Wednesday morning: deafboy in the city edition

Funny. The W. paged me last night; he'd watched a video about deaf and hearing culture clashes in his class at the Sign Language Center. It affected him deeply; he didn't realize how much this had affected our miscommunications. I stifled the impulse to tell him I told him so; the fact is, when you're in a relationship with a hearing person, it's the biggest mistake in the world to become his "teacher of Deaf culture" or "teacher of ASL." That makes YOU responsible for HIS behavior towards you... because instead of dealing with whatever the situation is, the hearing person can then say, "Well, you didn't tell me about that." Or, worse, when contempt rears its ugly head: "You're just using your deafness as an excuse." Who'd want to bring that kind of comment into a relationship?

That being said, I'm lucky: not quite seven months yet, and the W. has already paid for sign language classes and is learning about Deaf culture - unheard of in my 26 years. And I'm grateful to the Sign Language Center - Hi Alan! Hi Brian! - for including info about Deaf Culture in their course.

Quick news bits: A sort of "Big River" type incident is taking place in Hawaii, where students from the Hawai'i Center for the Deaf and Blind have put on a play together with local hearing students. I love the interpreted statements by one of the students, who wants to work in film. So do we all, young deafie, so do we all.