I own a small shop. I’m in Ohio, in a county where masks aren’t mandatory. But many bordering my county do have mandatory mask rules. I’m not terribly keen on masks, but I don’t care much one way or the other. I don’t require it for customers, though most do wear them anyway.
So, Tuesday (first day of my work week, closed Monday) I decided to comply with Thursday‘s request from Gov DeWine for retail staff to wear masks. My first customer came in; I put it on.
Guess what? She was Deaf. She read lips, very well I might add. But I had to take the thing off for her.
My daughter is an ASL teacher, so I’m sensitive to the needs of people who are hard-of-hearing. I was of course happy to help any way I could. I am ashamed to admit I know very little ASL myself, beyond thank you, sorry, yes, no, and finger spelling. I do however know how to get a Deaf person’s attention, and how to speak to them so they can lip read, if they do have that ability. I frankly have no clue how they manage it so well. It’s hard!
But I thought... gosh, how hard it must be for her, and people like her! I wonder how many business workers refuse to remove masks for her because they think it’s “mandatory” and they don’t understand. I feel so bad for people like that.
Yes, there are those silly masks with little plastic windows. They get fogged up, and even if they don’t, lip reading is hard enough when you can see someone’s whole face, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to see about two square inches of mouth.
Even if you do know ASL, facial expressions are a big part of the language. I have no idea how my daughter is going to teach ASL classes in the fall with mandatory masks for teachers. Maybe she can get a face shield instead, though as of now the school isn’t allowing them.
Stinks.