[JE] Hello, I'm Jenna... [JI] ...and I'm Jill.
[JE] This is ASL Stew!
(hand slap... ♪♪♪)
[JI] Hello, today is a more serious video because
I'm sure recently you know there was a hurricane in Texas, Harvey,
and now in Southern Florida they have Irma and other ones as well.
So that means there are a lot of news channels showing
messages, warnings, what to do for evacuation plans.
Recently you might have noticed on Facebook,
it went viral about one man in a yellow shirt
kind of signing, I guess a.k.a interpreting what they were saying.
But actually it was horrible!
It wasn't actual interpreting.
So we kind of wanted to talk about that topic of
fake interpreting problems that we noticed on the news recently.
[JE] So... as a Deaf person, my perspective is that I feel offended.
It's not respectful and...
it just makes me think that
they think Deaf people are not important enough to provide
equal access to the information as a hearing person would have.
That we're lesser. "Oh this is good enough."
"Somebody knows a little bit of sign, great, good enough."
Or "Oh it's last minute, we don't want to go
and actually get an interpreter from an agency that's certified.
No big deal. We'll just stick a random person in there."
But that's not appropriate.
So it just kind of shows how they feel about the Deaf people in their community.
It's not good at all!
The person who did the signing...
I'm not automatically assuming he's a bad person.
I'm not blaming him. We don't know the situation of how he got in there.
Maybe he felt obligated he had to do it and couldn't say no.
I don't know. So that aside, that's not the point.
The point is the governmental office, whoever set up the warning about the evacuation plans,
they are responsible for providing equal accessibility to that information.
They should have gotten an qualified interpreter from an agency or whatever.
Even if they couldn't, at least put captions on there.
Not just stick a random person in. No!
They have to know what is the appropriate way to provide equal accessibility.
[JI] Yeah, as an interpreter, a professional interpreter I was offended too!
It kind of felt like they thought that was a qualified interpreter?
That's good enough for their Deaf citizens?
No, that's ridiculous!
If they say, "oh it's last minute, it's an emergency",
I'm aware of that and yes it's an emergency situation.
An interpreting agency or somebody would be willing to send
anyone at that time, whether it's their coordinator or director
but somebody from the agency who's qualified.
I know many interpreters who would be wiling to volunteer,
at least do whatever they have to because it's important!
So if they say, "oh we couldn't find an interpreter",
I'm sorry but that's crap!
No, it's not fair.
I want to show you, I'll put down the credit of who did this,
an actual transcript of what the woman said
and a transcript of what the interpreter, man, interpreted.
Let me show you right now.
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So as you can see, there's HUGE gaps in the information
and the few things he actually signed, some of it doesn't even make sense!
So really it's just unfortunate we noticed this happening multiple times.
[JE] This is not the first time or the last time.
[JI] Right, so like I said,
if you notice that on your news,
try to get a hold of someone at the new station or whatever
and let them know, complain.
Obviously if you're in an emergency situation, take care of yourself
and then later contact them after you are safe
and say "no, that's not acceptable!"
Deaf people have a right to equal accessibility
the same as any hearing person does.
So I just kind of wanted to throw that out there.
What do you guys think of it? Have you noticed this happening a lot?
What is your opinion related to this situation?
We're just curious.
Okay, if you like this video, click LIKE
and if you haven't, go ahead and...
[JI] ... subscribe!
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[JI] Also remember, please if you can afford it,
try to donate for any of the hurricanes,
hurricane Harvey or Irma to different foundations.
We can put down a few that we trust below.
So please if you can, donate.
So many people need your assistance. Okay.
Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video. Bye!
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