Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!343!71!Verna.Forristal
From: Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Verna Forristal)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Hamburger orders
Message-ID: <16056@handicap.news>
Date: 17 Jun 91 15:28:39 GMT
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Index Number: 16056

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

 JW> the beginning and the end of the idea. Nothing beyond that to suggest
 JW> Americans should be required to learn signs. Shoot, I go to Mexico and
 JW> have an easier time talking with people there. I come home and can't get
 JW> someone to give me a pen and paper to write my hamburger order down on.

Could it possibly be that when in Mexico, you look like a foreigner, so they
don't expect you to know the language?  Unfortunately, in America, everyone is
expected to know the language.  Do you have any idea how many Americans have
never met a deaf person?  They don't expect anyone in a hamburger joint to be
deaf because it just doesn't occur to them.  It probably takes a long time to
get the point across because the first assumption is not that you are deaf,
but that you are just messing with their mind or something.

You know, James, even though my daughter has learned a little sign language,
she has never actually met a deaf person.  I had a VERY hard time convincing
her that a deaf person does not have better vision because they are deaf.  She
has been taught that blind people have better hearing than sighted people.  I
don't know the facts on this, but I suspect that the blind don't really hear
better, but rather that they pay attention to what they are hearing, thereby
seeming to hear better.

I really think that Americans could be much better educated in the area on
unseen handicaps.  I think that the reason there is so much apathy in the area
of Americans learning sign is because so few Americans actually know deaf
people.  Just hypothesis here..I don't want to anger anyone..but perhaps if
some of the deaf people who are insistent on segregating themselves from the
hearing world were to interact more with the hearing, more of the hearing
would take a greater interest in learning sign.  I probably would never have
pursued it if I hadn't met a wonderful woman with whom I had a desire to
communicate.

About those hamburgers...Have you considered carrying your own pencil and
paper?

--
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