They’re painting my apartment building. When I went to do my laundry, I walked by several men that were wearing masks, one of them said something to me that I didn’t hear and that I couldn’t lipread through the thick white paper that covered his nose and mouth. I reached the end of the hall, and turned right, only to be blocked by more men in masks, with a ladder that obviously wouldn’t move for me. They stared at me with dark eyes, and their masks moved slightly so that I could see that they were talking- I couldn’t hear them over the hum of their painting equiptment, and couldn’t have understood them even if I heard them.
They may have been telling me to walk around, or they may have been telling me that the laundry room was closed, I don’t know. I turned around and walked out.
I hate masks.
I hate it when my dentist or my doctor wears a mask. I hate it when I can’t understand what is being said, and they know I can’t understand what is being said, but they say it anyway.
I remember the first doctor that I encountered who realized what an issue this was–she had to wear the mask, but called another person (a nurse?) over and had her stand by my head and repeat everything that was said to me. It was a moment of startling realization of all the things I typically missed at the doctor’s office.
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:09 pm
There’s something sinister about this kind of non-communication as well. Just by wearing these things they have power over us – in effect they can do what they want and we never understand why, because we don’t hear their explanations, and they *know* that.
It’s very…what’s the word…disempowering and actually slightly scary.
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Yeah, I *hate* it. I’ve taken to demanding that they provide someone to interpret for me.
September 26th, 2005 at 5:46 pm
And you should.
Just the other day I was pondering how the demand for qualified interps would change if everyone who had a legal right to an interpreter demanded one *every single time* they should have one.
Actually, I had started off pondering everyone’s favorite dead horse: “no interp or unqualified interp”. :p
Hi, Nigel!
September 26th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
The problem with demanding an interpreter is that if none is available, then it only harms one person. Me.
Instead, I’ve un-learned sign language. I have paper and pens, and I’ll demand written notes, and if necessary I’ll demand a CART sytem or someone who can type up information for me on a laptop. No worries about qualified interpreters, or interpreters that have to generate vocabulary on the fly–or that have to explain to me the medical vocabulary that I’ve never seen before.
Interpreters are hard to find–touch-typists are not. And if my primary goal is to always be accomodated, I find that requesting an interpreter interferes with this goal, because I’m all too frequently presented with the only other alternative that they can come up with: Nothing. “Make do until we find one”.
Yeah. Screw that.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
Interpreters are hard to find–touch-typists are not.
That’s the problem that I was thinking about. It takes a long time to even generate one basic-level, sorta-competent interp.
In theory, based on the 10% Deaf/deaf/hoh statistic, there should be lots more interps than there are. Yet I’ve never seen one in the wild.
I can understand your goal of getting the most possible out of an interaction without screwing yourself. Of course, that takes the conversation back to the level of “no interp” versus “bad interp”.
At what point, if ever, do you say, “You know, you bastards aren’t even trying to make a vaguely plausible attempt at helping me out here,”?
How often do you say it? What do you do when you do say it? How much more often do you think it without saying anything?
Does an ignorant doctor get cut more slack than a should-know-better hospital?
::hugs:: I know better than to wave the Deaf activism flag at you, silly. These are just some of the things that I was thinking of a few days ago.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:33 pm
I actually don’t bother anymore. I say “This is what I need done.” And people in NYC seem to do it more or less without blinking.
The interpreter situation will never be a good one. Deaf people aren’t generally rich enough to fund the interpreters necessary. So there isn’t enough of a demand. Caplitalism, yay!
When I was in school, I said that every moment of every day. “You aren’t even making a plausible attempt”, and I was told repeatedly that I was taking myself too seriously. Now I no longer take myself that seriously, and demand excatly one type of accomodation that is easy for them to provide and easy for me to consume, and if they don’t provide it, then they risk my wrath and all associated consequences.
I mean. If a dentist makes a mistake in my mouth after denying me accomodations that I requested or ignoring my requests, exactly how much more sympathetic would I need to be in court?
September 26th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
Lots of good points, as usual.
Besides the lack of organic funding, there’s the issue of a limited potential pool of interps. Way to many people start a program with the idea that they’re going to “help” the “poor deaf kids”. ::vomit::
Then there are the people that never seem to get that it’s not just about learning a language, it’s about learning good manners and etiquette, too.
Finally, with all of the ADA inspectors that roam around looking for physical accessibility violations, how many people actually check up on, ummm, information accessibility issues?
September 26th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Fuck the ADA. :p Seriously- the ADA doesn’t do anything for the Deaf. In fact, the ADA and SARA educational-act gizmos were what seemed to ultimately be responsible for my not getting an interpreter. Some clause about “high functioning” kids. I mean. Movie theaters aren’t accessible to me, but they’re accessible to the mobility-impaired. Trains aren’t accessible to me more than 75% of the time, but are accessible to the mobility impaired. drive-though ATMs talk at you and aren’t accessible- but they still have freaking Braille. And closed captioning? It’s frequently something that resembles a bunch of stoner monkeys doing the tango on a keyboard. And not even a QWERTY keyboard, a DVORAK one. :p
Take a look at the other thread that was up recently (started by Sara G.) on accomodations and devices for the deaf/hearing impaired.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:57 pm
*laughs* I KNEW I was going to get you revved up with that comment. Knew it, knew it, knew it.
Give the doggies a scratch for me.
::wanders off to look at Sara G’s thread::