I have been seeing a lot of Deaf people on social media starts to use a mix of American Sign Language and International Sign Language which can be very confusing for a lot of people including myself. What is more bothersome is that some copy the signs from International Sign Language with American Sign Language, telling people that they are American Sign Language when they aren’t even American Sign Language because they are signs from International Sign Language and uses them with American Sign Language can be very confusing for some. There are some people in a group calls “ASL That!” where they would learn some new signs for some words in American Sign Language obviously since the group are all about ASL aka American Sign Language and I have noticed that some Deaf people along with other people who know sign language (interpreters or codas) in the group or even outside the group would use the sign for people from International Sign Language thinking that it is the new sign or modernized sign for American Sign Language when they are not as they are being copied from International Sign Language. To my fear that I am starting to see a lot of people start using mixture of American Sign Language and International Sign Language for the norms which would…
There are only a few people, more so students at that time have witnessed this including my best friend Robert Wolfe and among few of others that were close to us know about what had happened in the lunch room in 2005 at Belfry High School. One day in early afternoon at Belfry High School, I was a senior student, one of two Deaf students who attended a public school but before that during my freshman year and sophomore year I was the only Deaf student that attended Belfry High School then when I go back to school after summer a Deaf girl named Cameo were transferred to Belfry High School as a sophomore from Ohio while I became a junior. As one of two Deaf student, it was a bit tough especially trying to mingle with the crowd, but I was fortunate to have a few friends who learned to be fluent in American Sign Language since a few of us became friends from the freshman year. Fast-forward to the senior year in 2005, in early afternoon at Belfry High School and it was time for a lunch but my math teacher allowed me to go to the lunch room a few minutes earlier before my lunch so that I could see my best friend because there were 3…
I am sure that some of you have heard of these words somewhere, whether it be auto-correction, on social media, in the news, in another country that doesn’t have much knowledge about the community as we do over here in the United States and as well some countries in Europe. By now if you haven’t realized what I am referring to by looking at the headline of this article then the words I am referring to is Deaf and Dumb or even Deaf and Mute. There was someone, who is Deaf found a words replacement suggestion in Nintendo’s store saying “Deaf and Dumb” and decided to share that on Reddit which I will provide a link to that Reddit at the end but he had shared his frustration or that he was surprised about the words replacement suggestion in Nintendo for “Deaf and Dumb” instead of Deaf in a Facebook group titled ASL That!. Asking the community about what he should respond or how to react to that, to the people’s comments in response to his concern about the “Deaf and Dumb” suggestion by Nintendo on Reddit but didn’t share the link to that part on Reddit which had me looking after the one that he was talking about so to get a better understanding of what people’s responding to…
As you all know, my skin is white so obviously I am white and I do acknowledge that I have that privilege whether I want it or not as it’s a given based on my ethnicity so the only as far I can do is to say that I do also recognize that the United States and many of other countries have a huge problem with racism even to this day. The black people suffers oppression everyday by the very same color that I have on my skin which is something that I am very ashamed of, even though I do everything I can do to support black people through activism and to pass their voices on around in hope that I can or at least hope that we can bring more awareness of what is going on in this world on racism issues. I have thought over and over about if I should or should not write a blog post about the black history month because it never will be my place to do so as I am white but at the same time I feel that I would also be bothered not to do so as I want to echo that for the ones who oppress black people are the lowest of the low in the eyes of…