The Oppression Game

Speaking in a vlog along with embedded subtitles does not oppress deaf people any more than movies, news or tv shows that carry captions or subtitles oppress deaf people. They don't. Some are claiming on what I do in my vlogs by speaking and adding subtitles oppress Deaf people which goes against the grain of common logic here. But to use that logic then their cries of demands that movies and tv shows be captioned/subtitled are actually oppresssing themselves? It'd be ludicrous to even think that. Either you are in favor of videos (i.e. talking roles) that carry caption/subtitle for the audience with hearing loss or you do not. It'd be a safe bet that most deaf and hard of hearing people are in favor of seeing more captioning on tv shows, movies, news and such.

So, there's nothing ironic about the preference to speak in a vlog if a person knows ASL who happens to have a hearing loss. As long as subtitles in talking vlogs are met then people shouldn't complain about accessibility communication issues. Otherwise if they do complain then I find it to be highly ironic because they should also complain about tv shows and movies having captions or subtitles as well! As for someone stating that I *claim* to know ASL, it's not a claim but a fact. There's at least one video of me signing last year when someone asked me a question in ASL, and I responded. But as for making personal vlogs, I prefer to speak. Nothing oppressive about that at all. None. Just the fact that some people do not like to have their sensibilities challenged with that idea.

Now, the crux of my argument in my recent blogs/vlogs about adding subtitles to ASL vlogs has always been that if a person has the means to do it (ie. knows English very well and can do the ASL to English conversion without much problems - like Seek Geo or Phil Bravin's subtitled ASL vlog where Phil Bravin is a very well known figure in the Deaf community because of DPN - - ), has access to a subtitling software and the time to do it but ultimately refuse to do it on the grounds of "ASL purity." Even after realizing the Deaf-Blind issue on the subject of communication access and need to feel inclusive, then I'd find the whole thing quite ironic seeing that these are the same people who also demanded that all tv shows and movies ought to be captioned.

What I've discussed was not about that all vloggers ought to have their vlogs subtitled but about those who already know how and can do the subtitling easily that simply begs the question. But then people try and counter that argument by using their own blog argument saying that by the simple act of blogging people are also denying access to those with vision problems. Not really because there are multitudes of software out there, some available for free, that come with the ability magnify texts and such to make a blog or website's texts readable. Even the Microsoft Explorer browser that you have right now comes with a built in magnifier program. It also has the ability to change text size in your browser by clicking on the "View" tab and then click on "Text size" and you have your choice of "smallest" to "largest" text size to choose from. So using the blog argument pretty much falls flat in this case.

Speaking about vlogs there is an interesting poll result I'd like to share with you. So far in my latest poll result some 70% out of 105 who responded to my poll question would like to see subtitles in ASL vlogs.

Granted, ASL vloggers have their right to decide whether they want to add subtitles, a transcript or even a summary with their vlogs. Though I never made the personal statement in my blogs or vlogs that Deaf people oppress other Deaf people. In actuality, I asked it in the form of a question to the readers in one of my blog update, "Is this a case of some Deaf vloggers oppressing Deaf-Blind by refusing to add subtitles?" as seen in my update. It was a conditional statement of mine, not an outright one.

Again, as for my speaking, I choose to speak in my vlogs. Accept that. Move on. Stop with the crying game. I'm happy with my choice and certainly my voice isn't a deaf one for those who actually believe that's the case. But in the case that you do have a problem with my choice then learn not to get into using puerile remarks. Instead, I'd rather see that issues discussed and not see juvenile remarks.