Vibe My Tribe

Last week the world witnessed the death of a wonderfully inspiring man-Nelson Mandela.  And when it came time to bury this legend of a man, all eyes were on South Africa.  Laying a man of this magnitude to rest is an international affair.  This man single-handedly changed the face of the entire world.  He taught us all what strength and dignity really stands for.  His funeral would be viewed by billions.  But when it came time to make sure that everyone everywhere to come together to grieve the loss of the man who inspired millions, millions of deaf people were left out.

Yes, I'm sure you've already heard about it, but the sign language "interpreter" was a fraud.  As an African that is somewhat fluent in American Sign Language, I was horrified at what I witnessed.  What I saw wasn't the beautiful poetry of the language I learned to love in high school.  I was a mockery, a sham-empty signs with no meaning, conveying absolutely nothing.  It made me think of a line from Shakespeare:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing"

 

In that moment of seeing such a wonderful thing as someone's life turned into a parody shook me in a way that maybe, if I hadn't spent 2 years of my life learning to translate life into symbols and facial expressions and hand wouldn't have mattered in the least bit.  A tribe of people I had learned to identify with wasn't being "vibed" (In other words, they had been treated unfairly).  I remember the strange looks I got from my African family when I announced that I was quitting French to learn Sign Language.  It didn't go over very well.  It wasn't until my family learned how much money ASL interpreters make that they deemed my choice as smart.  I can understand underestimating just how important sign language may be if you're a hearing person, but to the deaf community, sign language is the only way they interact with the world.

 

 

When I sat down to write this blog post, I wanted to rant and rave about how Africans need to learn to embrace things outside of our culture because continuing on the path we're on is making it hard for the rest of the world to take us seriously, but now, as I sit here, I'm proud be to be able to sign, it makes me different. 

 

Its nights like this I wonder where my life is going.  I wonder what they'll have the opportunity to misinterpret. 

 

I hope its half as good as the life Nelson Mandela's interpreter messed up.