Monthly Archives: November 2011

Why I Am Paranoid Around Cops

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Posted by maxporter on November 16, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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In response to a recent comment, I replied:

Oh gosh, life guards are terrifying – this is an excellent point. I can remember many a time when a lifeguard suddenly appeared in front of me, all red-faced and yelling and pissed-off – and it turned out that he had been trying to get my attention for a really long time. It always made me quite wary.

Then I wondered: is this the root of my present-day distrust of cops?

Look, I realize that the majority of cops are genuinely good, caring people who want nothing more but to see a better world. The bad cops are few and far in between – but I think they do a disproportionate amount of damage because they are so horrible.

And cops can do a lot more damage than lifeguards are capable of.

I think it’s fair to say that some minority communities have a general distrust of cops. They are, after all, the people who come in and take away your son, father, brother, husband to lock him behind bars. No wonder you start distrusting the sight of sirens painting your front door blue and red.1

Rationally, I should have no reason to fear cops because I have a fair amount of privilege. But, really, it boils down to this: many cops assume that every single person on the street is able to understand and/or hear English. They assume that everyone will respond to sound – whistles, sirens, whatever.

In fact, if you look at this assumption a little more closely, it makes no sense. Not everyone in this country knows English. And think of how many people have some sort of hearing loss – it seems as if everyone has a deaf grandma or grandpa. So, really, it makes no sense to assume that the US is this one homogenous chunk of hearing English-speaking individuals.

This is probably not an assumption the cops have consciously thought out. Regardless, it freaks me the fuck out. I have heard horror stories – the one that stands out most in my memory is when the cop shot the Deaf Native American man. In 2010.

That’s fucking terrifying, people. Am I gonna get shot or beat up because I didn’t understand the commands of the police? Maybe this is one reason I shy away from protests – what if I get captured by the police for not following directions?

I guess that, what I’m trying to say is, in theory, cops are a good idea – a force of good that fights against the evil of crime. But, in reality, the real world is a lot murkier than that – there are crooks and saints on both sides. If we’re going to pretend that humans have the ability to rule other humans without becoming corrupt, then we should at least train them to be as open-minded and mindful of diversity as possible so that they don’t make mistakes and overstuff the prisons.

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  1. Not that I’m implying deafness has exact parallels to the struggles of those minority communities – we have significant differences and goals that must be realized. [↩]
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Hearing culture: a foreign culture

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Posted by maxporter on November 15, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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Many children go through a self-centered stage and then become more aware of the world around them. They begin to notice the world outside of the family and begin to watch people to figure out how society works.

When I went through this stage, it was really weird for me to observe the mannerisms of the white upper-middle class American hearing people around me. For example, I’m still fascinated by watching Hearing people talk on the phone – they come up with all sorts of ways to entertain themselves, like doodling or pacing.

Their world is so audio-centric that they adopt mannerisms to be less intrusive – people laugh more softly, people walk softer, people close doors softer. Their culture is also rather low-key – instead of saying “I’m going to the bathroom,” they say, “I’m stepping out” or “I’ll be back.”1 Whereas I always was like – so what? We’re all humans who inhibit a physical space.

One other thing that still weirds me out occasionally about hearing people is when they talk without looking at each other. If they do it for convenience – talking to people in completely different rooms, for example – it’s like a wizard feat. If they do it, well, just ’cause, and look at everything in the room instead of each other – I don’t understand the point. If you don’t like the person, either fix that or avoid them instead of giving them the benefit of your conversation. If you do like the person, well, why wouldn’t you look at them? Men are especially bad at this; it drives me crazy when men just do not look at each other for whatever bullshit reason.

There’s a couple of other things that set apart Hearing culture in my mind, but I can’t think of them at the moment. What I want to talk about now is the fact that, when I was exposed to Deaf culture, a lot of the norms seemed so right to me.

For instance – of course you are always available to tap people if you see the person across the room who is waving at someone because they want to talk to them. How could it be any other way?

I’ve heard other deaf people say the same thing about Deaf culture – it just seems so much more natural and sensible than Hearing culture. This makes me wonder if Deaf culture can somehow be explained in part by our biology, like so: “We can’t hear, so as a group, we have come up with strategies to come together and survive in a world where sound exists and has meaning for many members of our population.” I don’t think biology completely explains Deaf people’s, or any other group’s, behavior. However, we do inhibit a different sensory reality than hearing people do; could our culture have come, in part, from that?

