Today is B.A.D.D.: and i’ve been racking my brains for the last couple of weeks, trying to come up with a subject to blog about. This is part of the problem of doing this every year – you eventually run out of subjects, especially when you think about your disabilities as little as i think about them.
However, each time i’ve thought about it i’ve come repeatedly back to a post by Goldfish, not written as part of B.A.D.D. (although it could’ve been), but well before this, on Susan Boyle. And since many many words have been written about Susan Boyle in the blogosphere, and in the media, i’m not going to add to them. But still… her post, and a couple other posts she linked to, troubles me.
What was it she said?
However, it is fair to say that the same thing happens to other disabled people all the time. We aren’t admired for the talents we happen to have or the things we happen to do, and we aren’t respected just for ourselves. We are admired and respected because we defy expectations. Expectations being so low, most of us defy them at least some of the time. When we fail to do so for some reason, we are no longer afforded the basic respect to which everyone is entitled.”
We’re admired and respected because we defy expectations. And that admiration, that respect, is another form of disabilism.
Hmmm.
This makes me think. See, i’m deaf. Severely deaf: for the hearing people out there, my deafness is such that i can stand next to the speakers at a nightclub without my hearing aids quite happily, i can hear the music but it doesn’t – pun unintended – deafen me. Its not uncomfortable for me in the way that it probably would be for people who’s ears are working perfectly (The vibrations from said speaker, however, is another thing altogether).
However, i’ve worn hearing aids almost all my life – since they discovered i was deaf when i was 4 – very powerful hearing aids. I was brought up in a hearing family, an only child, and my parents devoted a lot of time to both teaching me to use my hearing aids to the full, but also to speaking clearly. I had speech therapy for much of my early life. This means that now, if you were to meet me, unless you were specifically aware of such things, there’s a reasonably good chance you wouldn’t even know i was deaf. My speech is – mostly – that of a hearing person, there’s just a few sounds i have trouble reproducing (And this brings its own problems, but that’s not for discussion here).
Because of this, when people realise i’m deaf, they often compliment me on my speech. And me, being a well brought up young lady (as my mother would say), would thank them for the compliment and go on my merry way.
But now, Goldfish’s blog has made me stop and think about this. About the attitude behind such a compliment. The expectation is that as a deaf person, i shouldn’t speak – or at least, i shouldn’t speak very well. Is this a reasonable expectation to have? Is having expectations of someone who is disabled a good thing? I’m trying now to put myself outside of my own knowledge of deafness.. asking myself: ‘if i saw someone in a wheelchair get up and walk, would i compliment them on their ability to do so?’. I have to say, my answer is no, but then… again, i’m somewhat better.. educated on the reasons that people might use a wheelchair than the average joe public might be. There comes the point where you ask yourself too: is this a reasonable opinion to hold, or am i being oversensitive?
But then, I certainly wouldn’t compliment someone in a wheelchair who’d just gotten up and walked on their walking ability because such a compliment is patronising in the extreme. I can *see* that, even without the knowledge that some people might use wheelchairs because although they can walk, they suffer from, say, fatigue related issues that mean that they can often do more if they take to a wheelchair for part of their day.
So really.. is complimenting someone for being able to speak well despite their deafness really any different?
So then the issue, for me, becomes… when someone does compliment me in such a way.. how do i respond?
I could educate them on their disabilism. I’m not sure this would get me anywhere since a) people often don’t want to hear about this because it makes them feel bad and b) do i really have to do this? I mean.. it is not my personal responsibility to go around correcting the world’s opinions and viewpoints on disability, or even on my own disability. This is something else Goldfish has touched on, today, in her post on “A living, learning experience“:
Well, I know a few things now, but I am not duty-bound to teach. I am not obliged to spend my life answering inappropriate questions or confronting ignorance whenever it arises.
Yes, of course, if i want to – if the person expressing such a viewpoint is someone i consider a friend, then yes, i probably would put the time and effort in anyway. If it was someone i didn’t know well, or was never likely to see again, then i could be quite rude, i suppose. But then, i’m not that kind of person: i have to be very angry to be rude to someone, and even then i often berate myself for it later.
