Rosie Malezer
July 3, 2015
Is Signing a Right or a Privilege?
As a Deaf woman who was, until recently, a member of the Hearing community, I find it astounding as to how ignorant many professionals and everyday people can be towards Deaf people. Audiologists, lawyers, doctors, bar staff in Finland whom I have encountered automatically assume that if you are Deaf, you must only communicate with sign language. Yet how accessible is sign language education to late deafened people?
In Finland, you are only educated for free in Deaf languages at a young age , and only if you are Deaf. Those who lose their hearing after high school graduation age are required to pay a minimum of 4,000€ to attend Finland's Deaf school which is located in Helsinki. Both Hearing and Deaf students are accepted into the school, which students reside at during week days, however you are only permitted to learn Finnish Sign Language, even if your mother tongue and only language of understanding is English. If you are Hearing, however, you are entitled to every language interpreter known to mankind. The Finnish Deaf Museum further shows how little Finland has done for the Deaf community.
The World
Federation of the Deaf fights
on a daily basis for the rights of Deaf people worldwide who face
discrimination of any sort and who are not permitted access to
education, health, interpreters and the ability to live their lives
independently. Deafness is still seen, on many levels in the Hearing
community, as a contagious disease. They do not understand the Deaf
culture, language or even what it is to be Deaf.
Living on an income of just 500€ per month, it is a mighty blow to a
late deafened person who is then asked to pay almost one year's
income to the government in order to -- one of the most common forms
of sign language around the world -- just for the right to
communicate, since learning the signed language in their own country
is unaffordable to the average Deaf person. Their only alternative
is to ask for a piece of paper (which scares many people) or to
carry a whiteboard with them (which people refuse to use).
The United States of America provides free
education to their Deaf citizens .
It is unfortunate that other countries of the world do not follow
suit. Deaf people have just as much to offer the world as those who
can hear. The only difference is that Deaf people cannot hear. Can
Deaf people communicate? Of course we can. So why are so many
Hearing people afraid to communicate with us?
As an example, last week, I walked into a bar with my husband. A
customer saw me signing to my husband (in ASL) and my husband signed
back. The only reason we could communicate was that we undertook
intensive ASL lessons online. Learning to communicate in Finland was
not affordable at the time. I was lucky to be able to understand the
customer. He signed AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language) to me, asking
me if I was Deaf. I responded in ASL that I am Deaf and that my
husband is Hearing. The bartender then said to the man, "It doesn't
matter where you live in the world. All sign language is the same."
This barman had obviously never learned to sign and knew nothing
about the signing culture. It was disappointing. What was even more
disappointing was what transpired when the waiter (who had witnessed
our conversation) brought our food to the table. He placed my
husband's food in front of him with a smile, before doing what I can
only compare to a "hit and run" with my own food. The waiter slid
the plate towards me, eyes open like a scared rabbit, and then ran
away. It was like he was scared to catch "the Deaf" from me.
living in Finland). It was also
easy for my husband to learn and it is now our sole method of
communication. Due to the high cost of learning FinSL (Finnish Sign
Language) in Finland, approximately half of the Finnish Deaf
community know and use ASL but only behind closed doors at Deaf
meetings each week. This comes directly from the Chairman of the
Tampere Deaf Club. I am able to fluently converse with him and other
Club members in ASL when we meet.
The Finnish government, however,
frowns on members of the Deaf community using a non-Finnish sign
language that they may not understand, regardless that English is
one of the most widely used languages in the world. Most sites in
Finland for the Deaf community are only provided in Finnish
Sign Language and without subtitles .
For somebody who was excluded from being able to access Finnish Deaf
education, I find this act reprehensible. Subtitles are omitted so
that if you cannot afford the outlandish fees of Deaf education,
then you are not permitted to use services for the Deaf.
Then again, many places use automatic subtitles as they are too lazy and do not want to put in the effort for Closed Captions. This issue became a big highlight recently when a show was aired in UK regarding the brutality of Cochlear Implants. The subtitles for the Deaf, however, read "COP KILLER IMPLANTS." It did not take a genius to realise that the subtitles were automated.
From personal experience, I can say that the fight to have your
rights respected as an able-bodied Deaf person is a hard one, but it
is most definitely something worth fighting for. After almost one
year of not being granted assistance from Finland's government in
Deaf matters, I am now house-bound. Hearing people just don't
understand the fight, yet they getting on a bus can be terrifying.
Soon after I lost my hearing
completely, I climbed onto a bus, put my ticket on the scanner, was
not able to hear if it beeped or not and was then completely
humiliated in front of a bus full of passengers by the driver as he
yelled at me and kicked me off the bus. Before this happened, I
suffered from a mild form of Agoraphobia with Panic Disorder. Since
the incident occurred, however, the only time I feel safe is
indoors. All of this was brought about by a bus driver who did not
care when told him (with my voice) that I was Deaf. He did not mind
that I cried and was shamed. He had managed to bully a Deaf person
and his day started just as splendidly as mine was horrific.
Many people are not aware that in
the late 1800's, several countries around the world, including
the United States ,
began sterilising people who they saw as "abnormal" or "unpleasing
to the eye." This included the Deaf and blind population. Up until
30 years ago, Finland were still forcibly sterilising Deaf people on
diagnosis. They saw Deafness as a defect and were terrified of what
the offspring of two Deaf people would be like.
A lot of education has been
needed just to get to where we are today, which sadly is not much of
an improvement from the way we were treated 30 years ago. The only
bonus now is that we are not forcibly sterilised. Instead, Deaf
people in Finland are immediately put onto sickness benefits until
their disability pension is granted one year later. We are
automatically placed into the "too hard" basket, which is a tragedy
in itself.
Deaf people are stronger and
friendlier than many Hearing people. We are smart, artistic,
educated, and we have something to say. Someday, the Hearing folks
of the world will actually stop, listen and learn this fact. Until
the prejudices are gone; until we are able to communicate with
Hearing people without scaring them with our words, the walls that
the Hearing world have put in place will remain.
Rosie Malezer is a profoundly Deaf, legally blind, Australian Aboriginal author, writer, blogger, and domestic violence survivor. She was born in 1971 in Queensland, Australia and is a proud member of the Gubbi Gubbi tribe. She is the author of "Change Your Name and Disappear" (http://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Name-Disappear-terrifying-ebook/dp/B00YNGIJT6). Learn more about Rosie at https://www.facebook.com/rosiemalezer
You can learn
American Sign Language (ASL) online at American Sign Language University ™
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