Audism - Blog Posts
People are trying to bring back 1880s-era anti-ASL sentiment. Worst timeline.
The artist who made the first three graphics is Ann Silver
The link has a bunch of her art following a short bio.
"As a co-founding member of the historic Deaf Art Movement (DAM) of the 1960s that came before the Deaf View/Image Art movement(De’VIA) in 1989, I have fought for recognition, equality and social justice for the Deaf artist community — and have also advocated for the inclusion of Deaf Art in the museum/gallery world and in academia."
[Image ID:
Image 1:
Two crayon boxes. The one on the left is labeled the original Deaf Identity Crayons 1899. The crayons in the box are labeled: freak, deaf-mute, oralist, handicapped, hearing impaired, deaf and dumb, lipreader, and dummy. The right box is labeled Deaf Identity crayons 1999. The crayons are labeled: Deaf, signer, Hard of Hearing, Deaf American, late deafened, Deaf-Blind, seeing, CODA.
Image 2:
A graphic of a box in the style of Tide detergent. It has the slogan "If it's got to be sign language, it's got to be ASL" with the word's Deaf Pride larger in the middle in place of the tide logo. In the bottom right corner is the watermark Ann Silver.
Image 3:
A graphic of 5 cans of soup in the style of Campbell's Soup. Instead of "Campbell's", each can has the logo "Gallaudet's". The five flavors are:Deaf Studies, Deaf culture, ASL, Deaf Art/D'VIA, and Deaf History.
Image 4:
2 white, six-sided dice with numbers represented in ASL.
End ID]
Not my deaf art but they are so epic, I just had to share! 🤟😀👍
👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋
Sources: Google, Pinterest, Instagram
Because she was lonely.
So, today, a woman came into our shop. It was a woman I’ve only heard my parents refer to as ‘the Deaf Lady’. My mum had told her about me, explained that I was doing Sign Language, and come to find me on a day she knew I was working.
But today, she didn’t need her lawnmower repaired. In fact, she hadn’t touched it since it had been, and as far as she knew everything was fine.
She’d come in to sign to me.
She waved hello, and instantly explained that my mum had told her I would be in today. I asked her how she was, and the smile that she had on her face was the biggest I’ve ever seen.
And we spent about an hour in my family’s little shop, talking about everything. She told me about her life, about how she’d lived in the same house for 60 years.
She’d been born deaf, and been a Brownie, but never a Guide, because of the War… she’s now 86.
She had some amazing stories to tell, and twice she cried. One of those times was remembering her youth, and the other was when she was explaining to me that her husband had died around 20 years ago, and how he’d been the last person she’d known that could communicate with her.
She’s been alone for 20 years, living in a silent world, unable to communicate with anyone for the most part. The most interaction she has is when she writes things down for people, but she’s struggled to make any recent friends, and her family is long gone.
Now someone explain to me what’s wrong with every school teaching a certain amount of Sign Language, and for colleges to offer it more freely and frequently. People should be encouraged to learn BSL, because otherwise we’re cutting ourselves off from talking to around 8 million people or so (in the UK alone).
That’s millions of people who are no less important than you are, who have their own stories to tell, and the same need for communication as anyone else on this tiny little planet.
J. cried today because it was the first time for a long time that anyone has asked her for her name, or listened to her stories.
She’s also coming back into work tomorrow, to sign with me, and help me practice. But also - because we’re only human - for the company.