This story, about a deaf woman who was treated like shit by Dunkin Donuts employees because she needed to read their lips to communicate with them, is getting some attention. A few people emailed and asked if I was surprised.
No, I’m not remotely surprised. Our culture is full of people so selfish and so wholly devoted to COVID hysteria that a whole plane full of them watched an asthmatic, proven COVID-negative two year old gasping for breath before his family was ejected—did absolutely nothing as a sadistic system that values conformity to arbitrary, authoritarian rules above everything else was enforced on an oxygen-deprived, panicked baby.
Our culture is full of people who are so utterly terrified of COVID that they feel morally justified in committing child abuse, lying through their teeth, and other morally indefensible behavior in order to—I started to type lower their already negligible risk of being harmed by COVID, but you know what, friends? That’s not even true. The asthmatic baby had a negative COVID test. A 2 year old who can’t breathe and doesn’t have COVID cannot give an adult COVID, especially one that’s vaxxed and masked (because we all trust science and science says those work, right? SAFE AND EFFECTIVE!!). Our culture is full of people who are happy to do these things just to solidify and feel more secure in their narrative. This is what I and others mean when we call these folks the Branch Covidians — it’s religious in nature. The narrative and the righteousness they feel in forwarding it, no matter how abominably they must behave to do so, is all that matters.
So no, the idea that some Dunkin Donuts employee either believes or pretends to believe that lowering a piece of dirty cloth from in front of their face for a few seconds to treat a deaf woman like a human being and not a disease vector would put him at risk—not at all hard to believe.
I started having my groceries delivered during the pandemic, in part, because I had some similarly disgusting experiences. Clerks who either refused to pull their mask down/write something down/repeat themselves, or who cooperated but with such obvious and intense dramatic annoyance that everyone in the whole place knew they were terribly put-upon by my unreasonable request to be able to communicate with them. An instacart fee and tip suddenly became a small price to pay for avoiding the post-humiliation adrenaline for the next five or six hours.
Some of my emailers asked me what they could do, if something like this happened and they were present. Here are my thoughts.
1) Say something. Try this: “I’m pretty sure the Americans with Disabilities Act requires you to accommodate her need to communicate with you, but since you don’t care about that, I will help.” This sentence is good because it immediately contextualizes the fuck-up the clerk is presently making and hints at possible consequences.
2) If you step in to help, don’t shout and don’t speak too slowly or over-enunciate. Let the deaf person read your lips as you speak in a normal way. If you have a moustache or beard, you might be much more difficult to lip-read than you think, so probably go right to #3.
3) The fastest method to end a humiliating situation like this for another person is probably to pull out your smart phone and type or dictate to Siri, and show the deaf person. “He says it’s $5.93, and asks if you want a receipt.” Siri does punctuation if you say the punctuation, so to get the sentence I just quoted, you would tap the microphone to the left of the space bar and say: “He says it’s five dollars and ninety-three cents comma and asks if you want a receipt period.” Paper and pen, if you have any (or if you can demand the clerk fetch some, which is a way of making a point that might be warranted) is also helpful.
4) Basic sign language goes an incredibly long way. You can let the deaf person read your lips and then sign anything that might not be perfectly clear. Just knowing the alphabet is near miraculous in a situation like this. This video teaches the alphabet. This video is longer but gives a detailed breakdown of each letter and offers ways to help remember it, which might be worth it for someone who wants to memorize it quickly but doesn’t anticipate practicing much. (You’ll want to practice, though; it’s fun!) This video teaches the numbers — of which you already know most of them!
5) When it’s over, if you intend to complain about the behavior of the clerk, consider how you can make sure it won’t rebound on the deaf person. If it’s Walmart and the odds that the deaf customer will have to deal with the same cashier again are probably slim, fine. You do you. If it’s the one and only Starbucks in your small town and the deaf person will have to trust a pissed-off barista to make their drink properly in the future if they ever need caffeine again? Maybe ask them first. Or do your complaining right there and then, but wait for the deaf person to leave so it’s clear that the complainer is you and not them.
The Branch Covidians are in charge, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But there are some situations where you can help, and this is one. So do it, if the opportunity is presented to you.
Thanks to the emailers who requested this topic.