Or is it better understood as a unique linguistic minority of its own? American Sign Language is a foreign language, just like Chinese or French or something. People who speak the same language tend to band together in small enclaves where they can express themselves freely in the language that they feel most comfortable speaking. I’m thinking of immigrant communities, for example. And there’s often interplay between the mainstream society and the linguistic minority: the norms of mainstream society often dictate our behavior. We hold back part of ourselves in work or in everyday mainstream society, then let it all hang at home.

I suspect that the best way to find the answer would be to compare the traits of Deaf cultures from all over the world. If Deaf culture comes from our biology, I expect that international Deaf cultures would be rather similar. If it’s more like a linguistic minority, I would expect to see many diverse Deaf cultures.

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  1. This is especially true of the specific subset of Hearing culture I grew up in. [↩]
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On being a member of invisible minorities

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Posted by maxporter on November 14, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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I belong to many different oppressed minorities, but all of the ones that I belong to are different from most minorities: they are relatively invisible.

I’m deaf – but I speak with a tiny accent and am able to hear a lot (75-85%?) of what goes on. I’m queer – but there are strangers who wouldn’t ever be able to tell.1 In all other respects, I’m pretty much The Man: a white male who doesn’t have to worry about money/class. It’s resulted in some interesting tensions.

Many people who are in minorities undergo identity/assimilation struggles. The choice often is: embrace your differences or shed them to assimilate?

Personally, I’ve definitely gone through these identity issues, but it’s weird for me because I ‘pass’ so often as a white able bodied straight dude in everyday life. The person sitting next to me on the bus may never discover that I am deaf or have any idea that I like men. If I pass so often, that leads to the question: well, what really separates me from The Man with all the privileges in the world? Do I have more privilege than I’m used to thinking that I have because I pass so often? Should I assume that everyone is reading me as The Man and act accordingly?

It’s even weirder because I didn’t always pass so well. I used to be so deaf that I could hardly communicate with anybody but my younger sister and my interpreter, but now people forget I’m deaf. I used to be so gay that people could tell from the next state over, but now I can interact with strangers without experiencing random homophobia. So that evolution from non-passing to complete passing has been strange. I grew used to having much less privilege because I didn’t pass, but now that’s changed.

The thing is that my differences definitely set me apart once they are discovered. I could be denied medical treatment – easily – due to my body if a doctor is uncomfortable treating me. I don’t know if I could always hold my partner’s hand in public. And people assume on a frequent basis that deafness = mental retardation and treat me accordingly. It’s not like I belong to some benign non-oppressed invisible minority like left-handedness – these minorities definitely aren’t treated kindly in this world.

So, when I think about my identity/assimilation struggle – on one hand, I have a tremendous amount of privilege. On the other hand, I… don’t. So that’s interesting, I think.

I have so many questions these days about the visibility of minorities and passing and how it all affects identity. I think it’s time to finally pull Nobody Passes, which I’ve been reluctant to read for some time, off of my bookshelf and read it.

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  1. Honestly, I’m not sure how people read me most of the time – I identify as bisexual. When I was in high school, people could tell a mile away because my gender presentation was so non-stereotypical, but now? I’m not sure. [↩]
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The problem with relying upon the Internet for activism

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Posted by maxporter on November 11, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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In recent years, I’ve witnessed how the Internet has evolved into a tool that can be used to organize social change. For instance, think about the protests that Anonymous organized against the Church of Scientology. Moreover, it is fast and efficient – think about how easily 4chan found the perpetuators of animal abuse cases posted to Youtube, for instance.

But recently, I have been wondering about the limits of the Internet as a tool for social change.

For instance, people have begun to rely upon the Internet for social change. And they become passive in the progress – it’s enough to blog about it; it’s enough to click on this grain of rice to create a dollar donation to feed hungry children; it’s enough to ‘like’ this organization x number of times; it’s enough to buy Dial soap. It’s created this illusion of social change. In effect, we are like the television-dependent individuals of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Another, more pressing issue is the fact that not all people in the world – or even this nation – have reliable access to computers. There may be no money for computers in the house, and the house may be far from the library. Or, if a computer does exist, it may not be safe to access it freely – it may be in your grandmother’s living room, for instance, and she’d have a heart attack if she read your blog over your shoulder.

