Audvidism in the Signing Community
Audvidism (the oppression/marginalization of DeafBlind people) is such a real thing in our community/ies. We sighted Deaf people do not spend enough time unpacking and unlearning our audvidism, vidism, audableism, and ableism. examples: - the neglect and minimization of Tactile ASL; not honoring it as a dialect of ASL. - not providing visual culture facilitation and interpretation. - not obtaining CDIs for events; when CDIs *are* present at events, overrelying on them and not 1) honoring Tactile ASL as a dialect and 2) not providing visual culture facilitation/interpretation during classes, workshops/presentations, and conversations. - avoidant behavior of DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind individuals. many of us in the Signing community tend to say "ASL so visual WOW WOW" "People of the Eye, that that" but then provide NO visual culture facilitation for DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind folks. we dont provide image descriptions and interpretations during presentations/workshops, visual cues and facilitations during conversations and in the classroom; many of us dont provide image descriptions on social media. a lot of us don't bother to learn Tactile ASL, and to unpack why we avoid interacting with DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind individuals. (note: and yes, hearing Blind people can learn ASL and Tactile ASL and become interpreters- yes they can- and it's up to us to unpack our audism and audvidism and audableism and ableism.) and then we often get confused/bothered/annoyed when DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind folks ask questions that we assume means that they didnt pay attention, that they're being lazy and not working hard enough to follow along, that the CDIs are lousy and not doing their job-- all because WE didnt provide visual culture facilitation by explaining the MEANING of images or live action events or environmental cues!!! we sighted Deaf people dont accept it when our ASL interpreters don't give us full information access- then why do we do this to DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind folks in our communities??? remember that CDIs cant provide visual cultural information and interpretation- that would create such HUGE lag times in the interpretation process. that's why it's up to US sighted Signing and hearing people to CULTURALLY FACILITATE visual culture information. and this requires us to create connections and build bridges with DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind individuals. a lot of us sighted Deaf folks know the pain of isolation and social exclusion. why do this to our communities members?? something for us sighted people to work on- remembering that we have the *responsibility* to be visual culture facilitators and interpreters for our DeafBlind/Low Vision/Blind communities members.
-Elena Figueroa-Ruiz
multi-mestiza xicanx sorda queer femme profesora/writer, 2014.