By Tom Willard
I am very concerned about the lack of accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the local arts and cultural community, and I am interested in forming a committee of like-minded people to investigate this situation and propose some solutions.
Recently, I searched for keywords such as “deaf” and “ASL” and “interpreted” on the websites of Rochester’s major galleries, museums and other cultural institutions. The results were pretty bleak. “Interpreted upon request” was sometimes seen, but on most websites deaf people were not mentioned at all.
It is a far cry from when we were running Deaf Artists of America (1985-95) and educating the Rochester community about the needs of its deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens. It has gotten so bad that the Arts & Cultural Council virtually forgot about deaf people when planning this week’s Perspectives on Accessibility conference.
It is obvious that despite Rochester’s reputation as a deaf mecca, we are being ignored by the arts and cultural community. When I look at the D&C’s Weekend section or City Newspaper, the list of events seems like “for hearing people only.” At one time, we had Lights On! Deaf Theatre, but now our choices are limited to what NTID offers, because virtually none of the local groups do anything to reach out to the deaf audience. I’ve read of theaters in other cities that offer open captioning and it makes me wonder why none of Rochester’s theaters can do the same thing.
So I’d like to get a group of people together to discuss this matter. First, we have to decide if we accept this status quo. Perhaps we have no interest in becoming involved in local theater and arts events. Perhaps we view them as “hearing things” and prefer to stay within our own deaf world. If so, that would be good to know before making further efforts. If not, the question becomes, What do we do about it? I have some ideas, but I’d like to know what others think.
When I drove past the George Eastman House recently with a deaf friend who likes photography, I asked her if she had ever been there. She said no. It did not surprise me, as we deaf people do not get a welcome vibe from these institutions. Instead of the reactive approach of being “willing to provide interpreters” if asked well in advance, I wish they would be proactive and provide accessibility as a matter of course, and reach out to the local deaf community with flyers in places where we gather and postings on DeafROC.com and emails to leaders of various organizations and groups.
They don’t do this because they don’t know how, and they don’t know how because they don’t bring in any deaf staff or volunteers to educate them and offer them access to our community. So again, the question becomes, do we want to do anything about it? One could view it as a form of ongoing and entrenched discrimination, but perhaps we have grown to accept the situation and don’t care anymore.
What do you think? Feel free to leave comments, and if you’d like to be a part of this proposed committee, please send an email by clicking HERE.
839-8208
