Saturday, January 4, 2014

Teen Speaks out for Deaf Parents

Image from theCreekview High School newspaper  
A high school senior in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton authored a column in the Dallas Morning News titled, "People should make more of an effort to understand the deaf community." Kayla Davis writes:
My parents and many of their deaf friends have.. been handed menus in Braille, offered wheelchairs at airports and questioned about whether they can drive. It seems people will continue to be misinformed about deaf people and deaf culture when things like this are happening. Deaf people are often misjudged. They are pegged as unable when they are forced to sit in wheelchairs and strolled across the airport when their legs work just fine.. They are pegged as rude when at the grocery store they can’t hear the person behind them saying excuse me and they don’t move. But deaf people are not disabled or weird or rude. A deaf person, as my mom puts it, can do anything a hearing person can do — except hear.
Read Kayla's entire piece here. Besides writing columns for the Dallas newspaper, she's an editor for her high school newspaper, too.