[HEARING FRAGILITY]

Part of the SIGNS OF TIMES series.

A series of two rectangular plates, derived from the Signed English versions of HEARING and WEAK.

This piece references the fragility that hearing people have towards the deaf community; shock that either the deaf community isn’t eternally grateful for the support from those brave and noble enough to step out of their comfortable societal frameworks.

This is for:

• those who try to talk back when I correct their signing
• those who say “I’m only trying to raise awareness!”
• those who gravitate towards the more privileged deaf circles
• those who work with the less privileged deaf people and do not ensure they are centred and empowered
• those who feel that they do not need to keep up to date with Auslan, deaf community issues, professional development and studies while holding a position such as an interpreter
• those who think that other medical conditions such as Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) equals deafness
• those who do not value or advocate for deaf interpreters/support workers, often staying with a client who is clearly outside their skill set
• those who use a variation of “but my deaf friend told me this” to excuse their mistake
• those who think the term “Auslan Student” carries too many negative connations
• those who think that they can dip in and out of deaf community whenever they like, using the label ‘deaf’ but carrying deeply internalised audism
• those who get offended when their teaching pedagogy they’ve been focusing on for years, receive justified criticism, forcing them to whip out the good deaf adage “no deaf child is the same”
• those who get put out when they’re signed at after they’ve been speaking at deaf people in a tit for tat
• those who cannot handle deaf rage
• those reading this struggling to excuse their role and actions in a community that has been actively oppressed since Milan 1880
• those who get upset when they find out that as interpreters, they’ve been put on my shitlist
• those who complained about the marking they received in their certificate/diploma of Auslan and so the deaf teachers were made to pass them instead
• those who get butthurt when I can’t be arsed watching them sign basic introductions that are 300x slower and switch to pen and paper