I was a patient there for a while before I was discharged recently (today) for a heart-related condition. When I found out the sign on the door where I was assigned to be in a room, the ignorance about Deaf people by labelling them “hearing impaired”–a damaging image of Deaf people.

What I do not understand is that hearing people who think they make the best decisions for Deaf people by oppressing emotional experience and reflects the need for understand that Deaf people in our culture and expression of emotion. I mean, Washington, D.C. is the largest Deaf community in America and the home of the world’s only Deaf university and yet, today is 2017–the ignorance still amazes me. Just amazing…

It is an example of how complex oppression is, and why it is not just a hearing perspective of Deaf people on oppression, but a multi-viewed Audism perspective that affects Deaf people all in different ways. When hearing people have every right to label Deaf people “hearing impaired”—Deaf people are not just protesting oppression as Deaf, but as Deaf people with inherent rights, human rights, as well as cultural rights.

-JT

Copyright @ 2017 Jason Tozier

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