Deaf Groupies???

:wave:BecLak, I do like your STEP idea! So hectic here, if I missed telling you, I'm sorry:aw:
and also the Deaf Groupies thing <see, not Off Topic> ....I admit when I was in college, the first year or so I stared at people signing. I knew a little about things relating to sign language and I was very intrigued. Still, it was the wrong thing to do. I was ignorant.

Learning another language to convert people rubs me the wrong way. As a Jew I feel very uncomfortable with that. Now if someone happens to be XYZreligion learns another language out of general interest and then uses that to discuss their religion with another person that asked about it, who also knows that specific language, for me that's between them.

re: faith healing/people at the door for converts....
ME at door <which seriously has sign "no soliciting"> with dogs behind me: hello

Very Religious Person hesitating at door: hello I'd like to share XYZ brochure/pamphlet/words with you about the One True Way to Salvation.....

ME: I'm Jewish. And I'm a witch. And I go to UU Church sometimes. Do you know of them?

Very Religious Person fleeing doorway.....


<no Very Religious People were harmed in the making of this story>
 
dogmom said:
:wave:BecLak, I do like your STEP idea! So hectic here, if I missed telling you, I'm sorry:aw:
and also the Deaf Groupies thing <see, not Off Topic> ....I admit when I was in college, the first year or so I stared at people signing. I knew a little about things relating to sign language and I was very intrigued. Still, it was the wrong thing to do. I was ignorant.

Learning another language to convert people rubs me the wrong way. As a Jew I feel very uncomfortable with that. Now if someone happens to be XYZreligion learns another language out of general interest and then uses that to discuss their religion with another person that asked about it, who also knows that specific language, for me that's between them.

re: faith healing/people at the door for converts....
ME at door <which seriously has sign "no soliciting"> with dogs behind me: hello

Very Religious Person hesitating at door: hello I'd like to share XYZ brochure/pamphlet/words with you about the One True Way to Salvation.....

ME: I'm Jewish. And I'm a witch. And I go to UU Church sometimes. Do you know of them?

Very Religious Person fleeing doorway.....


<no Very Religious People were harmed in the making of this story>
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You have no idea how many times I have spent the Mormons scurrying from my doorstep by saying, "I'm Jewish.":giggle:
 
jillio said:
You have no idea how many times I have spent the Mormons scurrying from my doorstep by saying, "I'm Jewish.":giggle:
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You ought to see their faces when I tell them that I am a cross between Episcopalian and Pentecostal. They scratch their heads and walk away muttering about "How is that possible?"

I was raised Episcopalian and married into the Church of God. They are more non-denominational, but are also slightly Pentecostal. Not sure what my current Deaf church is, but I consider myself a well rounded Christian. Father was Catholic, mother was Disciples of Christ, Uncle is Quaker, another Uncle is Lutheran, and yet another is Methodist.
 
You should tell them about one of my friends, who is a Mormon, who married another of my friends, who is a Roman Catholic. :)
 
JoeDawg said:
I've never experienced this is real life only since I've been here on this message board but it appears as if there is a subculture of, for lack of a better term, deaf groupies. Have any of you ever met people like this in real life? What is their motivation for immersing themselves into deaf culture, attempting to learn ASL and generally seeking out deaf/HOH individuals to interact with? Does anyone else find it a tad creepy at times?[/QUOTE]

VERY...:eek3: I'm all for a hearing person wanting to get to know me and actually caring about how they communicate with me but I have met the sadistic type around the dating circles and these kinds of people "men" not all men just a select few seem to get off on being with someone they feel is helpless and being the persons " savior ". They tend to be controlling if not they just get off on it. An ex-bf was actually this way and he'd enjoy sneaking up on me when my hearing aids were off. He got some creepy satisfaction from it and was always trying to talk to for me and was just in general possesive. I broke up with him after dating for 5 months. Other people just think they can take advantage of you for the simple fact you cannot hear. So as a result of this I'm just rather leery of a hearing person who just immediatly wants to be "best buds" after learning I'm Deaf. The ones that are lukewarm towards me and take time to warm up...I trust more.
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Well my father was raised Methodist. My mother was raised Assembly of God. Neither are religious. They never discussed religion while I was being raised.

I cam out as a Southern Baptist. Don't ask how I got here from there. I think 'grace' just sums it up.
 
I'm learning ASL because I work in an ER and there's a decent sized Deaf community in Pittsburgh. It's kind of a pain to have a trauma come in and we have to wait a half hour for an interpreter to come in, and that's happened a couple times that I know of. It made sense for me to expand on my already established base of ASL so that I could communicate with my patients. Then I discovered that I liked the language, it was fun, and I wanted to study it more.

