My Name’s Stupid!
February 18, 2011
I love you, too...
I’m interviewing tomorrow with an organization called “Purple Communications,” an organization whose demographic consists mostly of the Deaf. It’s definitely enveloped me once again in the Deaf culture.
For instance, never, EVER describe a Deaf individual as a person living with a disability — they’ll cut you, I promise. In fact, the Deaf insist that their only disability is the fact that hearing people label them with a disability. Other than that, they are just as capable — if not more — of doing everything a “hearing” person can. This is why when using the word “Deaf” to describe a group or individual, it is always capitalized — they are a proud group, and what they can’t say or hear, they will sign LOUD.
This experience also reminded me of a time ions ago when I looked after a kiddo who was Deaf. I was a teenager and wasn’t aware of the Deaf culture. Steven had parents who could hear, but even as a six-year-old child, the school he attended was instilling in him a pride so big and beautiful, it was almost impossible to look at him as a child with a “disability.” He was merely my Steven, a precocious, sometimes devilish child who loved to terrorize me, his brother and anyone else that told him “no.”
When I first met Steven, I asked him how to say my name in sign. He showed me, and for at least a month, I was introducing myself to his friends and teachers as, “Hi! My name is stupid!” The Deaf would look at me a bit perplexed, smile a crooked smile and then shake their heads, like, “Oh this poor girl. She was most likely shown by a Deaf kid who didn’t much care for her.”
I’d like to think it was just a practical joke. But, I think in a way it was probably Steven’s way of leveling the playing field — of letting me know just because he couldn’t hear didn’t mean he was stupid — it meant I was.
So, thank you, Steven, for a very important lesson at a very young age — if I get the job, drinks on me.
