Dear Marlee:
You did everything right the other night. I enjoyed watching you, especially when you were on the attack. You are a model for Deaf women everywhere.
So forgive me for analyzing your choices during Celebrity Apprentice, as if you were some sort of laboratory specimen. I have to produce some sort of response to the anger and frustration from other Deaf folks in my living room. This anger bothered me and I’m still working out why.
Most of this anger and frustration is centered around your chosen charity, Starkey Hearing, which I’ve followed for years. During the show, every time you repeated their admittedly vapid slogans about needing to hear to live (and I do recognize you gave lie to those slogans with the evidence of your hearing-aid-less body), American Deaf people winced.
After much thought I have come to believe this wincing is evidence of two things: one, that we are absurdly privileged in America, and two, we fail to recognize this privilege.
You are perfect evidence of this privilege. By law and by need you’re entitled to an ASL interpreter. You can be a fully fledged person without hearing aids. You have support, respect, and safety. You can be a finalist on Celebrity Apprentice.
Starkey is an international organization which, lately, offers free hearing aids and support to Deaf children. They’ve done this in Africa and Haiti and other disaster-ridden areas. Places where Deaf kids do not have support, respect, or safety. They certainly don’t have interpreters, or very few.
In such situations, a hearing aid can give life-saving clues and even independence. In such situations, the empty slogans of Starkey have true meaning and import. And this isn’t just an international issue. Even in America there are states and counties where interpreters, mutual cultural respect, and access are in short supply. I still, today, teach American Deaf children that they have the right to communicate with their families, have captioning on television, and have their first language respected. We have earned many rights in America, but pretending those rights are equally available to every Deaf person-or equally understood by themselves or their families-is a self-deceiving act which we American Deaf folks tend to engage in. Starkey recently appeared on Extreme Home Makeover and gave free hearing aids to any student who wanted them-and I bet you many of those kids wanted to communicate with their families. Yeah, ideally those families would learn to sign, but that option isn’t available to many parents without quitting their jobs and finding monies they might not have (or finding the motivation, for that matter.) How many Deaf organizations are passing out free Learn ASL DVDs to parents of newborn Deaf children? Without such an option, all that whining and complaining is just that-whining and complaining. People want you to support a charity which doesn’t exist.
Marlee, you weren’t encouraging all Deaf people to run out and get hearing aids or implants, or making a judgment about whether it’s better to sign or speak. I feel, however, that many Deaf Americans haven’t made the distinction between a slogan and a personal opinion-possibly because you didn’t either. You never addressed the fact that you were marketing a device which you weren’t using on camera. I think it’s possible that, had you made that distinction, there would be less of a muttering in the Deaf community. But after many years I’ve become a realist, not an idealist: you’ll never satisfy everyone.
But then, why should you have to? Your life should be accepted as testament to your commitment to Deaf people, signed languages, and a better world. Even your Oscar was won thanks to your dramatization of real Deaf experiences. Maybe it’s up to those who see contradictions where none exist to think about the issue and find their own satisfaction. Anything else, to me, seems to be a form of control and not true debate or academic discussion. We should not project our frustration with the world on you just because you happen to be an easily available target.
Regardless, you got gypped, and Trump will be disappointed in his choice. If I ever start a business, however, you’re the first woman I’ll call.
Always,
Joseph Santini