If we’re serious about social change, it’s not enough to talk on the Internet. That’s definitely a good first step in the right direction – so many people benefit every day from what they read and learn about on the Internet – but we need to do more than that. We need to tear ourselves from the electric glow of our screens and take to the streets.

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It must be amazing to listen to music in the shower

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Posted by maxporter on November 10, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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Recently, I’ve been doing two things to relax: listening to music on my roommate’s CD player and taking long candle-lit showers. It just occurred to me during a typical mid-evening philosophizing session that it must be really fucking incredible to combine the two: listen to music while taking candle-lit showers.

I already have songs in mind – I’d play Only You by Portishead, then Karmacoma by Massive Attack, then… You get the idea. Sometimes I do daydream about taking Hearing-person style showers.

Ah, I said Hearing-person style – what do I mean?

Well, let me explain. I was born deaf. Also, for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved water – I gravitate towards swimming pools, streams, lakes, hot springs, and anywhere else I can submerge myself in water. I believe that I would have loved water regardless of my hearing status, but one special thing about these environments that I value is that I have no obligation to connect myself with the Hearing world.

When I was a very small child, this was a more prominent feature of my life than it is now: I almost never had an obligation to connect with the Hearing world – I was too Deaf to connect, and I didn’t particularly care. I lived a happy existence of endless snowball fights, imaginary rescue missions on the hill, pranks with my younger sister, and club-house building.

Then, when I got older, I got a cochlear implant and, with the first signs of puberty, I was expected to transition to adolescence. These things combined meant that I had to connect with Hearing people, even when I didn’t particularly want to – I could no longer just take off my cochlear implant, close my eyes against the interpreter, and ignore the annoying math teacher who wanted me to learn about variables. I, like the Hearing people around me, had to pretend to listen in order to fit into polite society.

I now understand the importance of this facade, but I did definitely feel a sense of resentment back then – plus, the constant bombardment of auditory input was not always pleasant. When I was in high school, I’d often take off my cochlear implant at home after a long day of school – after the echoy hallways, the buzzing fluorescent lights, and the shouts of teachers, I was completely fed up with the sense of hearing and longed for the peace of my deafness. My parents weren’t happy, but my attitude was: they can use visual communication, so screw them if they want to talk to me all the time.

Being in water was fabulous during this time because nobody expected me to understand them at all times – I can’t wear my cochlear implant in pools and such, so it freed me from the constraints of the day. I could put aside social responsibilities and focus on myself for just a brief period of time.

Even today, when I do socialize in or around water, it is with people who are thoughtful enough to ensure easy communication. They use visual communication and extra patience, which is a quality that I really appreciate in a friend and return whenever possible. Plus, I feel that water is a good way to explain deafness to Hearing people – from what Hearing people have told me, they can hear very little while underwater. Everything is muffled and far-away. So I just tell them to imagine walking around with that type of hearing all day if you’re hard-of-hearing – but I personally can’t even hear that much; I’m deafer than that. (“Deaf as a post,” I often joke.) I find that this helps Hearing people to understand my perspective a little better.

So, it’s really interesting that I’ve now reached a point where I fantasize about taking Hearing-style showers – in the past, I would never have imagined disturbing the peace of hot water running over my face. Music had no place in this world of silence and warmth.

I think this is a sign of my greater assimilation into the Hearing world. I definitely still see myself as separate from that world, but I feel like I’ve mastered a lot more of the foreign rules and norms that I didn’t necessarily understand in a previous time. I’ve ended up adopting some Hearing traits, like understated facial expressions and the ability to chat in a dark bar (sometimes).

I still feel secure in my Deaf identity, though. I feel like I am still fundamentally different from Hearing people – after all, when they fall asleep, they cannot turn off their hearing like I do when I take off my cochlear implant at nighttime. I still value the best of the Deaf experience – like the connection to a visual language and a community full of intelligent and creative people. And, most importantly, the Hearing world is still utterly foreign to me in a lot of ways.

