The other day, I encountered a peddler in my local fast food emporium. He wasn’t peddling alphabet cards, this one. He had handmade keychains. Like, who goes around with a bunch of loose keys in the pocket? So why would anyone buy one from a peddler, except out of sympathy. They were accompanied by a card proclaiming the peddler to be deaf and the keychains his own handiwork.
I was sitting there by
myself, finishing my pop and reading the sports page,
when one of the cards was thrust in my face. I looked at
it for a few seconds, then made eye contact with the
peddler. "You deaf?" I signed. Often, peddlers
are hearing people banking on the public’s
gullibility and pity. Sign to one of these, and he will
beat a hasty retreat. Not this one. "Yes, you?"
he signed back. Then we proceeded to run through the
customary deaf culture conversational-opener script:
where are you from, where did you go to school, do you go
to the deaf club, who else might one of you know that the
other might know. The keychains had been tucked away. As
I began to take longing glances at my newspaper, we
concluded our discussion, and he proceeded to another
table to offer his trinkets. Happily, however, the
manager soon appeared, with a note written on a piece of
paper, asking the peddler to leave, in accordance with
store policy. I was relieved. I didn’t want people
to think I endorsed his peddling.But aside from finding out
the imposters, I have long since given up arguing with
peddlers about peddling. They always feel supremely
entitled to it. They would "rather peddle than be on
welfare." No matter that welfare is a legitimate
safety net which, coupled with vocational rehabilitation
and counselling, can help people get back on their feet.
Furthermore, when a peddler begs, the beggee only knows
that their money is desired, not that it is needed. I
have heard of networks of ‘deaf’ peddlers in
some cities, where the begging is just a cottage
industry. At least Welfare attempts to verify financial
need prior to making handouts.No sooner did I arrive home
when the local paper arrived with a letter to the editor
about this guy. A local couple asserted that ejecting him
from a restaurant was "not very nice". They
would henceforth take their burger business elsewhere.
They assured the peddler that all people were not as
mean-spirited as the restaurant manager. They asserted
that everyone has the obligation to help the "less
fortunate" to "better themselves" and
"improve their self-esteem". They wondered
"where was the harm?"At this point, I flipped my
lid. Labelling us less-fortunate is exactly the kind of
attitude that oppresses us. Flogging keychains in burger
joints is "bettering ourselves"? Gee—I was
working on a Ph.D., but maybe I will just whip up some
bookmarks and head on down to Burger King. Where is the
harm? As I sit there reading the business section, or
revising a section of my dissertation, who notices that I
am deaf? But there goes the peddler, drawing attention to
himself. When I go to look for a job, and people know
that I am deaf, the image of the peddler will be the
salient deaf image in their minds. Which deaf
person’s self-esteem is more important? Mine
plummeted the instant the peddler walked in and started
to flash his trinkets around.I immediately faxed a letter
to the editor in response, published a few days later,
making many of these points and encouraging people to
contact the Hearing Society to find out how to direct
their financial support to improving access, not hand it
out a loonie (Canadian dollar) at a time in fast food
restaurants. Several employees at both local
McDonald’s commented to me about the letter. I think
they needed the moral support for their policy after the
short-sighted "not nice" letter appeared. Even
more so, I think they might have been concerned about
throwing out a friend of mine (I am a very regular
patron).That is exactly the problem.
People see deaf people as all one lot. If one is a
peddler, all are peddlers. If one is an unfortunate,
dependent innocent, then all are. These kinds of limits
on expectations keep deaf people from aspiration,
opportunity, and achievement.I’ve talked with many
ALDAns who have said that their earliest and sometimes
only memory of meeting a deaf person was a of a peddler,
and this was a depressing recollection when later
confronting their own deafness. Do we consciously or
unconsciously fear that deafness means we will plummet to
passing out alphabet cards in the mall? Does fear of
becoming like that prevent any of us from learning to
sign? For many years during my progressive hearing loss,
I thought deafness was beneath me. Who would I talk with?
I don’t know any of those people. Look how I was
achieving! Not like them. How did I know about them?
From seeing peddlers. Luckily I did meet deaf people who
were professionals, like me, and learned that knowing how
to fingerspell and selling fingerspelling cards were not
cause and effect. And of course I am now proud to be able
to muster fairly fluent ASL when called upon it to defend
the honor of deafness in challenging peddlers on my fast
food turf.The second-last deaf peddler
I passed was a very dirty man sitting on the sidewalk on
Yonge Street in Toronto, near the corner where all the
tourists go. He had a hat in front of him and a small
hand-lettered notice. "Lost my hearing in 1990 and
cannot work." If this is true, of course, it is
tragic. Tragic not that he became deaf, although nobody
is really ever prepared and few lives are made simpler
and easier by it, but tragic that he could not see a
future with deafness. Did past encounters with peddlers
lead him to conclude that this was his deafened fate? I
didn’t challenge that peddler in sign, of course.
The "went deaf in ’90" claim is the
perfect dodge for "why don’t you sign,
then?" questions. If I had thought he had an
address, I would have sent that man an ALDA News
subscription. There is no need to give up. ALDAns learn
that deafness is often a practical frustration, but once
we get through adjusting to deafness and accepting it, we
can do anything except hear. We don’t need peddlers
selling us short.
