Polite behavior to the Deaf?

No, not at all! I was merely clarifying what I had said because I felt like some of my words had been taken to be offensive, and that's definitely the last thing I want (considering the nature of the thread). I was simply being honest with how I felt and thought by explaining my own motives a little further it would help clear up some of the miscommunication of intent I felt had occurred.

It's true that telling us what is acceptable behavior (because we really can't relate at all, we're not deaf, so sometimes we have to rely on other ways in which we may be minorities to understand but they're not always accurate; for example I'm a triple minority on certain counts but I would never imagine that my experiences are comparable to what a deaf person may face). I'm also sorry to you if you felt that I was bashing the tone of some of the posts. It's merely that when I read the responses I noticed that people had taken a note of offence to my words and I felt that I needed to clarify so they wouldn't have those feelings - that I'm really trying to learn as much as I can and I'm still very new at this.
 
whitestages said:
thanks everybody! I really do appreciate your insights on the matter. I also detect a bit of hostility in a few of these posts - honestly it was no intention of mine to be rude and I do acknowledge that as a hearing person I cannot have a genuine idea of what it's like to be deaf. That's why I created this thread - so I could be more polite and gain more understanding. Also, there might have been a bit of miscommunication on two parts:

1. Where I said "language" I should have said "linguistics" - I didn't realize until after posting that it sounded as if I insinuated that ASL was a sort of code. That's totally on me.
2. I'm a speech teacher to little children and when I tell them to "kick up their vocals," I actually mean for them to enunciate better and use stronger lip movements (children tend to mumble :) it's a friendly reminder). I guess that got misconstrued for shouting. I would never shout at somebody who's deaf and I find it incredibly appalling that people actually do that.

It kind of hurts that some of the posters seemed to think I was being aggravating but really I'm very new to this community and I'm trying to do what I can. I also understand that not every deaf person is the same so I wanted to see how people personally preferred some things as a gauge for what to expect (and as we can see, tapping on the shoulder isn't as rude to some people as it is to others). It would have been foolish for me to adopt one standard as if the Deaf community consisted of one mindset so I really wanted to hear what people had to say rather than some antiquated guidebook. This goes for the "what would you want" issue - personally I like it when people tap me on the shoulder actually but I also realize that my feelings do not belong with everybody else and it would be foolish of me to extrapolate that.

So once again thank you to the people who did reply with useful, precise tips - I'll remember it! :) and I hope any hearies that are new to learning about deaf culture find this thread too and post their own questions on this issue. I find that creating a helpful environment where people within the community help people outside understand what to do out of kindness is infinitely more useful than listing everything we do wrong.
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Wow! What is up with these hearing people seeing hostility at every turn? I didn't see a bit of hostility in these replies.
 
jillio said:
Wow! What is up with these hearing people seeing hostility at every turn? I didn't see a bit of hostility in these replies.
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I agree, we're being very up front about this , I guess some hearing people can't deal with that! I guess they think we keep things to our self and are too shy to speak our minds.
 
:dunno:
jillio said:
Wow! What is up with these hearing people seeing hostility at every turn? I didn't see a bit of hostility in these replies.
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I wondered that too. Several have done this recently when nobody even said anything remotely hostile.

Except me, and the OP missed my sarcasm. :dunno:
 
Bottesini said:
:dunno:

I wondered that too. Several have done this recently when nobody even said anything remotely hostile.

Except me, and the OP missed my sarcasm. :dunno:
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I know. It's a pattern: ask a question about a D/deaf topic, get a few answers; accuse people of being hostile, and then log off.:giggle:

I saw that go right over the OP's head.

In reality, it appears that the hostility is coming from those making the accusations.
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I agree, we're being very up front about this , I guess some hearing people can't deal with that! I guess they think we keep things to our self and are too shy to speak our minds.
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More than that, I think they expect to come in here and be met with undying gratitude for taking an interest in the poor deafies. When that isn't what they get, they can't handle it and start seeing hostility and attacks where there are none.
 
I didn't pick up any hostility in the responses, either. :dunno:
 
And something else, while I'm at it. What is up with all this "I am so interested in ASL" we keep running into? ASL doesn't exist without the people who use the language. Shouldn't they be more interested in the real people behind the language, than just in the language they will never have an opportunity to use without the people behind it? You certainly can't learn a lot of ASL on a forum that communicates in print.:dunno2: If the main interest is ASL, they need to be in an ASL class and a linguistics class.
 
Wirelessly posted

jillio said:
And something else, while I'm at it. What is up with all this "I am so interested in ASL" we keep running into? ASL doesn't exist without the people who use the language. Shouldn't they be more interested in the real people behind the language, than just in the language they will never have an opportunity to use without the people behind it? You certainly can't learn a lot of ASL on a forum that communicates in print.:dunno2: If the main interest is ASL, they need to be in an ASL class and a linguistics class.
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Maybe SAB has sparked this sudden interest I don't know - however like you say Sign language is only a part. These people want the icing but not the cake. Shame that.
 
