Naomi Smart
@NaomiDoesWords
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Deaf awareness activist immortalising my passing thoughts. Sociolinguist looking at voluntary arts (dance focus). PhD student at KCL. 🏳️🌈 she/her
London, England
Joined September 2019
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Deaf people succeeding in life isn’t inspirational it’s literally just what happens if you give them a fair chance and accessibility.
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Today my partner was refused entry into an urgent care consulting room with me. He is not an interpreter, nor do I use one, but he IS able to hear vital medical information that I often miss. Too often this facet of accessibility goes missing in medical settings.
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Language deprivation in deaf children is a human rights issue and I can’t believe I have to argue with some people about that.
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Can’t count the number of times I’ve requested captions and been told ‘it’s too big an ask’. You know what else is a big ask? Expecting deaf people to hear.
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‘You make everything about being deaf’ lol yes I’m deaf - everything in my life is filtered through that experience.
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Hearing Person: I’m learning sign so I can help the poor deaf people!
Deaf Community: hey! It’s great that you’re learning to sign but also there’s a hearing saviour complex that you need to break down before you interact :) we don’t need you to speak for us!
Hearing Person:
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It isn’t that you ‘don’t need to provide captions because you have no deaf viewers’ - you have no deaf viewers because you don’t provide captions.
Don’t get it the wrong way round in your discussions.
#Deaf
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Teachers who say they ‘don’t treat deaf students any differently’…you should. They should be present in your planning, you should be ensuring that their experience is the same as other students, you should be sending slides in advance, you should ask if there’s more you can do.
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'It'd be better if there was one universal sign language' is one of the most frustrating comments. Why do sign languages not deserve the same rich variety as spoken languages? Why is it so hard to comprehend different SLs across countries, yet not different spoken languages?
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Very upsetting to see people criticising Tasha for her decision to sign. Deaf people are entitled to communicate however they want and feel comfortable, and that doesn’t always need to be one way or another. If it bothers you that you can’t understand, learn BSL 👍🏻
#GBBO
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Even if I didn’t miss anything, the reassurance of being able to ask a trusted person if I heard and understood everything correctly is immense, particularly in a medical context where that information can have massive significance. More awareness around this is needed.
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Recently read a thread in which linguists debated how inhumane it would be to force children into language deprivation…meanwhile massive numbers of deaf children are raised in severe language deprivation constantly. It isn’t a ‘what if’ topic. It’s happening.
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Didn’t want this year to end on an audist note, but here we go. Hospital technician spotted my lip reader badge, then proceeded to mock me by smacking his lips together behind his mask and asking ‘can you read this?!’ repeatedly, laughing at me.
@ImperialNHS
disgusting behaviour.
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Normalise not only captioning, but factoring captioning time into your editing process. ‘Captioning takes too long, I don’t have time for that’ is the most inconsiderate comment, and yet I hear it constantly (ha, hear).
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Please stop comparing disabilities as if it’s a game. So fed up of being reduced to questions like ‘would you rather be deaf or blind?’
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People that want to rename the deaf community the ‘signing community’ overlook and erase the many who never learnt sign langs, who were forced to pass as hearing, who were told they should assimilate and so don’t have any fluent sign language(s). We’re still here.
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Dispel the ‘deafness = silence’ blanket myth. This generalising inaccuracy lays a foundation for people to accuse me of ‘lying about being deaf’ because I happened to hear somebody whisper my name once (in a quiet place with no other distractions, usually).
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Having somebody get mad or even physical because I didn’t hear them say ‘excuse me’ is one of the scariest experiences. Please consider that if somebody didn’t hear you, perhaps they’re deaf.
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@KyleSmells
The ‘mean girls’ gang at my school also gave their Gs and Ys squared off tails too? Just my school?
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I recently met somebody irl for the first time and they said ‘I thought you’d be actually deaf’. Let me reiterate: if you’re deaf, to any degree, you are deaf, and valid in that identity. Deafness is not an ‘all or nothing’ dichotomy - don’t let anybody invalidate you.
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Some people are significantly easier to lipread than others and I’m not sure hearing people are aware of that. That’s why I may be okay lipreading in meeting A but not meeting B. Being met with suspicion and doubt because ‘you were fine earlier’ is not a fun time.
