How many times have you felt judged to be incapable of an occupation, ability or achievement due your deafness or hearing loss? If things like "You speak very well for someone who is deaf", "Wait, you can drive?" or "Oh! You are deaf? I'm so sorry..." sound familiar to you, then you have suffered from Audism.
Audism as a form of discrimination towards those who cannot hear or with hearing loss. The sign in Auslan literally translates "Audism" into Deaf oppression, and embodies the exclusion it brings.
Those who hold these oppressive attitudes are known as "audists". They belief that they are superior based on their ability to hear.
There are two types of audists: passive and active audists:
The passive audists are those who act merely from ignorance and have not given much thought to their actions concerning Deaf people or sign language.
The active audist are people who, despite being informed, continue to engage in audist behaviour.
But, WAIT! Not only hearing people can practice these forms of discrimination against the deaf community. Audists can be either hearing or deaf, as this attitude can also be occur between groups of deaf people, with some who, for example, choose not to use a sign language and not to identify with Deaf culture, considering themselves "different" to those who do.
This week we are celebrating Deaf Awareness Week, a campaign led by the UK Council on Deafness that "aims to promote the positive aspects of deafness, social inclusion and raise awareness of the huge range of local organisations that support deaf people".
Here at Deaf Umbrella, as every year, we want to take advantage of this celebration and spread the word about Audism, how to avoid it and raise awareness.
During this week we will run a daily quiz and will share informative, and very fun gifs through our social media channels. Don't miss these! Join us here.
We really hope that all this information will help everyone to better understand this practice so that we can all work together to eradicate it.
Help us share this much needed information! We all need to change. We all need to learn. United together we can change attitudes.
HAPPY DEAF AWARENESS WEEK 2020!
