suit against the Redskins. I understand how much easier it would be to go through life without thinking too much about others’ needs and lifestyles. Still, common sense does not equate some stranger suddenly grabbing your arm and telling you exactly where and how you are supposed to go about your life – just like Fisher did in this case.

—

It startles Julie Feldman to describe herself as a “thirty-something parent of two, eight-year resident of Montgomery County”. Between classes, work, and chasing two little urchins, she still finds plenty of time to dream.

Have you read Paul Schwartzman’s recent article in the Washington Post (entitled “Gallaudet’s New Aesthetic Openness”)? If not, please do take a look-it’s pretty good. Schwartzman’s focus is on Gallaudet University’s drive to develop a number of adjacent properties that it owns along Sixth Street using an architectural design concept called “deaf space.”

Something that showed up in the story:“Since its founding 144 years ago, Gallaudet’s separation has been driven by the belief that the deaf were better off immersing themselves in their own culture. Their insularity is symbolized by the eight-foot-high fencing and thick stone walls that line the university’s perimeter.”

Let me make a few things clear at the outset. I think that the concept of “deaf space” is absolutely fantastic, and if Sixth Street can be redesigned and rebuilt, I’m excited about that!  I can’t wait to see what it will look like!

That being said, I’d like to tell you three stories.

The first job I ever applied for was a stock boy position at a local Piggly-Wiggly.  They were hiring.  A “Help Wanted” sign in their window said so.  They just wouldn’t hire me.  The manager of the store said I needed to be able to hear the P.A. system when the cashiers asked for price checks.  This was 1983, years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.  Not that it matters all that much …

Then there was the factory foreman I worked for right out of college (this was 1992… ADA had been passed by that time) when I was having problems finding a job in my field yet needed money.  I cut my hand while working on the line one day and waved at him so I could go put on a bandage.  He saw me, and he saw the blood—it was a moderately deep cut and the blood was already trickling down my wrist—yet he didn’t come over to take my place.  In fact he left me there to work through my pre-lunch break and half of my lunch hour before finally having someone come over and relieve me.  I got extra time off later on during my shift that day, but that’s not the point.  By that time a good quarter of my glove was saturated.  This guy had been radiating tension all week, so I asked him a couple of days later if he had some sort of problem with me.  He snapped, “It doesn’t matter what you can and can’t hear in here.  You gotta move, move, move!”  I never asked to be treated any differently from anyone else while I worked there, so to this day I can’t really tell you what he meant.

And finally there was a summer job that I held many years later while in graduate school-also well after the establishment of ADA.  I was a camp counselor.  This camp catered to deaf children (along with blind children, children with cognitive disabilities, and so forth).  While I was working there, the director of the camp, a hearing man, remarked casually to me one day, almost as an afterthought, that he was thinking about not hiring deaf staff members anymore.  They were only good for the weeks that the deaf kids were there, you see, and during the blind and CD weeks, he didn’t want to be in the position of effectively having hired two people to do one job.  It would be better if all the counselors could hear, that way nobody would have to run around interpreting.

My point: It is theorized that Gallaudet’s future students will desire “integration into the broader world.”  I think this is a reasonable theory, since  I too desired such integration. The obstacles I had to climb over, however, had nothing to do with Gallaudet’s walls.

A story that I’d like to see in the Washington Post is one that looks up that factory foreman and asks him why he did what he did.  Even after all of this time, I’d like to know.  Does that grocery store owner recall his refusal to hire me twenty-five years ago?  Would that camp director be interested in knowing how I felt after he basically told me that deaf people were only useful for working with other deaf people?  Had any of these guys even heard of Gallaudet?  If we showed them pictures of a Sixth Street now lined with strategically placed panes of reflective glass, would they give a damn?

Assuming we could break through and get honest answers out of them, we could possibly gain insight into the types of walls Gallaudet’s graduates might still have to climb over (regardless of how much more accessible the modern-day “broader world” is supposed to be compared to the less-accessible one of old) in order to both find and keep jobs.

But even that would only be the beginning.  I promise you, there are a lot of people—both hearing and deaf—who won’t appreciate that story or ever want to see another like it.  And any attempt we make to find out why will be beaten to death in a barrage of comments accusing the deaf person telling such stories of being an outright liar, of being angry and always focusing on the negative, or of playing the victim.  On top of that, maybe the factory foreman didn’t see the blood!  How can the grocery store owner be blamed when ADA didn’t even exist back then!  If we deaf people can’t get past blaming hearing people for all of our problems, we deserve to be treated with indifference!  The world isn’t fair, get used to it..!

Gallaudet’s walls are a lot of things.  They’re stone and iron.  They’re eight feet high.  They’re undeniably there, and once reduced to rubble they’ll make a good photo in the Washington Post.  They’re also an easy answer, and therefore a distraction from a much broader and deeper set of issues surrounded by walls of an entirely different kind.

As we continue to face them, I doubt that we’ll find a bulldozer to be of much use.