A recent news of a deaf boy who was bullied and mocked on a school bus only because he was different and wore hearing aids. It got so bad when kids grabbed his two expensive hearing aids and threw them out of the bus window. The deaf boy explained using his clear and articulate voice on what happened and you can tell he was upset by it all. This reminded me of an incident when I was a sophmore in high school during lunch in the school cafeteria. One hearing guy at the cafeteria table mocked me by putting up an empty paper cup (for ketchup) on his ear as if it were a hearing aid. A fake hearing aid. I wrote that one off as purely a case of immaturity and lack of education. What he did would be construed as a sort of bullying when done in such a mocking manner.
That incident also reminded me of the coda brothers, who are hearing, when they mocked cochlear implant wearers on camera by wearing fake cochlear implants. There was also another video example with one of the coda brothers who mocked by pretending to be an oral deaf person by making exaggerated lips and mouth movements, and talking loudly thus painting a false stereotype of deaf people who prefer to talk or can speak. There are deaf and hard of hearing people who talk just fine (for example, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). They may look different, they may speak differently, but so what? Why the need to mock and bully deaf people for who they are?
Watch the video below and turn on the CC button to get the captioning on the main YouTube page by clicking on the YouTube icon first.
Now, you wouldn't like it if hearing people go around on videos and mock deaf people by doing a bunch of fake signing, would you?
I hope that deaf boy's mother will get her money back for buying those expensive hearing aids and there'd be some justice in all this.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
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8 comments:
i wondered about the reasoning behind a hearing person to mock and make fun of deaf people who speak differently, wear Ci or ha. Seems rather immature.
What CODA Brothers did is not mocking. It's common for CODAs to do that and is not the same as what the little boy and you (and many of us) have experienced. With CODAs, it is not done with malicious intent and it's done with good intent.
Candy,
I'd have to disagree on that to a certain extent. I didn't say anything on the level of malicious intent. What they have done was to create a stereotype that deaf people who can or prefer to speak behave and speak that way. And by extension, those who went via the AG Bell way talk and behave like that. They can try and disguise that in the form of a comedy but they have purposely created a stereotype. I'd say it is a form of mocking by stereotyping an oral deaf person.
It certainly was mocking and cruel. It does not matter what disability someone has. No one should mock. Its cruel. But unfortunately it still happens. I take it that they are immature when mocking someone. Especially when teenagers do it.
I remember when I was at school, going home I seen kids in front of me, mock an elderly woman I knew on how she walked. She's a lovely woman, but because she walked and spoke differently, did not mean she deserved it. No one deserves it.
*D*eaf here...
Jay Leno or David Letterman mock at political people.
CODA Brothers mock at those people you mentioned.
Both are different?
I don't think so!
It was pure unintentional and not malicious intent.
No dice. What they did was create a stereotype, and at the same time used that as a stage to generally mock how some deaf people communicate using a compare and contrast scenario.
I hope I made the cut before you close comments.
Many CODAs will object to what you're accusing them of.
And, it's not stereotyping. I asked my daughter what she thought about your article. She said, CODAS have this LOVE for deaf people (at least most do) and they're not making fun, rather they do it out of love. It's humor and nothing more. But, if you disagree, what's a person to do? ;)
Candy, I disagree. It is stereotyping. The exaggerated mouth movements, voicing, talking loudly, the certain awkwardness, etc. all the while wearing the AGBell t-shirt even though they say it "doesn't matter" if they can sign or not in the end. They can justify whatever they want but the bottom line is that they just stereotyped oral deaf/hh people on how they speak and behave.
Let's change the picture a bit. I say it doesn't matter how you communicate but suppose I do a comedy between an oral deaf/hh person who speaks perfectly fine that comes with caption says he accepts the other deaf person next to him who signs fluently in ASL but mumbles, speaks squeekly and noisely in a garbled tone, and stutters in the attempt to speak. I wonder how many Deaf people would go up in arms decrying that what I did was stereotyping and that I was mocking how some Deaf people speak? But, no, I made it clear in the beginning that it doesn't matter if one can or cannot speak, or signs or not.
Two can play that game but I know better.
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