Angry, stream of consciousness rant

At my AC meeting last night, our entire meeting was dedicated to discussing a "communication policy." This whole thing was (in part) caused by a presentation I did in November. The president of our national organization even flew in for the discussion.

The controversy about ASL vs. spoken English, and which language should be used at meetings and why, the reasons behind various opinions... all of it was fair game for discussion. I am fine with that; in fact, I encourage discussion generally: a lively spirited discussion with differing viewpoints is a fantastic thing. However, I was not prepared for last night's bloodbath.

There were two definite camps: The "we're hearing, we should not be expected to have to sign" camp and the "this is a group of interpeters after all, so we should be signing out of respect and to make the environment as accessible as possible." Both sides had strong opinions.

What was interesting to me was that those who were in favor of being more aware, and to use more sign language at the meetings, and only providing interpreters as a reasonable accommodation when requested, all got up and made thier comments publicly.

Those that were opposed to the meetings being in sign language (therefore, the meetings should be in spoken English) all made their comments via written, anonymous comment card, read by the moderator. The clincher for many of us was that someone had the audacity to actually submit a numbered list of 9 points, including, "I'm tired at the end of my day and I dont think it's fair that I'm expected to use my second language after working all day", "my eyes are tired, I don't want to have to watch people signing", and my personal favorite (brace yourself), "This is an interpreter organization, not a deaf organization."

JHMFC...WTF?

I'm tired too. My eyes are tired too. But I'm a sign language interpreter and I should be able to communicate in my second language. And as an interpreter I watch a LOT LESS signing than the deaf people I work with. Let's take that last statement and change it up a bit:

This is an interpreters organization, not a deaf organization could become:
This is a white organization, not a black organization.
This is a straight organization, not a gay organization.
This is a male organization, not a female organization.
This is an Aryan organization, not a Jewish organization.

Now, there are those who deal with such ignorance in a much more rational and less reactionary way. I, however, am not one of those people.

Last night's discussion had no resolution made; we left with no answers. What we left with was a lot of angry people on one side of the fence (those in favor of using more sign language) and a lot of scared people on the other (those that were wise enough to submit their discriminatory comments in a written fashion).

Really, if you're going to be a sign language interpreter, learn to suck it up and function in your second language in social situations that involve deaf people. If it weren't for deaf people we wouldn't have jobs.