I wondered this too jillio. I don't get why it's so "fascinating" that we communicate in the only way we can. Nobody seems to find people speaking Farsi that fascinating.
 
sunny_signs said:
I wondered this too jillio. I don't get why it's so "fascinating" that we communicate in the only way we can. Nobody seems to find people speaking Farsi that fascinating.
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:laugh2: aside from the 40 million Farsi speakers out there.
 
But I bet they don't find it fascinating enough to go butt in on people's conversations just because they're speaking Farsi or stare at them while they speak it.
 
jillio said:
More than that, I think they expect to come in here and be met with undying gratitude for taking an interest in the poor deafies. When that isn't what they get, they can't handle it and start seeing hostility and attacks where there are none.
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I think you're right .. If the OP is really serious about learning about how to behave around deaf people they would had use this as a learning experience on what not to say or do.
 
I've been perplexed by the students in ASL classes that have no interest in conversing with deaf people. When I ask why someone is taking ASL, the usual answer is that he thinks that it will be useful. Useful for what, if you never converse with people who use it?
 
I saw no hostility. Why accuse people of being hostile? What comments made you feel that way?

What I've heard about getting attention is that how you do it depends on the person and how well you know them, which is the same for hearing people. My ASL teacher (Deaf) had no issue with being touched to get her attention, nor to anyone tapping the table, waving their hands (not obnoxiously, but enough to grab her attention), and such. She did, however, hate it when one of my classmates used voice, which I can understand.
 
for one, thing, DONT EVER CALL US "THE DEAF you fucking moron, we're not the 'others' we are Real people, it is better to say Deaf people, and certainly not, 'people with hearing disability' - that is just as bad.
 
jillio said:
Morse Code isn't a languge. ASL is a language. Start with that.
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right, its called Morse Code, full stop. Principally, its application is for conveying messages with dots and dashs.
 
since ALL Deaf people know mores code (and braille), just walk up behind a deaf person and start tapping out your mores code message. This way they don't need to even bother with turning around and all. I can just imagine all the time I could save with this method. No more turning around and having a lengethy conversation. Just walk up, tap away, and be off! It's a Win-Win! :)

Note: this was supposed to be sarcastic.
 
Ouch! I actually posted a few things up here trying to explain my intent (but for some reason these posts never went up), as there's a lot of miscommunication that can occur when you're talking purely off print with no tone or facial expression to add context. I wasn't accusing everybody on here of being mean to me and then flouncing, it's just that I thought I detected a bit of aggravation and I was afraid I'd offended somebody when I didn't mean to. It was not my intent at all, so I apologize again for that! These things happen on line :) it's all cool.

I'm interested in ASL AND Deaf culture. I'm a public speaking teacher and we have a pretty substantial section on gestures, and as I was researching I came across lifeprint.com, which teaches ASL and fingerspelling. My wee little brother also wanted to learn about ASL and Deaf culture because there's an HOH girl at his church, so as a birthday present to both of us we began learning together. We're not taking any "formal" ASL class because there's not one around within reach (or expense). Any knowledge I have of the culture stems purely online.

So naturally, I will be quite ignorant about plenty of things! :) I'm just beginning the learning process and my goal is to become less ignorant day by day.
 
As for individual things, and I'm sorry if I don't get to each one:

1. I actually wrote "the Deaf culture" in the title, but I think I accidentally erased it! My fault. I feel "the" is pretty offensive too and I should have caught that one.
2. I wasn't expecting any undying gratitude at all. I know how it feels when somebody gets involved in your minority culture (who isn't part of it) and they expect you to be grateful about it. Not the best experience! :) So I apologize if I came off that way, Grummer!
3. I've got TONS of interest with conversing with Deaf people and practicing ASL, especially since I've never met anyone that I knew was Deaf (except for the girl at church, kind of).
4. My fault on the Morse Code. Please don't think it was me debasing ASL to code, it was actually me elevating Morse Code to language. I should have put "linguistically related things" there instead! :P
5. The reason I asked for everybody's opinion instead of coming to these conclusions on my own is that I can't pretend my experiences, especially as a hearie, would correspond to what somebody deaf/HOH would prefer. For example - I get freaked out when somebody suddenly appears in sight, but I'm totally fine with somebody tapping me on the shoulder. The point is that I did want to hear from people that weren't hearies what they often preferred, and I would feel silly as somebody on the outside of this culture to impose my own personal beliefs on conduct. So thank you once again to the people who clarified! It's just that "What would YOU want" is pretty much lost on me due to the fact that I'm not part of Deaf culture.
6. This should have gone up earlier but English is not my first language, I am trilingual. So I am doing my best to choose words that wouldn't have a rude connotation, thank you for bearing with me! I'm really an easygoing person.
 
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