A Lubbock advocacy specialist, Lori Whitfield, works with different organizations across the South Plains to teach them how to better communicate with the deaf community using American Sign Language.
“I want to make sure there’s no discrimination when people go to work, to the hospital, or with police,” Whitfield said. “I’m here to advocate for everyone to make sure everyone is working together and has access to the communication.”
Every three months, Whitfield goes to the Lubbock Police Department’s Academy to teach cadets ASL. Police said it is now included in their overall communication training to becoming certified as an officer.
“I just let them know who I am and what a deaf person looks like,” Whitfield said. “They think that deaf people can’t do certain things. So I try to make sure to expose them to the culture of deafness and how people react and act when they’re deaf.”
She added that she prefers to role play different situations with officers in her lessons.
“You have tone and accent, and our language is visual so we use our expressions with our face, so I let them know you have to really pay attention to the face,” Whitfield said.
She said a common misconception of the deaf community is that they have a disability because they cannot hear, and want to open the lines of communications between all communities.
“It’s best to just say deaf community,” Whitfield said. “The hearing impaired, that means that there’s something broken, impairment. So disability, we’re not disabled, We’re able to do anything. The disability part is that we can’t hear to communicate but we do use our eyes and we are able to communicate successfully. We can do everything, that’s what I try to tell people. People still have that stigma or they put that label on us hearing impaired, but I’m deaf.”
Whitfield works at Life Run center in South Lubbock. They offer free ASL classes every Wednesday for anyone interested in learning sign language.
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