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Just learnt I got a distinction overall in my masters and could honestly cry. My deaf self found zoom lectures so exhausting and having something so positive come out of it all has absolutely made my month
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‘We should make one universal sign language and get rid of all the individual ones’ really isn’t the hot take you think it is.
…It also really isn’t how language works.
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Being deaf really isn’t this horrendous tragedy to be pitied but we only ever see this hard-line medical model pushed by hearing individuals speaking ‘on our behalf’ and it skews perceptions massively. If you want to speak about deafness, invite deaf people.
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One of the most frustrating regular occurrences for me as a deaf person is the way that some service/retail staff just shut down and turn away or serve somebody else when I say I’m deaf. They make a decision that I’m not worth the effort and it’s deeply concerning & dehumanising.
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Sign languages are just as valid as any other language. It’s frustrating to continue having this conversation with so many other linguists - stop perpetuating the speech norm in your classes. When we create this divide, we ‘other’ sign languages, and that’s a big problem.
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Don’t say you love the deaf community and then take the jobs they’re best qualified for. Unemployment rates for deaf individuals are significantly higher than hearing people, and awareness, teaching, and deaf sector jobs are some of the only spaces that are positive for us.
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The number of deaf kids who get told off for ‘not listening’ at school astounds me.
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On a similar note, I will never understand the logic of highlighting my deafness and then doing nothing about it? Even to ask what might help would be nice?? Fed up of it.
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Truly cannot wrap my head around the way (some) hearing people will read a deaf person's experiences on deaf topics and still disagree. Imagine being so arrogant that you think you know somebody else's lived experiences better than they do.
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This deaf gal graduated from
@RADheadquarters
as a fully qualified ballet teacher today! Proud to be a deaf dance teacher 💕
#ProudToBeRAD
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Deaf people saying that auto captions are ‘better than nothing’ are part of the issue. People are using you as an excuse to not caption properly. Don’t settle for anything less that full access. You deserve better.
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As much as I value friends and family wanting to learn BSL after seeing amazing Rose, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth that I wasn’t enough of a reason beforehand?
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Hello. If your deaf and hard of hearing friends ask you to repeat something, please don’t say ‘never mind’ - it suggests we don’t get to know what’s going on and can be incredibly isolating.
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The ‘all deaf people are introverts’ myth is hilarious because
(a) not true, and
(b) if we seem introverted that’s because you’re not making a situation accessible.
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@hershey_jj
Exactly this. Many children are encouraged to be ‘oral’ and use spoken languages - they aren’t given access to sign languages and they cannot access spoken languages either. There’s also the fact that many deaf children are born to hearing families 1/2
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Passed my ballet teacher training!! Never thought dance teaching was an option for me but here I am - deaf people can do anything 🩰
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: claiming to love the deaf community and then taking the jobs we’re best qualified for is not it. The exact opposite of demonstrating love for the community. Unemployment rates are higher for us, let us do what we’re best at.
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Parents who refuse to learn sign for their deaf kids upset me so much. Don’t you want to communicate with your child? Don’t you want them to come to you with their worries and be able to fully unload those, and you understand? You’re pushing your own child away
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People will demand captions for sign language videos and not caption their own spoken content 🙃 the absolute nerve
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I often ‘deaf wave’ as a general attention-getter and have been told that hearing people find it rude. It’s natural to me bc it’s a good way to get MY attention. If I’ve ever offended you by doing this, consider your ideas of how to get attention...are they mainly audible? 1/3
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Being deaf is constantly being asked if you’ve seen Sound of Metal
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@NycIcarusOrg
100%. I was so taken aback at the time that I didn’t do much. I will take it further now that I’ve got home and got past my initial shock.
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Responding ‘haha I’m a bit deaf too sometimes!’ isn’t the inclusive and comforting comment you think it is
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Absolutely not. Hearing devices are not a magical ‘cure’ for deafness. Language deprivation is very real and sadly very prominent in the deaf community - all children NEED access to language, this is a requirement for development.
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If I’m tired or ill, my deafness becomes super prominent. The energy required for lipreading and concentrating is much harder to summon, and it’s important that hearing people are aware that every day may be different, and my deafness doesn’t manifest in the same way every day.
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People going out of their way to say anything BUT ‘deaf’ is hilarious to me. Just heard ‘person who does not hear typically’ 😂
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Today in ‘things I never realised were a deaf thing’:
Always sitting so I can see the door
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#Deaf
pals... how many of you were simply seated at the front of a classroom and it was assumed that any problems were then solved? 🙃
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When people who only know a little sign start ‘teaching’, they endanger a whole language. Sign languages are complex, with entirely different grammars which often get taught + learnt over considerable time. If you want to learn, PLEASE learn from a qualified professional.
