Navigating Disability When Society Views You As Impaired | Matthew Maxey | TEDxGreensboro
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCMesoWQTE Video ID: GUCMesoWQTE ============================================================ [Applause] hello everyone my name is Matt Maxi and this is my sign name why because I'm always cheesing side name is your way of likeed theed into the death community so I also have a profound here in nor let me show you how that work who's your favorite artist all right now I have detated technically I'm supposed to have two but I only have one for today now go ahead and ask me any other question you want what's your favorite time of the year what's your favorite time of the year what what's your favorite time of the year okay all right thank you so to put that into sued my heated to trying to hear underwater when you're underwater you can swim you might be able to see things if you hear fire go on boom boom you might be able to fit it or see it but when it comes to communication it's not clear and that's how my hearing feels and I put my hearing a on now when I mean a word of people that can hear people that are able people that can maneuver it's hard to figure out what mode do I have to be in to Fig if I want to be de but I'm out in public I have to work 10 times harder to fit the audience of mind but if I want to be hearing in an audience with my death friend or my death PID or my death comrad I feel like I'm not doing them justive because I had a benefit or privilege that they may not have been exposed to so that leads to the struggle of navigating how do you have the best and wor of both words and make it through life to to fit in or stand out that is the question why I say that is because I grew up learning Fe therapy I grew up interacting with my hearing kid I did not know about death Community I did not know about th language I did not know about any of that I spent quite a bit of time going to speed therapy that mean morning lunch dinner summer vacation Christmas break every opportunity now that's after our with two hearing this is the hearing perspective of how people with hearing LW to navigate the world they tried to make the People Best Fit their were and sometimes that can be affected and sometimes that cannot be affected so as I go through life I realize hey I kind of stand out as much as I tried to fit in hey why do you sound like that why do you talk like that what are those in your head why do you get the microphone to the teacher all these questions that been realized provided and and explanation and as you see as un communicated I go back and forth between thinking in Sign Language thinking in speech thinking in simultaneously communicating using three different form of communication back to back to back so even when people are bilingual you have the of of being hey I'm in this environment I can use this language I'm in this environment I can use this language no matter what environment I am in I go back and forth between all of the languages now that can be either weakness or a superpow I decided to look at it like a superpow why that is because it leads to more understanding even with standing up I can bring more the master to help them learn about a culture that they may may never have been exposed to now the world around you makes you cater to them the struggle of co- and him coming I want to give you a story you take Fe therapy right now I grew up in Georgia Texas Mississippi and Florida all of that my parents are from Chicago and New York City my mom work for American Airline my dad work for the Army so that was a lot of exposure to different cultures background experiences all of the above but have you ever thought about how difficult it would be to take Feast therapy and learn Spanish at the same time it was difficult s and C are my worst nightmares but in Spanish that's what you have a lot of also when you're taking feed therapy I got put in the church quiet that for social interaction now being in the church quiet I thought I ready everything hallelujah amen let's go so of course I see everybody say hey s it to the top of your line I said no problem let's do it amen hallelujah this is what I thought at a teenager in high school oh okay maybe I don't sound as good as I think I do okay so let's prac our lip thinking that is a sign of how we learn to adapt to the word of now what comes with that is self-esteem that means you're constantly figuring out where do you belong in a world that do seem like it cative to you and at the same time you can't keep fighting the Battle of well let me in let me in let me in take me for who I am because I missed out on everything I love to read I love English I love reading if you know about American Sign Language it's about visual I did not have that all I had was the individuals I created from reading and learning and how could I put that into picture I couldn't I just made my own Nar I'm going to CR it over to my voice interpret maybe you know that I took my hearing aids off you ask yourself why well I just have to trust my interpreter to be my voice and sometimes that makes me feel like my power is taken away you guys can be yourself if you want to communicate you could just go ahead and speak you can do that if you want to whisper you can do that if you want to yell be loud you can do that but for me I have to fit someone else it's almost like two becoming one so now when you think about life and those life lessons like I just mentioned remember I said I love reading so that means you know conversation around me I don't get I don't understand when I go to family events or family gatherings it's just like yeah hey hey hello it's good to see you Grandma oh how School Great Grandma I'm a straight A student it's great how are you doing you know I'm I'm good bye Grandma and that's it a liit to the communication now I understand I love my family I appreciate