Day 4 - Part 2: Being deaf outside Deaf Community

Okay, crash-course on Deaf Culture:
1) When talking about deafness vs. Deafness there is a big difference. With a lower-case "d," the word is referring to the physical condition of not being able to hear. With an upper-case "D," the word is referring to the cultural condition of being a part of the Deaf community.
2) Culturally Deaf individuals are incredibly tight-knit and incredibly proud of their culture.
3) Referring to someone within part of the Deaf Community as disadvantaged because they're not part of the majority Hearing population is quite possibly going to offend them.
4) Just as with any culture, Deaf individuals tend to come together as a Deaf Community that unifies under a shared history, language, and other cultural circumstances that go along with these.
5) Being surprised that such a thing as Deaf Culture exists is natural at first. But saying that "it would be better if Deaf people were mainstreamed and integrated with the rest of the 'normal' people" or anything of the sort will make people mad at you very quickly - myself included. I've come to realize, through my ASL/Deaf Culture studies as well as this experience, that telling a Deaf person they shouldn't have a different culture is just like telling a Hispanic US citizen that they should "speak English - they're in America." It's rude, it's discrimination, and it's an outlandish thing to do/say.

So, now that we've got that out of the way, on to my topic.  Lately I've been feeling very cut-off and isolated from the world. I cannot speak with most of my friends. I can't hear the music that I have become so accustomed to listening to. Even trying to watch television or movies has become an entirely different experience, and one that tends to not allow for much actual "human emotional connection" in the way that you would expect from the characters and writers. I was, for a while, thinking in the mind-set of "well, this sucks!" And, I even admit, that I was for a while beginning to wonder why Deaf people are so proud and so content with their deafness.

But then I did something that caused the metaphorical light-bulb to switch on.  I watched a SignMARK music video.  For those not familiar with him, SignMARK is a Deaf hip-hop artist, who writes and performs songs in ASL, which are then translated for signing-impaired individuals into either spoken language(s).  As I was watching his video, I was overcome with a sense of relief of finally being able to make the connection on that immediate, untranslated level with him. I understood where his performance came from, and I didn't need an interpreter to tell me what he was saying, because he was speaking directly to me.  And then it dawned on me that within this project, there is a gaping hole - a hole where a Deaf Community, a network of people who have these shared experiences and language with me, should be.

I realized, if I were to actually go deaf permanently, I'd probably make a huge effort to go into the Deaf community and begin a social (and possibly professional) network. Also, I am sure that there are several of my friends who would make an effort to learn ASL so that we could maintain our relationships. However, because of the temporariness of the conditions surrounding this social experiment, I am now in an odd position where I'm experiencing a cultural-immersion type of atmosphere in an entirely different culture than I'm immersed in. I'm like a chicken trying to live among penguins. They both look like and kind of act like birds, but they're just not the same.

I think that if I were to restart this project, I'd definitely go about it with a very different strategy. I'd try and actually put myself completely inside the Deaf Community - temporarily move to a "new culture" and live in their world entirely instead of trying to duke it out with a culture that conflicts so heavily with the one I'm experiencing. With this in mind, though, I do think that it is good to get the "outsider" experience that Deaf individuals get anytime they venture into a situation where they need to interact with the hearing world.