8.3 Audism, Intersectionality & DeafBlind Communication (Pro-Tactile)

The study of Deaf culture and community dynamics requires examining the structural systems of power, privilege, and oppression that shape the lived experiences of deaf individuals. The Deaf community is neither homogeneous nor insulated from the wider society; it is a complex, pluralistic ecosystem where linguistic identity intersects with race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and additional physical or sensory modalities. For candidates preparing for the CASLI Generalist examinations, mastering the theoretical frameworks of audism, intersectional Deaf identities, and DeafBlind Pro-Tactile linguistics is paramount for ethical and culturally responsive interpreting.

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1. Audism: Definitions, Typologies, and Structural Manifestations

Oppression against deaf people is not merely an accumulation of isolated interpersonal slights; it is an organized, systemic ideology embedded in institutions, laws, medical practices, and language policies.

The Coining and Definition of Audism

In his 1975 doctoral dissertation, Deaf scholar Tom Humphries coined the term audism to name a phenomenon that had existed for centuries without an explicit linguistic label:

Humphries' Foundational Definition (1975):
"The notion that one is superior based on one's ability to hear or to behave in the manner of one who hears."

In 1992, scholar Harlan Lane expanded this definition in The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community, examining audism as an institutional complex analogous to racism, sexism, and colonialism. Lane described audism as the corporate institution for dealing with deaf people—an institutional apparatus through which hearing professionals make statements about deaf people, authorize views of them, describe them, teach about them, and govern them.

Typologies of Audism

Audism operates across multiple dimensions:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                             THE TYPOLOGIES OF AUDISM                              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Individual / Interpersonal  | Direct personal prejudice, discrimination, pity,    |
|                             | mocking sign language, or assuming deaf people lack |
|                             | intellectual or professional capabilities.          |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Institutional / Structural  | Systemic policies and societal structures that      |
|                             | privilege spoken language (e.g., funding oralist    |
|                             | mandates while defunding bilingual-bicultural ASL   |
|                             | education; inaccessible public infrastructure).     |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Dysconscious Audism         | The internalized, unexamined acceptance of dominant |
| (Genie Gertz, 2004)         | hearing values, norms, and speech superiority as    |
|                             | natural, normal, and unquestioned.                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Dysconscious Audism: Formulated by Deaf scholar Genie Gertz in 2004 (drawing upon Joyce King's concept of dysconscious racism), dysconscious audism represents a state of mind that accepts hearing supremacy uncritically. It manifests when hearing individuals assume that spoken communication is inherently superior to signed communication without conscious malice. More insidiously, it also manifests among deaf individuals who have internalized hearing standards—evaluating the worth of other deaf people based on their speech clarity, reading level, or ability to pass in hearing society, while regarding ASL as inferior.

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2. Intersectionality in the Deaf Community

In 1989, legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to explain how race, gender, class, and other social categories intersect to create interlocking systems of discrimination. Within Deaf Studies, intersectionality illuminates the reality that Deaf identity does not exist in a vacuum. When a person is both Deaf and a member of a marginalized racial, ethnic, sexual, or disability group, their lived experience is shaped by compound systems of oppression.

The Black Deaf Experience and Black ASL (BASL)

The Black Deaf community occupies a distinct, historically rich, and resilient position within American society, having navigated the dual oppressions of systemic racism and audism.

• Historical De Jure Segregation: Under Jim Crow statutes, 17 Southern states and the District of Columbia maintained legally segregated residential schools for deaf children (e.g., North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Alabama). Black deaf children were barred from attending white deaf schools, forced into underfunded, segregated facilities that persisted well past the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, with some Southern deaf schools remaining segregated into the 1970s.
• The Linguistic Evolution of Black ASL (BASL): Because Black deaf students were physically separated from white students and educators, their language developed in linguistic isolation. Landmark sociolinguistic research documented by Dr. Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Joseph Hill in The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: History and Structure (2011) identified BASL as a distinct, systematic variety of ASL. BASL features specific phonological and syntactic properties:
  1. Larger Signing Space: Signing frequently utilizes a broader signing perimeter.
  2. Retention of Two-Handed Signs: A significantly higher rate of two-handed variants of signs that became one-handed in standard ASL (e.g., SNAKE, LIE, TIRED).
  3. Absence of Forehead Sign Lowering: Signs historically located at the forehead (e.g., KNOW, THINK, FOR) retain their original upper-facial location in BASL, resisting the lowering drift seen in mainstream ASL.
  4. African American English (AAE) Influences: Incorporation of unique idioms, semantic nuance, body shift cadences, and syntactic structures derived from AAE.
• National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA): Founded in 1981 in Washington, D.C., by leaders including Linwood Smith and Ernest Hairston, NBDA was established to address the systematic exclusion of Black Deaf individuals from leadership within the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and hearing civil rights organizations.

