So, are you suggesting that if deaf people want to avoid having a crowbar slammed against their head they should wear a sign around their neck saying, “I’m deaf”? Or are you suggesting that deaf people will just have to live with the consequences of getting the head bashed in one once in a while because it’s rude to ignore the clerk at the cash register? What kind of common sense is that?
Since you brought up the common sense angle, let’s start there.
Use some common sense and just a bare touch of reading comprehension and you will see that I was responding to a specfic situation encounted by the poster I was responding to.
Using just a smidgen of common sense, I can see that you may need a second cup of coffe too!
The clerk in this case is a criminal for his actions both during the incident and especially afterwards. He obviously has an attitude and anger management problem that he can work on while in jail.
I can see race becoming a component if he, the black cashier, was assuming that the white customer’s determined silence was a refusal to acknowledge him as a human being. Racists, on both sides of the racial divide, routinely do this. Of course, even encountering REAL stony silent contempt doesn’t justify a crowbar blow to the head if no other aggresive act accompanies the silence.
However, the attacker’s “Oh” in response to being told the victim was deaf atleast hints at a realization that he had made a whole lot of wrong assumptions on his way to assaulting him.
I wonder if this entire incident could have been avoided if the deaf person, on becoming aware that someone is trying to speak to him or her, signed back to the speaking person (essentially talking back to him or her in the language that they speak) the words “I’m deaf” (or some similar phrase). Such an act would serve to acknowledge the speaking person’s attempt to communicate and put them on notice that their assumptions (that the deaf person can hear and speak) are wrong.
Hey you!
Sometimes if someone says “Excuse me” to my daughter, and naturally she does not hear them, I feel like I should run up and say “she’s deaf; she is not being rude!” I usually do, depending on the tone of the person saying excuse me.