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Hey there. If you find something "very surprising" about a marginalized community you don't know a whole lot about, may I submit to you that there is quite likely context you don't know that explains it and that your surprise is just a sign of that lack of awareness.
So as not to subtweet (that's what that is, right?) this is in response to a situation in which Deaf community "asked librarians not to teach sign" (or something to that effect.)
Yeah, people who use a marginalized language that is often reduced to being "beautiful" and "fascinating" might not like you showing off a few limited words as part of your storytime.
That does NOT mean they are not interested in interpreted services and actual ASL users on staff. Like, what are you even talking about? They just don't want their freaking LANGUAGE to be your parade float of the day at your library.
This is also tied up in the love of baby sign and the general love of ASL by hearing people while simultaneously having it endangered by a focus on audiology. Also, a million other things I can only catch the barest wisps of, as a hearing person myself.
Anyway, when you come in at step 479 and say "that doesn't make any sense" and "I know someone from that culture and they wouldn't say that", all it says is that you don't have the context to understand what's going on. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