So i’m not quite sure how i would respond. Maybe “thankyou very much” is a cop-out, but for someone who you don’t know well, perhaps someone who has indirect power over you (e.g. the boss’s wife), perhaps someone who you might never see again… maybe its the easier way out. Is there any shame in taking that easier route?
“I am not duty bound to teach. I am not obliged to spend my life answering inappropriate questions or confronting ignorance whenever it arises.”
Words to remember, for me, at least.
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Previous year’s entries on B.A.D.D.: 2008’s I don’t suffer from disabilism, B.A.D.D. – the best of and 2007’s prejudice from your own kind.
~ Urbania to Stoneheads ~ 
May 1, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Interesting point, and one I’ve never thought of before. I’ve certainly encountered deaf people with less clear speech, and someone less able to hear whether the sounds they make match up against someone else’s may have a harder job of producing clearer speech. So on one hand it could be a legitimate compliment: recognising you’ve worked hard on something that’s not easy – the equivalent on complimenting a Russian on their ability to pronounce English, for example.
But, on the other hand, people saying it may well be expressing their in-built expectations: they don’t expect deaf (capital Deaf?) people to speak clearly, and that is disablism.
I guess my answer is ‘it depends’. If someone was in a wheelchair and could walk only a little, I would think it reasonable to compliment them on their ability to do so, if I knew they had achieved that through had work and effort (as then I’d be admiring the effort they had put in); if simply someone who couldn’t walk so well and had not improved their ability through their effort, then it would be patronising and offensive.
I suppose for me it goes to show that we shouldn’t stereotype small groups “deaf” or “in wheelchair” any more than larger groups “the disabled” and should recognise that we are all individuals with different stories to tell…
May 1, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Actually, on second thoughts the ‘learning a foreign language’ is a bad comparison. It’s only really apt if ‘learning a language from a TV programme with the sound switched off’, but as I can’t think of a better comparison right now, I’m stuck with it…
May 1, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I think JackP had the gist of what most people who would attempt to compliment you in that way would mean. They would be attempting to acknowledge the dedication, time and effort you put into speaking well through years of speech therapy.
I think it can be compared, in a way, to learning to speak a foreign language well. I have had to work very, very hard to speak Dutch well – to learn the intonations and cadences, to cleave out my native American accent. When a native Dutch speaker says, always with much surprise, that I speak Dutch well I know that he or she is complimenting not my perceived ability, but really my effort to do so. I often get a flurry of questions about how I learned to do this (not growing up there or having Dutch parents).
It might not be an exact comparison, but I think it’s still useful. The biggest difference might be that people are afraid of offending you by asking that same flurry of “How can you do this?!?” questions.
Make sense?
May 1, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I think you raise some great points, and I tend to agree with your other commenters when they say that it’s just as important to consider what they are trying to compliment. If it’s that you’ve exceeded their expectations of what a Deaf person can do, then that’s their prejudice and disablism showing through. But a genuine compliment about the time, energy and effort that you’ve put into doing something – anything, really.. in my case it would be walking when I’m capable of it – then it’s a compliment well deserved.
It’s a tough line to walk, so I definitely know where you are coming from.
May 1, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Hmmm. I still think, even if you are virtuously thinking to yourself, Oh I am complimenting them on ALL THAT WORK, you are still stepping in a mine pit of assumptions and such.
I, like Kethry here, am profoundly deaf, but you wouldn’t know it from talking with me in most cases.
For my part, by the time I was in high school (roughly Year 10 onwards) I was sick of the underlying assumption I perceived after a while, that because I was deaf, it MUST HAVE BEEN ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF WORK. Because it wasn’t. Sure, I took years of speech therapy, but by the time I was 8 it was redundant, and forced on me by (I’m sure well meaning; however…) educators who figured Profoundly Deaf = Must Have Years Of Speech Therapy. It wasn’t that difficult for me — there were kids with other speech impediments who had to put in far more work than I ever did.
Here’s the thing. Every deaf person is different. For me, when I had hearing aids put on, I was able to hear well enough to learn to speak well & readily. (I still can’t tell what’s being said to me all of the time, separate issue.) But for someone else being fitted with hearing aids, might not be so helpful, even if their apparent “loss” is less than mine. Maybe it just makes distorted noises into louder distorted noises instead. What hearing people fail to realize is that we’re not all the same, not even close.