Multicultural and Intersectional Deaf Collectives

• Deaf Latinx / Hispanic: Represented nationally by organizations like Council de Manos (formerly the National Council of Hispano Deaf and Hard of Hearing). Deaf Latinx individuals navigate complex multilingual and multicultural environments involving ASL, written English, spoken/written Spanish, and regional signed languages (such as Lengua de Señas Mexicana [LSM]).
• Deaf Asian and Pacific Islanders: Organized under the National Asian Deaf Congress (NADC), addressing the intersection of audism with anti-Asian xenophobia, model minority stereotypes, and familial obligations.
• Indigenous Deaf Signers: Preserving traditional indigenous hand talk systems, including Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) and Inuit Sign Language, while confronting the historical trauma of colonial residential schools.
• LGBTQ+ Deaf: Represented by the Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf (RAD), founded in 1977. LGBTQ+ Deaf individuals navigate homophobia/transphobia within the Deaf community and audism/inaccessibility within hearing queer spaces.
• Deaf Plus: Individuals who are Deaf and have co-occurring neurodivergence, intellectual disabilities, autism, or physical disabilities. Deaf Plus individuals often challenge internal hierarchies within Deaf organizations that valorize physical and cognitive uniformity.

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3. DeafBlind Culture and Communication Modalities

DeafBlind individuals constitute a vibrant, distinct cultural and linguistic community within the broader Deaf ecosystem. Far from being a state of total darkness and silence, deafblindness encompasses diverse sensory spectrums.

Etiologies of DeafBlindness

• Usher Syndrome: The most prevalent genetic condition causing concurrent hearing and vision loss, inherited via an autosomal recessive pattern:
  • Type I: Born with profound sensorineural deafness and vestibular (balance) dysfunction; progressive vision loss due to Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) begins in early childhood/adolescence with night blindness and progressive peripheral tunnel vision.
  • Type II: Born with moderate to severe hearing loss and normal balance; RP symptoms manifest in late adolescence or early adulthood.
  • Type III: Progressive hearing loss and progressive RP vision loss developing later in childhood or adulthood.
• Other Etiologies: Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS), CHARGE syndrome, Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), cytomegalovirus (CMV), meningitis, and traumatic brain injuries.

Traditional Communication Modalities

Historically, DeafBlind communication relied on visual modifications or hands-on adaptations of visual ASL:

• Close Vision Interpreting: For consumers with low visual acuity or restricted visual fields; the interpreter positions themselves within 1–3 feet of the consumer and compresses their signing space to remain inside the consumer's visual field.
• Tracking: The DeafBlind person lightly places their hand on the interpreter's wrist or forearm, physically following the signer's movements to maintain focus within a narrow visual tunnel.
• Tactile ASL: The DeafBlind receiver places one or both hands lightly over the dorsal surface of the signer's hands, decoding handshapes, movement trajectories, and palm orientations through touch.

The Pro-Tactile Movement: An Autonomous Linguistic Revolution

In 2010, in Seattle, Washington, DeafBlind educators Jelica Nuccio and aj granda launched the Pro-Tactile (PT) movement. Pro-Tactile revolutionized DeafBlind communication by rejecting the traditional "air-to-hand" model (where visual ASL is passively translated into hands) and establishing touch as an autonomous, primary, native sensory and linguistic medium.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                       THE CORE TENETS OF PRO-TACTILE (PT)                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1. Touch as Primary Channel | Touch is recognized as a complete sensory, social,  |
|                             | and grammatical vehicle—not an inferior substitute. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| 2. Direct Communication     | DeafBlind individuals communicate directly with     |
|                             | each other; dismantling sighted-hearing gatekeepers.|
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| 3. Haptic Backchanneling    | Continuous tactile feedback delivered onto the      |
|                             | receiver's knee, thigh, or upper arm (agreement,    |
|                             | laughter, emotion, non-manual markers).             |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| 4. Tactile Spatial Mapping  | Scribing room layouts, physical positioning, and    |
|                             | spatial configurations directly onto the body.      |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| 5. Continuous Co-Presence   | Constant tactile connection; breaking physical      |
|                             | touch signifies abrupt abandonment or departure.    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Under Pro-Tactile linguistics:

• Haptics / Tactile Feedback: Listeners do not passively sit with their hands on the speaker's hands. The listener actively provides continuous backchannel feedback by tapping, stroking, or squeezing the speaker's upper arm, thigh, or knee (e.g., rhythmic rapid tapping represents nodding/agreement; a scratching or tickling motion signals laughter; a sudden firm squeeze denotes shock or interruption).
• Tactile Spatial Referencing: Spatial maps, seating arrangements, and environmental contexts are scribed onto the receiver's body, establishing full environmental parity.

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4. Role Distinctions: Support Service Providers (SSPs) / Co-Navigators vs. Professional Interpreters

Maintaining clear ethical and professional boundaries between linguistic interpreters and guide-navigators is vital when working with DeafBlind consumers:

Conflating these roles leads to severe ethical hazards, including physical exhaustion, loss of cognitive stamina, role confusion, and compromised linguistic fidelity.