Before you assume that this article belongs under Health or Special Education, hear me out (no pun intended).

In our politically correct world, I am being disrespectful when I use the term “deaf” rather than “hearing impaired,” right? Wrong. Yes, there are many people who prefer the term “hearing impaired.” They have difficulty hearing and may not be able to hear at all, but they would like to fit into the hearing world as much as possible.

But there is another group of people out there who far too few people know about. They are proud to be deaf, insist upon being called deaf, and even adhere to their own deaf culture.

In a society where we try to understand and even respect other cultures, should we not become aware of this culture and grow an appreciation for the people who proudly make up the culture?

In America, people in the deaf culture use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. It is a visual language, consisting of very different grammar rules and word order than English. In an ASL class I took several years ago, the instructor told a story of when he went with some deaf friends to a local restaurant. Being the only hearing person of the group, the instructor had no reason to speak aloud, so he communicated silently in ASL with the group. After a few moments, he began to overhear a conversation from a hearing couple behind him.

“Oh, those poor people,” he heard. “Look, they can’t hear. Their lives must be so hard. I bet most of them can’t get a job anywhere. I wonder if any of them have children. I don’t think that would be very fair for the child, do you? I think you should really be able to hear to have children. I just feel so sorry for them. It must be terrible.”

After enduring several more minutes of comments, my instructor finally had enough.

“You know,” he said, turning around to face them. “It’s really not all that bad.” He turned back around to his friends and, from the corner of his eye, watched the couple get up and leave the restaurant.

People find it very difficult to see anyone in the deaf culture as anything other than pitiable, someone who has a terrible impairment that keeps them locked away from the real world. I think it is absolutely vital for anyone who has any interaction with deaf people to understand the deaf culture and the pride that people who are deaf share with one another.

I was once told by a friend who was deaf that to be called “hearing” by someone is a huge insult in his culture. “You are not hearing people. You are deaf impaired,” he explained. I used to think that the pride the Deaf Community shares with each other was common knowledge, until one particular undergraduate speech class I was in several years ago.

The professor brought up the discussion of the deaf community. He introduced a true court case about a child who was deaf. The mother of the child, who was hearing, wanted the child to be equipped with an assistive hearing device. The grandmother of the child, who was deaf, did not want the child to be equipped with the device, but rather wanted him to be taught about the Deaf Culture and understand his heritage within that culture.

As the professor was describing the case, my thoughts were, “Wow, that would be difficult. I certainly understand both points of view.” So I was really surprised when everyone else in the class overwhelming supported the mother and indicated complete surprise that anyone would even argue such a thing in court. I found myself defending the grandmother and receiving the appalled criticism from the entire class.

One student, exasperated by my comments about the pride in the deaf culture, said, “If you had a daughter who had a hearing impairment, would you want her to remain deaf or get an assistive device to help her hear?” I replied without thought, “I would want her to get an assistive device.” The student nodded her head as if she had won the argument. I continued, “But I’m not deaf. And I could not possibly teach my daughter the pride and the heritage of the deaf community. If I were that child’s grandmother, I would want to teach him about the culture that was so vital to me. The grandmother does not see being deaf as an impairment, and she does not want her grandson to ever consider himself as impaired.”

After letting me sweat it out for half the class period, the professor finally stepped in, looking at a vocal young woman who was African American, and asking her, “If you were a white male in this society, you would certainly have it easier, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded.

“So if you had the chance of changing yourself from an African American woman to a White man, would you do so, just to make your life easier?”

She looked at him funny, and then shook her head no.

“This is the same case we have here. Yes, the child would have an easier life if he had an assistive device to help him hear. But we are not just talking about having an easier life; we are talking about being part of a culture.”

Before the professor put it in those terms, I had never thought about it quite like that, and neither had anyone else in the class. I even had to rethink my answer to the young woman about automatically getting my young daughter an assistive device rather than considering teaching her about the Deaf Culture. For the first time in that speech class, we were all speechless.