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Would like to see teachers given deaf awareness training in light of the face mask in schools news. Sadly deaf students are already struggling in school and need support and awareness now more than ever.
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Responding 'I'm hearing BUT' in a thread that specifically asks for deaf input is just so unbelievably rude. It's not for you. These threads end up drowning out deaf comments/voices more times than not.
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Somebody recently told me that I ‘seemed to have become deafer’. Let me be clear - I have not become deafer, I have simply stopped trying to mask or hide my deafness.
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Often get odd looks when I can’t hear somebody in public but then manage to hear my mother - I’m very used to her voice so am more able to pick up what she’s saying. It isn’t an all-or-nothing situation and familiarity with a person’s voice goes a long way for me.
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I recently got called ‘quiet’, which is laughable if you know me. I feel that deaf people are often wrongly perceived as quiet and retiring individuals when really we just don’t do well with big groups and overlapping noises?
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If you think I want pity for my deafness then you’ve totally misread me. I want understanding, awareness, knowledge, effort...not pity.
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Something Hard of Hearing people experience that may not make sense to hearing individuals: Sound Overload. Sometimes I'll ask my friends to turn down the tv/music, and it causes confusion. We aren't used to things being 'loud', so when they are it's overwhelming...
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Hearing aids are a real no go for me in this heat. Deaf girl summer.
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Sorry, you don’t understand the deaf experience because you ‘wear headphones sometimes’. Definitely not the same thing.
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Why is that a controversial topic?? I just can’t imagine thinking it isn’t a major issue??
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Hi if somebody asks you to repeat something please repeat the whole thing exactly as you said it rather than guessing which words we missed and repeating just those. Doesn’t really work that way 💫
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@hershey_jj
and families are either not taught the significance of sign language or (often) simply do not wish to learn sign languages 2/2
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‘Aren’t you too young to be deaf?’ is a really bizarre thing to say. Deafness has no age.
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Telling disabled people that you’d be more likely to listen if they ‘stopped complaining’ is so problematic. If you can only stomach disabled people when they’re happy, there’s a real problem with your attitude.
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Getting to know the deaf community is so bittersweet - I love having friends who understand and have shared experiences, but it makes me so painfully aware of the gaps in my life growing up. No representation, no deaf role models, no BSL, no deaf friends...
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Sure you could become deaf at any point, but you should care about the rights of other humans anyway regardless of your own position. I’d strongly urge people to unpack that one.
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Thrilled to have (finally after many delays!) graduated with an MA in Language and Cultural Diversity focusing on Deaf Identity for my dissertation! Completing this entire masters online was a challenge for my deaf self, but I’m overjoyed to have achieved a distinction✨
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It’s important that people recognise deafness as a culture so that they recognise the significance of eugenics in medical ‘advances’.
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This Sign Language Week I want to let people know that you really cannot learn any sign language in isolation - learning the cultural context is SO important. Please please please learn from qualified tutors!
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Fellow deafies, what’s the BEST ‘helpful’ advice you’ve ever received from a hearing person?
Sarcastic and wrong answers only, please!
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Routinely amazed by how many podcast don’t provide transcripts
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I’ve heard people ask ‘what’s so bad about oralism?’ and one experience I’d like to highlight is the fact that I didn’t know I could have adjustments at uni until this year. It never crossed my mind because I was never taught about my deafness. I was taught to assimilate instead.
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Any other deafies find that they really often get messages from people set ‘homework’ that included asking deaf people pretty invasive questions? Yeah, sign language/s teachers, don’t do that. 1/2
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I genuinely believe that a major barrier to deaf knowledge is academia’s issue with community knowledge. So much of deaf culture and history is passed on in this way and is commonly known, but not written down anywhere (certainly nowhere academia deems ‘credible’) 1/2
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Didn’t hear the bus announce that it was terminating early and the driver came to SIGN IT TO ME 😍 we love to see it.
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Working in the deaf sector and not making the effort to learn any sign whatsoever is really insulting.
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Subtitles that ruin a who-dunnit by prefacing with a character’s name early in 🙃 I know exactly who the mysterious figure off-screen is now 🙃
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Ignoring deafness under the guise of ‘treating us the same’ leaves us out and leaves us behind. You can make sure that doesn’t happen.