them I value them but they also help me realize which I didn't realize that something was wrong with me until I went out to the real world so my family they didn't have any problems with me the world had problems with me and that really helped me to realize like okay how do I change that as I went through life I went to gu that University when I went to G that University I didn't know any sign language I grew up speaking I didn't know sign language when I got there they had huge protest at that time and that's because their their president was hard of hearing just like me so I realized whoa wait that's a problem to be hard at hearing I remember I went to to the cafeteria on campus and I was on the phone with my mom and tell her hey mom up here one person literally just slapped the phone out my hand and they were like get off the phone that's rude and the reason why they told me was because this is their sacred area and I was like w okay from there that really opened my eyes because now I thought I saw know the potential inside the world that I could belong to and that led me to music now music oh that was my everything I grew up when it had like CD books I had this huge open a CD book I read the catalog and like oh yeah then I'll just try to rap the songs right along with it and I could I felt hearing I felt like we were alike I felt just like my hearing friends were dancing and vibing to the music I could dance and VI to the music right with them but when we have conversations I couldn't hear anything because I didn't have a script so with music when I got to college it was a huge big change for me it changed everything so now I'm going to go back to using my voice to talk about my experience so when I first started learn medic it was incredible right I was thinking hey I'm learning sign language all of the sign language that I learned was from the death culture and de Community it wasn't from ASL teachers it wasn't from program it wasn't from people teaching you how to be a certain way it was from the freedom of the destinity allowing me to be myself for giving me the tools I need so when I learn I started to people like twister emem you name bust right try keep Le a new language three possible to keep up with but the way I thought about it was if I can keep up with them communication would be easy PK right it worked out that way but with that experience I had Tha with as a weapon not weapon but ammo I went out into the world I did not realize that the world didn't always understand what with me what being death me I a black death man and as a black death man I did not realize that I had Target that didn't always BL me or one always t or told that mean if I got arrested or held up because I'm trying to protect somebody else that is death when they get called on for being too loud and I communicate to the law enforcement officer that hey she's de they slam her on the car and after they slamming her on the car they're telling me to turn around and put my hands behind my back wow I didn't do anything at all and then they tell me to keep my hand behind my back and I'm thinking I need my hand to communicate too well you're not there you can talk that doesn't mean anything you're a law enforcement you're not adopted so that's where now your power is threatened to the point where you SE for me and you take away both my sight and my hand change the way I looked at everything after help me become more of an advocate where we made a video on pap that have 25 million views just from teaching 10 temp time for law enforcement to follow so in a world where negativity is spotlighted positivity gets rewarded they want to break you down they want to see you fail they want to see you get lost in the system they want to see all of these negative effects but the more you to the more they're like oh you're here you made it you to buy you're still going you're still standing strong that pay the On to the Next Generation now that means when I grew up I did not see people who were black or death or us with and mainstream media but through all of these experiences I canot provide that opportunity and Inspire others to do the same as well statistics are not the full story the full story is in the people language debation is in full effect and that means people don't have access to the resources they need they don't have access to vocation their Rehabilitation they don't have access to therapy they don't have access to counseling none of that so the number doesn't always tell you the full story and as I said earlier being in the community fully not in the education or institution but the community taught me everything about what they're missing and why people who are not that think they need something no we can brid that Gap and give them the information to show them what they truly need so what does impact look like for example working with trans thic that was 50 free tickets for death and heart here 50 that mean these people have never experienced the show anything and they got that for free to see what acceptability looks like you know how powerful that is to not experience something say you go hang glid there you go DC diving there you go anything you never expected to do because of your predicament and then you do it that just open up your word to a whole new level of blessing so Ed is not a novelty when you see Community you see sign language you think oh this is great this is incredible I love that you can sign it's great but you know what's even better communication belonging Community being a party that's all we want that's The Human Experience so with that day I want you to think about learning as much as you can but start with two words a day in langage that two words will lead to over 700 words and a year and you can build from that so before I end I've always wanted to say this and I will state it and I was sign it too thank you for coming to my T talk [Applause]