It’s also repetitive. I could have retired and purchased the nicest private island of my very own by now if I had a dime/tuppence 😉 for everyone who decided to tell me that.
So, I’d say, just don’t compliment deaf people on their speech. At the very, very, very, very least, don’t blurt that out the first time you find out someone is deaf. Let them tell you what they feel is necessary about themselves.
That said, I don’t know what to do about it any more than Kethry does… With a stranger, I’m likely to just say thank you and change the subject. With good friends, I might raise the subject later on.
May 2, 2009 at 8:04 am
[…] impressed when someone makes me consider something that had not previously occurred to me, and Kethry made me consider whether it is disablist to commend a deaf person on his or her speech. I still […]
May 2, 2009 at 10:26 am
How about just answering “Thank you, you too” to make them realize that it was a stupid remark? Otherwise, great post.
May 2, 2009 at 10:39 am
It’s so hard to keep quiet when faced with an ill-judged (or often not judged at all) comment. I keep quiet too with people I don’t know very well, but woe betide a friend or family member saying something stupid.
May 2, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Someone beat me to it, with the whole “hey you talk good to!” of course the ebil side of me wants to say “for a chav” but hey 😉
*hugs*
May 4, 2009 at 2:51 am
Not trying to start a fight, but I think this comment illustrates the frustration of dealing daily with disabilism:
Having to parse out the precise intention of someone offering a compliment?
That’s a lot of work.
May 5, 2009 at 12:21 am
Good point by BEG: making an assumption about the amount of work put in might well be stereotyping/pigeon-holing, judging people according to their disability.
And, to be honest, I am starting to be somewhat convinced by this argument…
On the other hand, to continue my general rule of a) attempting to see both sides of an argument and b) stirring vigorously, it could also be argued that someone who assumes a compliment is indicative of a disablist attitude has a bit of a chip on their shoulder (as to assume a compliment is indicative of a disablist attitude without trying to establish the intention is surely no more correct than to assume a person with hearing loss has to work much harder on their speech).
Monty Python said it best: “Yes, we are all individuals!”
May 12, 2009 at 2:02 am
I’m another Deaf person who finds it uncomfortable being complimented on my speech.
I think one part of why I find it discomforting is for the reasons that others have listed here.
I think another reason why I often end up uncertain how to respond is because, to me, complimenting someone on their speech suggests that speech is held as something valuable enough that I should feel pleased with myself for having this skill–not merely for the pragmatic functions that it can serve in a speaking-hearing dominant world but because speech is supposed to be inherently valuable outside of its pragmatic functions.
But, I know many people who either cannot speak or don’t speak very well who still happen to be competent people in many other ways. And, yes, this includes being very fluent communicators–just in modalities other than speech. So even though I myself have pretty clear speech (not quite like hearing people’s speech, but good enough that most hearing Americans for whom English is a native language can understand me most of the time in most contexts) I just don’t put the same *value* on it that most hearing people do. I do find it very *convenient* to have good speech that serves me well across, not all, but most contexts. But I wouldn’t be devastated if I woke up tomorrow and suddenly couldn’t speak at all.
I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t feel particularly complimented when told how good my speech is and don’t see why I should. I often get the sense that hearing people think that I should be not only gratified for the compliment but also feel good about myself or something just for having good speech. But why would I, when my self-esteem is not even tied to the clarity of my speech in the first place, in the way that I suspect it probably is for many hearing, speaking people, whether or not they’re conscious of it? It feels as if they’re kind of projecting their values onto me, values that I don’t really share.
No, I don’t pursue the issue when people compliment me on my speech. Usually I just mumble something about 15 years of speech therapy and move on. Except then they praise me for my hard work, blah blah. I haven’t really come up with a good, polite response. Usually I’m too taken off guard by the compliment to think of anything coherent.
May 1, 2012 at 8:27 pm
[…] anything, its worse), People like Me (not written by me), Researching disability in ancient Greece, Expectations and Stereotypes, I don’t suffer from disabilism, and Prejudice from “your own kind”. I missed it […]