It's just like someone who decides to study french, you can only learn so much from books, if you run into a native french speaker, you don't think you're going to be a little chatty, take the practice from a live person when it's offered?
I'm personally a little annoyed to have to justify my reason for wanting to learn another language, like I need permission to do so or something....
 
Julietta said:
I'm learning ASL because I work in an ER and there's a decent sized Deaf community in Pittsburgh. It's kind of a pain to have a trauma come in and we have to wait a half hour for an interpreter to come in, and that's happened a couple times that I know of. It made sense for me to expand on my already established base of ASL so that I could communicate with my patients. Then I discovered that I liked the language, it was fun, and I wanted to study it more.

It's just like someone who decides to study french, you can only learn so much from books, if you run into a native french speaker, you don't think you're going to be a little chatty, take the practice from a live person when it's offered?
I'm personally a little annoyed to have to justify my reason for wanting to learn another language, like I need permission to do so or something....
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Justify to whom?
 
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general gist of the convo here, and it's entirely possible that I am, but it seems like non-native ASL users/hearing people are being grouped together like we're all just learning ASL as a passing fad or because it seems like the 'cool thing' to do, to communicate w/ people in the Deaf community. Feels like I have to justify my reason for learning to the community here.
 
Wirelessly posted

KristinaB said:
jillio said:
You have no idea how many times I have spent the Mormons scurrying from my doorstep by saying, "I'm Jewish.":giggle:
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You ought to see their faces when I tell them that I am a cross between Episcopalian and Pentecostal. They scratch their heads and walk away muttering about "How is that possible?"

I was raised Episcopalian and married into the Church of God. They are more non-denominational, but are also slightly Pentecostal. Not sure what my current Deaf church is, but I consider myself a well rounded Christian. Father was Catholic, mother was Disciples of Christ, Uncle is Quaker, another Uncle is Lutheran, and yet another is Methodist.
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That's telling them Kristina. I am definitely not for the practice of door to door. Dogmom - so glad you like STEP. :ty: for taking the time to let me know.
 
Lee is Pastafarian and I'm Pagan, we live across the raod from a Baptist Church and have many friends from there... our apartment is very diverse to the point where they stopped knocking.
 
Julietta said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general gist of the convo here, and it's entirely possible that I am, but it seems like non-native ASL users/hearing people are being grouped together like we're all just learning ASL as a passing fad or because it seems like the 'cool thing' to do, to communicate w/ people in the Deaf community. Feels like I have to justify my reason for learning to the community here.
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Spanish people would probably be interested in why you wanted to learn Spanish, too; or French people their language. Try not to be so defensive.
 
jillio said:
Spanish people would probably be interested in why you wanted to learn Spanish, too; or French people their language. Try not to be so defensive.
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I do tend to jump to the defense. Sry, just seemed like everyone was jumping on the 'those damn hearies are all just posers!!' bandwagon.
 
Julietta said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general gist of the convo here, and it's entirely possible that I am, but it seems like non-native ASL users/hearing people are being grouped together like we're all just learning ASL as a passing fad or because it seems like the 'cool thing' to do, to communicate w/ people in the Deaf community. Feels like I have to justify my reason for learning to the community here.
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This convo is focusing on that subgroup of "non-native ASL users/hearing people" who happen to have learned it as a passing fad, not about thinking all of those people are like that. :D As far as you justifying your reason for learning ASL, I believe (I could be wrong and it could just be me :giggle:) it is a part of Deaf Culture to ask (among a lot of other questions "prying" into a person's background :giggle:) when a person started learning ASL, where they learned, who their teacher was, why they learned, etc. It is when we learn that a person learned ASL as it was a fad/phase for them that we :roll:.

Julietta said:
I do tend to jump to the defense. Sry, just seemed like everyone was jumping on the 'those damn hearies are all just posers!!' bandwagon.
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Don't feel bad. I, for one, encourage everyone I know/interact with (family, friends, coworkers, doctors, other regulars) to learn ASL to be able to communicate with me. When people are willing to put in at least a little work/effort/commitment, then I am more willing to do the work of "hearing" and lipreading, etc. Not many people realize how much work that is for me and therefore understand that I end up withdrawing and "give up" on trying to communicate with them even though I want to communicate with them.
 
