Daniel Greene

Author: Daniel Greene

  • Reflections on ICED Apology and Abolishment of Sign Language Ban

    https://twitter.com/jaredev/status/18951880356

    Today I saw this retweet from Jared Evans about the ICED (International Congress on the Education of the Deaf) “formal apology for the Milan 1880 conference which banned signed languages in deaf education.” I believe that was the first I heard of it. This evening, I looked at the DeafRead links on the right sidebar of my blog and saw a blog post by Amy Cohen Efron about the ICED apology along with an embedded vlog she posted on YouTube:

    My comment:

    I think this is great. And I didn’t realize that the conference of Milan was the second quinquennial conference in a whole series leading up to today. I am glad to hear of this “gesture” though I am cautious about looking at an apology as an action. Yes, it is a step in the right direction, but (more…)

  • Why do you use Do Not Announce?

    [This is one video interpreter’s viewpoint, not the viewpoint of a video relay service.]

    As a VI, I notice that one of the most important consumer choices that determine the effectiveness of a call is a deaf consumer’s use of Do Not Announce. It can be quite effective when the deaf person explains VRS themselves or when the person they’re calling already knows them and takes their calls all the time. And it can be indispensable when an ignorant company or agency refuses to accept relay calls. But it can be very difficult for both the interpreter and the person they’re calling when a deaf consumer chooses Do Not Announce but then makes no accommodation for the inevitable changes in communication. Those changes are basically due to unexplained silence and the mismatch of gender–voice and name.
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  • Our dogs make the funniest noises when they play-fight

    Our dogs Lady & Buxley were play-fighting today and making the funniest noises while we lay in bed resting!

    A few years ago, Buxley played like this with Andy because J.J. wasn’t as playful with him. Lady has been great for Buxley and vice-versa.

  • My experience dancing with black people at the NAOBI conference

    Transcript: One more thing I must share about NAOBI— something that moved me and touched my heart. Now, I know it sounds funny to talk about “black people” and point out the differences between their culture and mine— black people’s and white people’s. It seems “politically correct” to be hush-hush about the differences between black people and white people, but I want to tell you some positive things about what’s different about black culture! And this is so neat. It seems — now, I interpreted for a full week last year at the NBDA (National Black Deaf Advocates, a deaf association) conference, and at the end of the week, we danced!— It seems to me that black people cannot get together and not dance. It seems that every conference I’ve been to — and that’s only two, but still — in my experience, when black people gather for a conference, they’ve got to dance together. And it’s so much fun! They had a DJ playing music loud, and everyone danced together— deaf people, interpreters, everyone. And they line up facing each other while people dance down the aisle, you know, like Soul Train. That’s where everyone lines up in two lines facing each other, forming an aisle, and as people move up to the front of the line, they dance down the aisle and do their own thing, show their personality, express what they’re feeling. Everyone on the sidelines cheers them on, goads them on, and roots for them. You strut down that aisle, you dance, you swing, you move your body, and you do your thing, you express yourself. Oh, it’s fun! And people are fiercely supportive.

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  • My experience teaching workshops at the NAOBI conference

    Transcript: Hi. I’m Daniel Greene, and this vlog is about my experience at NAOBI, a conference for the National Alliance of Black Interpreters. It was a really great experience. I had gone to the RID Region V conference in Salt Lake City the week before, and now I was teaching workshops at NAOBI here in Phoenix. (Last time I did a video about this I accidentally said, “Here in San Diego.” That’s crazy, but it’s because I lived in San Diego for such a long time — twenty-seven years altogether — and I moved to Phoenix five-and-a-half years ago at the end of 2004. Funny. I still sometimes say, “Here in San Diego.”)

    So, anyway, here in Phoenix, I taught two workshops. I was actually scheduled to teach three, but oddly enough, the first morning of the conference, there were so few people and so many concurrent workshops — eight workshops at the same time! And I don’t know how many attendees there were at the conference that first morning. I do know that some of the other workshops only had a handful of attendees as well. One person showed up to my workshop, and I told her I would be happy to teach her all the workshop content even though she was the only one, that we could work it out between the two of us. But if she wanted to join another workshop, she should feel free to do so, and I would take no offense. So she went to another workshop, which was fine with me.

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