I know a lot of people think I’m not very smart, especially people who only know me through my in-person speaking abilities. But if you only know me through my writing/text, you have a much better idea of my intelligence.
I have a theory about why that is. I lost my hearing at age 13. Since that time I have been completely clueless and isolated when it comes to whatever speech is going on around me. Before that, I used to be able to hear conversations going on around me without even thinking about it. But now hearing takes actual effort and concentration on my part. And even with that, I still miss a lot. Seriously, if you knew how hard it is for me to even get what I do get from you all, you would know just how intelligent I really am, because it’s like filling in a puzzle with a bunch of gaps every time one of you opens your mouth.
Anyway, people learn how to speak through listening. So my theory is that my speech is more than a little stunted because of that. But yours would be too, if you hadn’t heard anything properly since you were in middle school.
I mispronounce words even though I know them and their meanings because I read all the damn time and have been reading since the age of 3 during a time when early reading was not pushed as hard as it is today, but I can’t hear them in conversation so I never learn how they are pronounced. I might misunderstand you, or take a minute to get what you say, leading you to think that I’m a little slow on the uptake. I don’t speak eloquently, and sometimes I even might sound unpolished and slurred in my speech, like I’m falling into deaf accent territory, even though I do my best to keep my speech as clear as I can.
I know, I’m one of the “lucky” ones because I can still hear and interact with the hearing world. But am I really?
Sometimes I feel more like I’m an Uncle Tom. Like, I’m a token deaf person who is acceptable to hearing people because I can speak well. But just like Uncle Tom will never be white, I will never be able to hear like you can.
And sometimes I wish that if nothing else, some of you would at least understand how painful that is for me. I don’t belong in the deaf world, because I don’t know sign language well enough. But I don’t belong in the hearing world either.
Still, hearing world, you are what I’m familiar with. All of my friends and family are in you. I work in you, I live in you, everything I know is in you. But you kick me in the teeth and look down at me at every turn, because I can never belong in you fully.
Did you know that historically people who were deaf were often called “deaf and dumb”? Originally the word “dumb” meant that you couldn’t speak. But as time went on, it came to mean you weren’t intelligent, because that was the view that hearing people had of deaf people: that they were stupid. For a long time, there weren’t even any deaf schools, because hearing people thought that deaf people couldn’t possibly be educated. And I think that’s awful… I mean, don’t you?
Because deaf people aren’t dumb. We can do anything you can… the only thing we can’t do is hear.
I hope at least one of you will read this and take it to heart. And stop treating me (and any other deaf people you may know) like we’re !@#$% stupid.
Please? 😝