"Communication is 55% Nonverbal, 38% Vocal, and 7% Words Only"

Deaf people are “foreigners”.

I know that word is no longer in favor, but “nonresident” didn’t fit the synonym bill either. I’m using the word to prove a point: outside of country, even within one.

If you met someone from another place, you likely wouldn’t spend most of your time marveling at how they learned a world (“different”) language, or whether they’re the same as the other person you once met who also came from that country … you’d just understand that they’re “foreign” to your life experience but no less human. As capable and powerful and possibly linguistically gifted in their “country”, as you in yours.

But those who can hear give their own ears more credit than they deserve.

Albert Mehrabian once broke down the components of a face-to-face conversation, finding that communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only. We fill in the blanks, use subtext, facial expressions, and context clues much more than we think… but most of us still think hearing equates with “ears that work”.

In the Deaf community, the fact I grew up in a hearing family and do not have a pedigree in sign language is a strike against me. It’s a privilege not everyone is born into, nor does everyone have the mobility, coordination, or brain acuity for sign… Yet, those who are hearing often congratulate me for being hearing-passing, not realizing it (could be a) source of shame in my “home country”. Success on my “soil” might not look like success on yours.

We use words like “hear” in everything. “Can you hear me?” we ask. Someone’s face might flush rose with discomfort, but: it’s okay. I “hear” you with my eyes and you hear me with your ears; it’s still the same damn thing. The sign in ASL for “hearing” looks the same from one to the other: just cheekily moving it to our eye or ear, depending on which version of processing we’re talking about.

Sound takes up space. You can feel when it’s filling the air around you - music from a speaker, thick with electricity- and you can feel when it goes away.

We can all take up space… no matter which country we derive from.

“55% nonverbal”.

You see? We’re closer than you think.

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