[INTRO]
Hello, as you can see I have a very special guest
with me in this video.
Say hello to Tommy Edison.
TOMMY: Oh hello, hi, nice to be here.
RIKKI: And my interpreter who is hiding in the corner,
I don't know if you can see her,
but if she wants to like...
Okay, so in this video we're going to
talk about how people kind of confuse or mix up
deafness with blindness or any other disability
or whatever term that you may use.
And because Tommy is my guest
I'm going to let you start off.
TOMMY: Alright, well one of the things that's kinda funny
that happens for me is people often think I'm deaf.
And what they'll do is they'll shout at me, they go,
"How are you today?!"
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I only can't see,
I can hear pretty well.
So it always makes me laugh, you know?
At the movies for example,
sometimes they'll wanna hand me an iPad
for closed captioning, right,
and I'm like, no, no, no, no,
I need the other one, I need the audio description,
not the, the closed captioning won't help me a bit.
Also I've had times where people, like in the airport
it happens to me a lot,
where people wanna give me a wheelchair.
And I'm like, wait, but I'm standing,
my legs are workin' just fine.
"No, no, no, no, we need to put you in a wheelchair."
Oh, that one makes me a little bit crazy,
but, you know, I get through
and I teach them how to do sighted guide,
and we walk through the airport, it's all good.
Another one that happens all the time to me
is that people won't talk to me in a restaurant.
So I'll be in, let's say you and I
are at a restaurant together, okay?
And ladies first, of course you'll order your food,
and then the waiter or waitress will say to you,
"And what is he gonna have?"
I'm like, why don't you ask him?
(laughing)
RIKKI: For me, the braille menu incident which
Abby over here knows so well,
there's Abby somewhere over here.
ABBY: 'Sup.
RIKKI: This has not happened to me personally,
but it has happened to a few friends of mine.
And I've read it online, and somebody walk into a restaurant,
even if their signing especially,
which I find funny.
'Cause signing is a visual language
unless of course tactile, but.
And then the waitress, the waiter will come over
and see her go, "Oh, oh, oh no,
"they're, they're, they're, they're blind.
"Okay." And then run away.
But stealing their "regular", quote, quote, menu,
and then instead replacing it
with the braille menu.
And they've done it on airplanes too,
and I find that to be so weird.
I mean there are deafblind people, but...
In some scenarios it doesn't work that way.
And then the wheelchair thing,
this has happened to me personally,
I was waiting for this to happen.
I remember I was coming back from VidCon this year,
they wanted to check passports for some reason
before boarding, and, I guess there was something
on the computer that said, hi, this person is deaf.
And the guy goes, "Oh, do you need a wheelchair?"
(Tommy laughing)
And I was like,
"No sir, my ears don't work too well
"but my legs do, you see me walking and standing here."
It's always been weird to me.
TOMMY: We must all look the same.
(both laughing)
RIKKI: Well I was actually thinking, I had this one suggestion,
that if it ever does happen to me
like more than just asking me,
if there's an actual wheelchair waiting for me,
I'm just gonna look at them and be like,
"Oh do you want me to push you?"
TOMMY: (Laughs) That's funny, that's funny.
I'm stealin' that, I'm takin' that.
RIKKI: Do it, do it, just, or just you know, go in there,
spin around and then walk away.
Be like, thanks for the ride, that was fun.
I dunno, just, anything.
And then the final thing that always confuses me is,
this happens in the comments a lot
and it's probably autocorrect,
but a lot of people mix up 'dead' and 'deaf'.
Death, dying.
TOMMY: No way. RIKKI: Somebody's always like,
"oh my gosh, is she really dead?"
And I'm like,
um, I don't think so.
TOMMY: How do you fix it then Rikki, what do we do?
How do we fix this problem?
RIKKI: Honestly I'd probably tell them to Google
but I guess that depends on what mood I'm in that day.
I feel like after awhile you educate so much
that it's kind of like, oh gosh.
But I guess it just depends on exactly what they ask,
I don't really know.
TOMMY: It's funny right, 'cause some days
it'll hit you differently than it does other days,
right, it all depends on your mood as well.
RIKKI: I guess I'd say that it also just,
it really just depends on the question asked.
Like if you ask me how I go to the bathroom then
I might just look at you funny and walk off, but.
TOMMY: Oh, well I did have one more question.
RIKKI: What?
TOMMY: How do you know when to stop wiping in the bathroom?
RIKKI: How to what?!
(Tommy laughing)
RIKKI: Oh the wiping in the?
No, when people have questions it is a good thing,
just be, make sure you know what kind of questions
you're asking.
TOMMY: Well yeah, right, the only way people are gonna learn
is by asking questions,
so think about your question for a second
before you ask it, right?
RIKKI: So if you enjoyed this video,
there is another video that we did
and it's going to be on Tommy's channel.
We did a little bit of a demonstration on how
deaf and blind people communicate with each other.
So go to his channel, we'll have it linked
somewhere over here or down in the description box.
And thank you Tommy, for being here for this video.
TOMMY: Oh, it's been lovely,
thank you so much for having me.
RIKKI: And these two over here
as well because we're having a party.
(laughing)
That's it, that's a wrap and we will see you later, bye.