To Be Deaf in a Global Crisis: What Does That Mean?
The deaf community is often associated with cute videos of a baby hearing for the first time with cochlear implants or hearing aids, or sign language trending on Tik Tok. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been so many issues amongst the deaf community that have made me so angry.
One thing in particular that I have noticed during the pandemic -- through other people’s experiences, as well as my own -- is the impact that COVID-19 has had on the deaf community. Deaf people have always had to work harder to communicate in public, whether they use assistive devices like cochlear implants or hearing aids, lip-reading, American Sign Language, writing on paper or a combination of methods. With mask mandates, it has become even more difficult to communicate due to the elimination of lip-reading as a way of communicating. In the last week or so, a viral Tik Tok video was made by Shannon Heroux from California, in which she described how she was denied service in a Dunkin’ Donuts due to her deafness. She had told the employees she couldn’t hear, but they refused to pull down their mask or use alternative ways to communicate, and they refused to take her order.
This breaks my heart; this has been happening during the whole pandemic, and it is exhausting. People just can not or refuse to understand that there is no control over deafness, and we do rely on reading your lips. What frustrated me the most about Shannon’s story is that she said, “It was as if they didn’t believe I was deaf.” I have personally been in that position where people don’t believe that you have hearing loss just because “you speak so well.” It’s such a difficult position to be in because it’s not as if you can prove “how deaf you are.”
It angers me so much because people refuse to help on an individual level, but yet it seems manufacturers are against us as well. It is almost impossible to find a clear mask, and some places won’t let you use one. Last year, while I was completing twelfth grade, clear masks were given to my teachers; however, the way they were designed was unsafe, and they didn’t protect the user like normal medical masks, so much so that some of my teachers refused to use them. The whole process can become so difficult. Of course, as the pandemic continues, we want to adapt by using masks to stay safe, but some days I curse that masks even exist. I wish it was as easy to get a decent clear mask as it is to get a fabric one.
People ask us how they can help. First, you can believe us when we say we need help because we can’t hear you; be open to the fact not every deaf person struggles the same way, and we don’t all fit in society’s idea of a deaf person. Secondly, you can use the resources given to you — write on a pad of paper, use the notes app on your phone, learn as little as the alphabet in sign language, walk further way for social distancing and pull down your mask for the one second it takes you to ask a question (which is allowed through guidelines set by Public Health Canada). All in all, do anything — it means everything when you at least try to communicate. Being patient and kind this year has been hard for everyone, and all deaf community wants is to be able to go in public, to not feel anxious about ordering something as simple as a cup of coffee.