So what if I daydream about listening to music in the shower? I still wouldn’t trade my deafness for hearing any day of the week. Even if listening to music in the shower would be kind of nice, it must be painful to be hearing 24/7. I’ll take my deafness and figure out a creative solution,1 thank you very much.

But, hey, if you can take a relaxing music-filled shower – put on Sly by Massive Attack for me, won’t you?

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  1. Like taking a bath instead and keeping my head above water to listen to music [↩]
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Interpreters as possible allies?

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Posted by maxporter on November 9, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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Historically, Deaf people have been a bit suspicious of the ulterior motives of an interpreter – would it not be easy for an unscrupulous person to simply sit back and do nothing? In effect, exploiting the Deaf client for easy money.1

But recently, I have been learning something interesting – interpreters are actually very concerned about ethics, and they tend to have very progressive politics.

Portrays a video chat and the caption: "Sign language used in Edo Maajika's video 'To Sto Se Trazi' to interpret fast paced rap without losing fluidity."

Well, I suppose that that should have been obvious – for as long as I can remember, interpreters have been some of the most liberal people I have known. For example, my interpreter in high school was a Mormon who was completely and utterly unfazed by my gayness and very non-stereotypical gender presentation. I also had an interpreter who queried me about polygamy in Utah, saying something about how hard it would be for her to keep track of seven wives. Et cetera.

But, now that I am in the social work field, it’s becoming ever more obvious. I have a tendency to talk to classroom/workshop interpreters about the subject matter that is being discussed, so it is quite interesting to pick their brains.

I am learning that many of them are concerned about many of the same things that Deaf people are: Deafhood, identity, educational opportunities, diversity, and so forth. They talk about things like the best way to provide equal educational opportunities to the Latino Deaf boy with three languages in his home (Spanish, English, and ASL) in a xenophobic culture.

They also are concerned about more progressive political issues, such as class equality and anti-racism and anti-patriarchy and so forth. As an example – a few weeks ago, I learned that the sign for ‘foster care’ is the same as the sign for ‘fake mom & dad.’ I actually interrupted my interpreter in the workshop and said, ” ‘fake mom and dad????’ ” incredulously. She said, “I know! It’s not conceptually accurate!” and resumed interpreting the speaker. And another example – my interpreters asked me if it was okay that they signed “sexual preference” rather than “sexual orientation” even though that’s an offensive term in English – they weren’t sure of the correct way to sign “sexual orientation.” I appreciated their willingness to work with what they had.

It all makes me wonder – should we Deaf people try to overcome our mistrust of interpreters and welcome them as allies in our struggles? After all – one of the most important components of any successful social justice struggle is to build coalitions with others in order to maximize our collective political power.

I don’t know. We shall see.

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  1. Although this may sound a bit far-fetched, I have to say that I have personal experience with this very phenomenon – when I was a kid, my parents hired this girl who was four years older than me to be my babysitter. Eventually, they also hired her to be an interpreter at church. She just talked to me in a sign language monologue of her most recent party exploits, cop escapes, beer bong adventures, etc throughout the whole service instead of interpreting to me – but I didn’t care because I no longer believed in God. But, yeah, she basically made money off of telling me all her party stories in church. Pretty cush, I’d say. [↩]
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Vlogging

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Posted by maxporter on November 8, 2011 – 4:20 AM
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Transcript (as a token of thanks to all the Hearing people who have kindly volunteered their time and energy to transcribe videos for me):
A white dude with an orange hoodie sits in a bright area. The video is slightly overexposed. He signs:

“Today is a beautiful day outside. Sun, blue sky, birds… beautiful. Ok so. One thing I was thinking about recently is access for all deaf people. So, deaf people, their language is asl, right? So I thought about my blog movinghands.zubon.org. On my blog, I type english because the language I’m comfortable with – well, that’s english. I’m not completely comfortable with ASL yet. So I type english. But I was thinking, I want to connect with all – more – deaf. So I remembered my deafvideo.tv account. So I – now my new goal is to vlog more often. Because I want to discuss issues important for deaf people. Ok. So. If you want to, read my blog, moving hands.zubon.org, ok. Thank you, have a good day, bye.”

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