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Hello.
I'd like to tell you about a experience that really shown the light of the difference
between the deaf and the hearing communities.
So, what happened was, I went to awards banquets
and one was held by the hearing community and I attended this one.
I am watching and what I noticed is that it's very formulaic.
Everything starts and ends on time.
We're calling the names and then individual would come for their award.
Everything's very on schedule, very structured,
and then as the ceremonies ended everybody went on their way.
And not to criticize it, it was just something a little different for me.
And I went to a awards banquet for, and everybody in here basically was deaf,
the first thing I noticed was the lighting.
It was a lot more lighting.
Also, we started a little late because we like to carry on our conversations
and chat, catch up.
The stage was elevated that way we could have that clear eye contact.
Everybody could see the speaker, be engaged.
The emotion, there was so much emotion in this one.
As the awardees come up to the stage, there's, there's tears flowing.
We're, everybody's using American Sign Language.
Now, the round tables typically will have a decoration of flowers,
an arrangement in the middle but for a deaf friendly environment we would not use those.
We need to see across the table, keep that conversation going.
And, as the scheduled time for the event to close, we were continuing our conversation
and up until the point where they were saying, it's time to leave.
And, so we would leave, sure, but right outside we were continue that conversation.
We were having fun and then, you know, I always tell about DST Deaf Standard Time.
But, as we meet these people that we went to the banquet with,
later on a few days later, we would revisit this memory.
We would look at pictures and videos and all that emotion comes back up
and it kind of goes back to what we've been talking about.
It's a visual in the deaf community as opposed to audio in the hearing community.
It was, it was interesting to see how different just that made in these two events.
Terrell BrittainASLI Assistant Professor
