Earlier this evening, I was browsing my Facebook feed—just casually looking around—and I came across a video from the most unexpected page: Burger King. Yes, you read that right. I said Burger King. But what does Burger King and sign language have to do with anything that I’m about to say? Well, I was wondering that as well, until I sat down to watch the video. What I saw was The King character not speaking with subtitles at the bottom of the screen, but what I also saw was that he was signing about coming up with a sign for the Whopper burger.
According to the American Sign Language Association's website for ASL Day, ASL Day began on April 15, 1817, which was when the very first school for the deaf was opened. Throughout the years, children continued to gather at The American School for the Deaf, as well as other locations across the country, and they intermixed Native American signs, French Sign Language and Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, which became the basis for the modern sign language that’s used today.
The World Health Organization reports that 360 million people are considered deaf, which is just over five percent. To be considered legally deaf, you cannot hear more than 40 decibels in adults and 30 decibels in children. While these small statistics don’t seem as alarming, they are. While not only I, but most of the world, are pretty lucky that we cannot only hear, but we have our vision and the spoken word as well. We are fortunate. There are many different ways that someone suffering from hearing loss can have this corrected—may it be through a hearing aid, cochlear implant and other assistive devices. But the downside to this is that not everyone has the means of access to medical enhancements to aid in hearing, and this can play a huge part in a person withdrawing themselves from society in fear that they cannot be understood because they cannot hear properly.
Now you might be wondering what all of this has to do with Burger King and ASL Day. This all ties into diversity. Not only is this a good marketing strategy, but it’s also a good tool to use to bring forth a conversation about hearing loss or help someone that is hard of hearing or even be catalyst to start learning how to sign. While I personally don’t know anyone that cannot hear, I do have friends that can sign and this summer, I’ve decided to challenge myself and learn how to sign.
Being in the medical field, I have quite an advantage to the average worker. I can interact with many different people from all walks of life, who speak different languages or those who cannot speak at all. I don’t want to learn just for the sake of learning and expanding my knowledge, I’m learning ASL for the sheer fact that if I need to communicate with someone through the use of sign language, I can. I don’t want them to feel as if no one can understand them or their needs, and at the end of the day, we all want someone to understand us.