I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU MOVING THE TABLES.

At the end of class today, the teacher for the next class (not Deaf Studies) in that room was already at the door.  As we packed up, she stood and announced to us, "I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU MOVING THE TABLES!" which we had not done.

Every week we have to move the tables and chairs out of rows and parallel to the walls.  Since we use ASL in class, we need to sit an a semi-circle or "U" shape so that we can see each other signing.  Another student remarked that for that teacher to expect us to move the tables was audism.

Audism is having a superior attitude based on one's ability to hear or having a negative attitude toward the Deaf.  It's like a prejudice and results in oppression.  Tom Humphries, who made the term popular, said that audism is to Deaf people as racism is to black people (lifeprint.com).  Closed-captioned movies serve as an example of audism.  There are so few showings of movies with closed captions, and they are often held at inconvenient hours like a weekday in the afternoon.  So only Deaf people without jobs can see the movie, then?  Most people go to the movies on Friday or Saturday nights.  But this is like saying that black people can't go to the movies on Friday nights because that night is reserved for whites to go to the movies.  Deaf people do not have full access to enjoy the movie theater as hearing do.

Do you think it was it audism for the teacher to expect us to move the tables back into rows? 

It would be kind for us to move the tables back, to leave the room as we found it.  But is it fair, just because the majority of the world likes to sit in rows in the classroom?

I don't want the Deaf community to have a bad reputation.  But I feel like we have a point to make.  We use the able bodies that make up our class to arrange the room how it suits us best, because it isn't that way when we get there.  Just because hearing people like to hold class in rows doesn't mean it's the only RIGHT way.