Is the ADA enough for deaf people? If not, why?
Video Description
Kriston in a black shirt signing in front of a white background.
Transcript
I’m curious about your perspective on the Americans with Disabilities Act – ADA. Do you think it’s enough for deaf people or not enough?
Responses
“The ADA does support us deaf people, but there is still a lot of ambiguity.”
“Need amendments to redefine “reasonable accommodations” the provider shouldn’t decide.”
“Nope, not enough and need to be elaborated more on deaf needed services.
The Government should automatically provide interpreters no matter what – following Sweden model.
“The ADA is not enough. It focuses on our economic potential as laborers instead of our liberation, language access and well-being. In the 23,000 words of the ADA, the word “language” never shows up once. And their understanding of disability in the bill itself is heavily tied with economic dependency. One quote from the bill is, “(8) the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous, and costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from dependency and nonproductivity.” They are more interested in us becoming workers than access in its own right. For more on this, there’s an analysis, “Bodies in Dependence” here.
