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Token Deaf Person:
Cultural Appropriation of Deaf Culture and ASL by Hearing Technologists and Programmers
Also see: Homework
It is becoming a rather common scenario:
A twentysomething year-old Hearing college student learns a bit of programming and discovers various video manipulation technologies and realize that such technology could be used to build some sort of really awesome app, program, or system involving sign language. They decide to build the basics of the app and turn it in as their project for their computer science degree.
Their buddy thinks it is really cool and the two of them decide they should commercialize this awesome idea. Neither of them actually know much about sign language but they dive in and start expanding the app, program, or system while googling around for usable ASL content and telling the world (and grant programs, programming competitions, or their school's graduation committee) about the wonderful way they are going to help, save, fix, or improve the lives of millions of poor, suffering, hearing-impaired* people with their app. (*Their words, not mine.)
The programmers reach the point where they actually need to start adding significant content to the app (instead of a few placeholder "borrowed" .mp4 files -- and they start suspecting that ASL may more complex than they thought and/or they start noticing that the Deaf Community itself doesn't seem to be embracing their wonderful idea as warmly as the mainstream media has.
Eventually they realize they are engaged in "cultural appropriation" due to having built an app based on the language of a community of people who have been oppressed and marginalized (and left to die on the side of grassy hills as babies).
So they start looking around for a token Deaf person to bring onto their team and help them with the sign language content for their app.
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This happens frequently enough to me that I find myself in need of a template to respond to such requests.
I'll put the stub of the template below. I'll add to it and revise it as time goes on.
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DRAFT!!! The following is in draft form. It is is pretty random and may or may not be tidied up later on. DRAFT!!!
Many non-Deaf computer science students or programmers develop an interest in gesture recognition systems and realize the potential value of creating a gesture recognition app and applying it toward language translation.
Such non-Deaf programmers eventually become aware of the need for or benefit of having authentic Deaf input, content, involvement, and/or even leadership in such endeavors. That awareness sometimes is the result of the non-Deaf programmers having been informed that they are engaging in cultural appropriation.
The non-Deaf programmers begin looking for and reaching out to Deaf content creators to request permission to use the content or invite the Deaf person to get involved with the project so that the project might benefit from the Deaf person's knowledge, experience, reputation, connections, expertise in the target language, and membership in the Deaf Community.
The non-Deaf programmers often find and me due to my online presence. They praise me a bit, introduce themselves, tell me how they are building an app that will benefit the world by improving communication between non-Deaf people and Deaf people, and then ask for permission to use 30 years worth of my work for free.
Of course they don't phrase it quite that way. Instead they just ask if it would be okay if they used my content for free or they request that we start corresponding (so they can use me for free consultation).
The above scenario happens often enough that I have needed to develop a template letter to respond to such requests.
I've already signed three NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) from companies such as Meta and Alphabet (Google). Speaking of Google, it seems many if not most of the NDPs (non-Deaf programmers) are using Google's Mediapipe Holistic and Tensorflow as the basis of their apps.
I've advised ASL app startups that in the not-too-distant future they will be competing against young school children creating gesture recognition apps before lunch in their elementary classes as well as mega-corps and non-profits providing access to AI-based ASL (and other visual language) translation apps for free.
Mediapipe Holistic and Tensorflow are (as of this writing) both open source (free).
Eventually, as gesture recognition becomes ubiquitous and as simple as a plug-in the value proposition of an ASL App won't be in the programming -- it will be in the content.
I am open to hiring and paying programmers to build an app (that I will own 100%) that will use my content. Or when I get some time I'll build such an app myself as the technology becomes easier to use and less time intensive. (It seems that future versions of Chat-GPT might do some of the work for me.)
Regarding access to my content -- a number of organizations lease my content. For example, a programmer set-up a 50/50 royalty agreement for a product using my content. Various schools pay me a set amount each semester per student enrolling in courses using my content. Google uses my content to attract views for its advertising and then pays me a portion of the advertising fee.
You are welcome to present to me a value proposition a little less one-sided than:
1. non-Deaf programmer gets free access to 30-years of effort
2. Deaf content creator gets to give away 30-years of effort
Sincerely,
Bill
___________________________________________
William G. Vicars, Ed.D., (a.k.a. "Dr. Bill" of ASL University) is a former full-time, tenured, full-professor, and researcher at a Sacramento State University where he was coordinator of the American Sign Language and Deaf Studies bachelor degree program. He is Deaf. He holds an earned doctorate in Deaf Studies / Deaf Education from Lamar University in Texas, and has over 30 years of experience instructing and providing workshops in a wide variety of settings including internationally (Singapore, Guyana, etc.). His YouTube channel, https://YouTube.com/@sign-language has over 400,000 subscribers. He is the director of Lifeprint.com -- one of the world's most popular web destinations for learning about sign language and Deaf people. He is married to Deaf culture pundit Bee Vicars, MFA.
Questions and Answers:
Question:
What about SLAIT? Are you alluding to them in your "template" email?
Answer:
Actually the founders involved with SLAIT extended to me a significant amount of ownership in the company.
SLAIT was not asking for something for free -- they provided joint ownership and a share in the potential future profits of the company. I chose not to proceed because serving on the corporate board of a start-up is time-intensive and doesn't involve much actual content creation. I have only positive things to say about how SLAIT treated me as an individual and as a content creator.
Notes:
I’m more passionate about content creation and teaching than in “running a company” (the differences in daily activities are obviously wildly dissimilar) I declined to become heavily involved with “the endeavor.” The technologists then asked me to instead become an officer in the company so that they might benefit from what I could bring to the table (name recognition, community connection, actual expertise in the target language, etc.). Eventually I agreed to be involved on a part-time basis only (due to being busy with my existing projects) and the role of “__________” was created for me.
At that time I shared my opinion (which is increasingly becoming an observation) that eventually gesture recognition would become so ubiquitous that eventually school children would be creating apps using freely available tools such as Mediapipe Holistic, etc. and that in the not-too-distant future certain large companies will bring free, or very, very, low-cost ASL recognition functionality to the public.
Prior to and since this time other companies, groups, and/or individuals had contacted me seeking advice and consultation. (It is an ongoing thing.)
Google (Alphabet), Meta, and others have had me sign non-disclosure agreements. Like the other companies I’ve had the pleasure of consulting with -- the Hearing technologists had me sign non-disclosure type documents.
Eventually my local projects and interests precluded being on the board of a startup and spending my time in meetings with potential funding sources. Teaching ASL and raising money are two different endeavors. I discussed it with the technologists and we amicably agreed that I would transition out of the board and simply remain a friendly consumer advocate for input on occasion if they have Deaf or ASL – related questions.
Typical "reach out" letter from Hearing programmer students:
Dear Dr. Bill,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is █████, and I am a final year student at ███████ University in █████. I recently came across your work on ASL University and I must say that I am truly impressed with the exceptional contribution you have made in the field of ASL sign language education.
I am currently working on a project with my colleagues that involves developing an AI software application for young children who are learning ASL sign language. Our software accepts video input and processes it to return the translation as text output. The model is designed to support alphabets, numbers, and basic phrases for translation.
As we move forward with our project, we have come to realize that incorporating a comprehensive and diverse database of ASL sign language gestures would greatly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of our AI. That is why we are reaching out to you today, in the hope that you could provide us with access to your database to train our AI model.
We would be honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with you and incorporate your database into our project. Additionally, once our software is complete, we would be delighted if you would try it out and provide us with your valuable feedback.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and we look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Best regards,
██████████
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