346: news and tea roundup, with extra rant
News: Today the biggest thing in news is the protest against the Washington Redskins for not including closed captioning (the Washington Post says "hearing-impaired" instead of "Deaf.") Ridor makes the point that hearing people have complained for access, too - well, of course. No hearing person would go to a movie totally signed without voiceover (or a play, for that matter) although they'd cheerfully tell Deaf people they should see "This movie even though it has no subtitles because it's TEH REALLY AWESOM!##@!O@" Such is life.
Canada is full of incident today as a Deaf man gets into a standoff with police and thieves steal $60,000 worth of equipment from the Ontario Camp of the Deaf.
rant: I have two things to rant on today. First off, I'd like people to shut the hell up about "cyberbullying." Basically they just want to get pity from others because they cannot defend their own arguments. I personally have received a ton of negative e-mails. You know what I do? I ignore them. If you're really being bullied, that's what you do. You ignore the bully. You don't go whining to everyone on teh internets! And you know what? IF THERE REALLY IS A BULLY, ALL YOU'RE DOING IS GIVING THEM THE ATTENTION WHICH PSYCHOLOGISTS TELL US THEY CRAVE. In other words: you're not helping. And if there really is a bully - and you haven't done something to start the situation - post the entire exchange, and let the pee-pul decide.
Secondly, I'm sick and tired of terps. Really. I'm tired of how much they cost. I'm tired of people not wanting to pay for them. I'm tired of fighting for terps for my clients. I'm tired of fighting for terps for myself. You know what, some days, I really don't think it's worth it. I am going to be paid less for the rest of my life for doing more. Some days I just want to turn it all off, go home, and collect fucking SSI. What the hell is the fucking point? They're bitching about paying people who earn more than me so I can learn the information I need to do my job. I'm sick and tired of whining about rights. "It's my right! It's my right!" It's THEIR right to fucking get an interpreter so they can cover themselves in MY gooey wonderfulness, motherfuckers. Nobody ever talks about getting an interpreter so THEY can talk to ME. They should be frikking GRATEFUL I have any frikking interest in their tired, mindless, self-obsessed hearing-people OPINIONS. And the terps are so fucking BLASE about it. Oh, I love working freelance. Oh, I love my job. Oh, I love helping Deaf people. Yeah, you're REALLY helping us by charging our bosses twice our hard-earned salaries so you can come in and interpret a fifteen minute meeting.
God. Sorry for exploding, but sometimes it seems like the whole SYSTEM is designed to teach Deaf people how worthless we are. And the thing is, I love terps, I really do. Some of my best friends etc. And as Ridor notes several of them are really hot and sexy (Hi Nicole!) Some of them even go to great lengths to think about what it means to be a terp in todays world and Deafhood. It just gets so exhausting sometimes. And people wonder why people want to stay at Gallaudet...
11 comments:
Joe! You fucking got the point! Sometimes I just feel like what you felt. Why is that they are making it so difficult? Even I sneered at many interpreters who said they are doing a "community service" -- I always snickered when they say that. I said, "Yeah, by double charge us in the process, eh?"
Fuck them all.
R-
For the sake of everybody it's really better for *you* to rant than me. Thanks. I love the link on dealing with the bullies! Bullies think we are bullies but we say, no, they are bullies. It's vicious cycle, isn't it? Still, I agree with all your rants!
After getting home all stressed, your post gave me a good laugh!
In addition to everything you have mentioned about interpreters, even after fighting for our right to an interpreter, we still run a risk of
getting a lousy interpreter. I often ask why can't I get half of interpreter's pay for sacrificing my beautiful languge, namely ASL, and codeswitch in order for her/him to understand me.
Keep up with the good work on your blog.
Love your rant. Gotcha on the terp topic. You said it!
Carl,
Did you mean to say, "I heyed you!" ;-)
Shit. (Have you been reading my diary?!)
And I absolutely hate getting terps who unapologetically stall or butcher my message because they can't terp the other way around (voice) for shit. Talk about facilitating 2-way communication, my ass.
At least you put it more eloquently than I could. And you used far less cursing than I would've.
Good rant.
heh...
glad im not alone in dealing with this.
as i said i love and am friends with many terps. i don't think the problems have anything to do with the terps themselves. maybe more with how they're implemented...
but even so, we run the risk of getting bad terps.
on the other hand, we never actually pay for our terps, right? so who's the consumer... it's all about following the money I guess...
on the other hand i have to justify being hired to prospective supervisors and saying that i come with a permanent twice-my-annual-salary liability is not a way to get in cozy with the higherups...
Joseph, ha ha. I concur about the cyberbullying posts. I've dealt with cyberbullies at Facebook before disastrous incident blew up. The same trick you learned, I've learned that it's always best and easier way to deal with them by ignoring them or blocking them altogether. Especially horny oddball men.
I hope you'll not chew my head off for asking you such a stupid question but what is a "terp"? Is it the word for interpreter?
Given what Deaf people here went through with interpreters, I guess I'm grateful that I am not planning to become an interpeter? =P (I'm just kidding)
I, although, think it's childish for hearing people to throw a tantrum about the accessible Deaf people seek for at FedEx Field. As a hearing woman, I felt embarrassed about this controversy. Evidently, the meaning of the "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" phrase is lost on them. To append to this discussion, Deaf people paid the admission tickets to sit and enjoy watching the game. What they paid should've given them the same treatment hearing people receive. It's not a burdensome thing to figure it out. I mean, even I, with no background in Deaf culture, could figure it out.
Even with years of studying Sociology, I still couldn't figure out how could hearing people survive in the wilderness in the Bronze Age and later on. I couldn't.
Jean, *nod* 'terp *is* short for interpreter. :)
Joe, fa-boo rant! I recently ranted about 'terps on my private blog... am thinking about movin' it over to my public blog. I'm tired of this ballyhoo about cyberbullies and about having to deal with overpaid 'terps who butcher my thoughts in translation. Wups, I'm getting started now... shuttin' up now. *grin*
Oh god, I could go on about this all day. My boss at work (I teach ASL at a hearing HS) keeps asking me if I can have the other ASL teacher (hearing) terp meetings instead of a regular terp. ARGH.
I do undy why- it is expensive and the double rate and all that... and I don't blame him for trying to find a way.. but I've told him firmly, "no", over and over again....
The fact is- IT CREEPS ME OUT having the other HEARING TEACHER TERP FOR ME. HELL N-O.
Not ony that, but it's not the other teacher's job! It wouldn't be fair to HER.
Then after I'm finished advocating for my LEGAL, UNDISPUTED RIGHTS, i go home and feel sick because I worry that they'll find an excuse to get rid of me someday because of the extra expense.
So I work twice as hard as everyone else, I arrive earlier, leave later, revive/renew the whole damn curriculum, so they CAN'T JUSTIFY IT TO THEMSELVES THAT I'M NOT WORTH THE EXTRA MONEY!!!
SIGH.
Until the day I get tenure, I'm still waiting for them to say, "I'm sorry,(lame excuse to hide the real reason). We can't hire you again."
UGH.
bravo, bravo, bravo, bravooo.. someone has to invent something technological that can do all the interpreting for us.. something we pay for ONCE and then will work for us until it breaks. some interpreters mean well, but sometimes i really cant stomach the idea that they're making good money off us, that we need hearing people to "help" us, that they're getting money to not understand me when i'm trying to get my point across in class....
i just want a machine that will spit out english sentences and then i can type in it and it'll speak for me and life will be perfect.
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