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@QueerCantHear
‘The room is small, I don’t want more people in here’ 🙃 I told them it was absolutely not okay and said something along the lines of ‘you can’t deny that, I’m deaf?’ They wouldn’t have it, just walked into the consulting room. Brushed it off when I mentioned it a few times more
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It’s always ‘teach me the swear words!’ And never ‘what are some helpful phrases that you’d appreciate more people knowing?’ 🙃
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Speaking over and for deaf people about their own experiences isn’t the helpful ally act you think it is
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I often hear sweeping statements about rude things that deaf people do. With all sincerity I invite hearing people to unpack those ‘rude’ behaviours and measure them against deaf experience(s). Perhaps they just don’t make sense to you because of your hearing life/norms? 2/3
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Inserting yourself and your opinion as a hearing person into a thread requesting the thoughts of deaf people is really problematic. Seeing it a lot at the moment. And no, prefacing with ‘I’m hearing but…’ doesn’t make it okay.
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Hearing people telling me how to better communicate with them is so rude. How about you consider how YOU can adapt to better communicate with me?
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This video is now captioned...but it happened quietly. Where’s the apology? Where’s the conscious effort to learn and develop? This was a massive slap in the face. It isn’t enough to quietly backpedal and add accessibility. You have to own your missteps.
We mark Deaf Awareness Week by starting the show with some sign language.
Across all of the daytime shows, we are raising awareness of deafness and hearing loss which affects 1 in 6 adults in the UK.
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@TheyCallMeAfra
@ImperialNHS
Yes think I definitely will be. Totally unacceptable behaviour 🙃
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I hate seeing people in deaf groups telling new hearing learners ‘don’t bother, the deaf community are horrible and will put you off’. It isn’t true.
You know what WILL put them off though? Other hearing people forming a barrier by telling them that.
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The wave is just one example that I’ve noticed in my own life. I think a lot of people forget/don’t know that deaf culture/deaf ways exist and that there are cultural differences. Definitely a key aspect of Deaf Awareness I’d love to see. 3/3
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People often ask me how they can better understand d/Deafness. I usually offer them a challenge: mute everything in your life for a while. The TV, Netflix, YouTube videos - try muting it all. You'll see why captioning is important, and how isolating hearing loss can be.
#Deaf
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Unsolicited advice about deafness is particularly annoying because it usually is a re-worded version of ‘can’t you just get one of those implant thingies?’
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It doesn’t matter if you have 3 followers or 3 million followers. Normalise accessibility from the bottom up! If everybody captions their content it becomes standard - accessibility should never be an afterthought.
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25 years on this earth and nobody has been able to tell me what it means to ‘look deaf’ 🤷🏻♀️
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Told an undergrad that I had to hand assignments in on printed paper during my own BA and they looked at me as if I were a fossil.
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Every results day I’m reminded that deaf students achieve a full grade lower than their hearing peers. This doesn’t tell us that deaf students are less academically able, it tells us that they’re continually let down by an inaccessible education system.
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Hi teachers! You can’t assume kids will advocate for themselves. You have to be on top of accessibility and make sure you know what’s best for kids in your classes. Knowing you have a deaf student and simply turning on captions without asking can change so much.
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1 - Deaf people aren’t on this Earth to educate. A deaf person going about their business, living their life, and genuinely just existing isn’t obliged to educate you. If they want to, fab. But that’s a decision, not an obligation. 2/5
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What annoys me perhaps most about this
@ollymurs
signing issue is that he posted that video thinking he was doing something ‘for the deaf community’ but continues to not caption things so like was it really ever about the deaf community or was it about you?
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I love learning BSL and new signs but they stay in my head for like 10 minutes and then I've forgotten them. Wish I'd been encouraged to learn as a child rather than encouraged to pass as hearing - I feel deprived of my own culture, if that makes sense?
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Hearing people - you can help here. If you’re approached to discuss deaf-related topics, turn it down. Direct them to deaf individuals instead. Explain why this is important.
Lovely to see
@BBCNews
discuss
@bbcstrictly
& the impact
@RoseAylingEllis
is having on the deaf community. It would be even better to discuss this with a deaf person or a deaf-led organisation. It’s incredibly frustrating when hearing people continue to be given opportunities
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