I was on TikTok browsing around a few days ago. There's this wonderful young woman who has Tourettes; her tic attacks often make it challenging for her to communicate, so to help herself she has learned sign language. In one video, someone in the comments asked if she would do videos teaching others sign language. Another user responded it would be cultural appropriation if she were to teach others because she herself was not deaf.
... What?
Overusing terms causes the phrases to lose meaning, overall, cultural appropriation means that a dominant force swoops in, takes, and misrepresents the cultural parts of society.
I don't know how this would apply to a woman teaching sign language. I would consider anyone appropriately sharing sign language as a helpful act!
Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals aren't the only people who need sign language. Autistic children/individuals, anyone who is non-verbal or has non-verbal experiences, people with Tourettes or other neuro experiences that cause tics or related occurrences, etc. also use sign. Our society and human culture are almost always reliant on communication.
The more people who use sign language, the easier it is for deaf/HOH individuals to communicate throughout the world. If only deaf individuals could learn sign language, what kind of world are we living in where we can't learn sign language to communicate in stronger ways with our peers, regardless of whether we can hear?
Interpreters are a crucial tool for many. If interpreters were deaf and couldn't translate to other deaf/HOH, many deaf/HOH people would be out of luck.
Sign language is a whole original language on its own. This isn't different from an English speaker learning Japanese because they want to talk to someone who knows Japanese. They aren't learning a new language to take over Japanese culture. They are just gaining new knowledge.
Thoughts down in comments, always be respectful, even when disagreeing! :)
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