Wirelessly posted (droid)

The defensiveness may come from not understanding Deaf culture. Deaf people always ask about your connection to the Deaf community. The are trying to figure out how you fit into the Deaf community. It's not an inquisition. In Deaf culture, people ask very direct personal questions that would not be acceptable in hearing culture. This makes some hearing people really uncomfortable. After you hang around with Deaf people, you'll realize that Deaf culture is just different.
 
sallylou said:
Wirelessly posted (droid)

The defensiveness may come from not understanding Deaf culture. Deaf people always ask about your connection to the Deaf community. The are trying to figure out how you fit into the Deaf community. It's not an inquisition. In Deaf culture, people ask very direct personal questions that would not be acceptable in hearing culture. This makes some hearing people really uncomfortable. After you hang around with Deaf people, you'll realize that Deaf culture is just different.
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In short, it's culture shock.
 
Julietta said:
I'm learning ASL because I work in an ER and there's a decent sized Deaf community in Pittsburgh. It's kind of a pain to have a trauma come in and we have to wait a half hour for an interpreter to come in, and that's happened a couple times that I know of. It made sense for me to expand on my already established base of ASL so that I could communicate with my patients. Then I discovered that I liked the language, it was fun, and I wanted to study it more.

It's just like someone who decides to study french, you can only learn so much from books, if you run into a native french speaker, you don't think you're going to be a little chatty, take the practice from a live person when it's offered?
I'm personally a little annoyed to have to justify my reason for wanting to learn another language, like I need permission to do so or something....
Click to expand...

Exactly! You said what I was thinking. People learn ASL (or any other language) for a myriad of different reasons. If someone is learning French, people who are native speakers don't gather in a cluster all suspicious about why that person is trying to learn THEIR language.

I kind of don't get it. I thought the Deaf community wanted hearing people to be able to sign, as it is far easier for a hearie to learn sign than a deafie to learn to speak- But from this thread, it seems like you guys don't want us to learn ASL? What is that about?

I'm learning ASL because it is a beautiful language, because I am a visual learner and ASL seemed the natural choice, and because I live by a deaf person I like quite well, and am tired of having text conversations with her instead of sign. If I meet a deaf person out in the community, yes I will sign to them- its exciting to be able to! Having a diverse pool of friends does not make one a "groupie."

As for the Mormons, don't take it personally- they try to convert everyone-deaf and hearing alike. When you believe something with all your heart its only natural to try to "help" others believe the same.
 
Ahhh.... I see now...

The only deaf people I've had contact with were patients or my teachers at the WPSD, and they were pretty gentle with easing us into Deaf culture apparently! :lol: I'd heard that people in the Deaf community were much more direct than others, but I guess it caught me off guard :)
 
SigninTwrdXtacy,

Please read the bold I included in your post.

SigninTwrdXtacy said:
Exactly! You said what I was thinking. People learn ASL (or any other language) for a myriad of different reasons. If someone is learning French, people who are native speakers don't gather in a cluster all suspicious about why that person is trying to learn THEIR language.

I kind of don't get it. I thought the Deaf community wanted hearing people to be able to sign, as it is far easier for a hearie to learn sign than a deafie to learn to speak- But from this thread, it seems like you guys don't want us to learn ASL? What is that about?

Like I've mentioned before I always encourage everyone I meet to learn ASL :ty: and I believe a majority of ASL users do want more people to learn the language and culture. I don't think that native signers as a whole are suspicious of non-native's motives, but then I don't think anyone would appreciate learning that someone might be taking their prized culture and language and treating it like a fad or using it to manipulate them (which does come up from time to time). Also, when a few people try to make us feel like a superstar, hero, or a person who overcame all obstacles when we are just everyday people who happen to be deaf, that can make us feel awkward and uncomfortable.

I have found in my experience with Deaf Culture that when meeting someone new (even a native-user meeting a stranger who is also a native-user) both sides provides A LOT of information about themselves to find and relate common or differing interests/experiences and form connections (which includes the who, what, where, when, WHY, and how one learned the language). If you provide short, terse answers (which is not uncommon in hearing culture), then the Deaf culture person will typically ask what may seem like an unending line of questions while looking for more connections with you (someone not used to that can easily feel intimidated, so I understand how that may look).

I'm learning ASL because it is a beautiful language, because I am a visual learner and ASL seemed the natural choice, and because I live by a deaf person I like quite well, and am tired of having text conversations with her instead of sign. If I meet a deaf person out in the community, yes I will sign to them- its exciting to be able to! Having a diverse pool of friends does not make one a "groupie."

Go, go, go. Learn, learn, learn. :D Yes, it is such a beautiful language. If I had just met you and learned that about you, I would feel that you were an amazing person (ok, I did just sort of meet you online :wave: and I do think of you as an amazing person). Just because we would like more people to learn, doesn't mean many do, so it's nice to hear when someone does.
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