Today’s word is:

Audism

This is a form of discrimination that postulates, well to make is simple, persons who are Deaf or hard of hearing are inferior to those who are not.

A couple of examples:

• 25, 30 years ago, if a Deaf person fell so badly their knees, arms & head were a bloody messy and they arrived at the local ER, they most likely had in tow a hearing child or friend who could interpret their ASL to the staff. Nowadays, medical interpreters are easy to arrange.
• A house guest who cooks lavish meals at 3 in the morning, unperturbed, because the Deaf person in residence can’t hear the clattering of kitchen equipment.
• Talking to a hearing impaired (I used that phrase on purpose) adult in the same manner as addressing a child is a hugely improper, I mean that Deaf person may a university graduate, how do you know?
• “I’ll tell you later…”, “oh it’s not important…”, “deaf and dumb…”… oh my…
• These are all archaic, extremely rude audism statements. Do not repeat.

If you are Deaf or hard of hearing, and want to share your audism horror stories, please do!

Thank you for reading!