Yeah, you can use your imagination there. In one context, that sign can in fact mean "to appear," and in another it can mean, well, to
insert something.
Hey, remember that crazy story of a dangerous
attempted murderer getting on stage with President Obama because he pretended to be a sign language interpreter for Nelson Mandela's funeral? And how it turned out
it wasn't even the first time he'd done that? That happened because so few people know a damned thing about sign language that a crazy guy making random hand motions fooled the security details of
multiple nations' heads of state. And while that's just an oddball story to you, this is the kind of thing that can ruin a deaf person's life.
Let me give you a less hilarious example: I have a friend whose sister is deaf. She was in the hospital for a simple operation, and the sign language interpreter, like many, wasn't qualified to be doing it and accidentally told her the doctor had botched the surgery. When my friend arrived, her sister was tearfully saying her goodbyes. And if you're wondering how you could accidentally convey something so radically incorrect, see the "tampon" situation above.
Translators now have a
national registry and a
professional code of conduct, but,
obviously, progress is slow. Many organizations don't have things like "ASL tested" or "vaguely qualified" people, and that can lead to screw-ups in pretty important places. Like courtrooms. Cases have been thrown out after the judgment when the tiniest amount of digging revealed that the
interpreter wasn't qualified and botched the interpretation. Imagine if the lunatic from Mandela's funeral wound up
translating your testimony at trial. And even when the interpreter knows what he's doing, legal interpreting is complicated as hell -- something like the Miranda rights can take up to 20 minutes to get across. The potential for disaster there is huge.
All of this means that ...
Misunderstandings Are Constant, and Baffling
In general, people don't understand much about deaf people (we use
the capital D to refer to the culture). I've had to interpret before in situations where a person blatantly asked me to fill out forms or answer questions about the deaf person, as if he or she was a child or mentally challenged. "They can't hear, so clearly they need a legal guardian to handle life for them, even though they're
middle-aged adults." It's kind of like the assumption a lot of people make that foreigners who don't speak their language must be "dumb," even if the person happens to be in that foreigner's home country, shouting at them in English. There's just something about the human brain that makes us look down on anyone who can't say words in a way we like to hear them.
I've found that the whole concept of deafness just blows people's freaking minds. I've been asked several times how long it took me to learn Braille. I also frequently get asked if deaf people can drive. Yes, of course they can, and why wouldn't they? "Well, they can't hear what's going on. That's dangerous, right? What if there's an ambulance behind them?" To which my reply is, have you ever turned the radio up in your car? No? Well, congratulations on being a
liar, but those of us in the real world spend a significant part of the commute with our eardrums otherwise occupied.
"Can you have children?" is another one deaf people get, along with the follow-up question, "Aren't you afraid your children will be deaf?" If they already have children, the question becomes, "Aren't you sad you'll never hear your child's voice?" None of these are valid questions, because
of course deaf people can have children, will be perfectly happy if their children are deaf, and don't hear anything, so not hearing their child's voice doesn't really bum them out. Seeing their child make their first sign is plenty.
Even weirder, they'll often be told, "You don't look deaf," or the even more baffling variation, "You're not really deaf -- you have selective hearing" (and yes, the accusation of not "really" being deaf happens more often than you'd think).
But there are less obvious things you need to be prepared for when dealing with deaf people, like all of the touching. In deaf culture, it's normal to touch someone to get their attention. Not inappropriately, mind you; we're talking "tap on the shoulder," rather than "straight-up groping." But once, while interpreting for a slightly more formal event, a deaf client touched a woman's shoulder so he could discuss something with her. She was startled and flipped out, because in polite society we don't run around grabbing each other. I had to step out of my role for a moment and explain that this wasn't a precursor to an assault.
But even in a situation where everyone involved knows sign language, we're nowhere close to being out of the woods. That's because ...
Continue Reading Below
http://www.cracked.com/personal-exp...-as-deaf-person-weirder-than-you-thought.html
