When to Leave: White Interpreters in non-white spaces

In this episode I revisit the Keith Wann debacle and expand the conversation to discuss the general idea of when white interpreters should remove themselves from a space that cultural doesnt  represent them. Knowing when to leave is difficult and necessary. Let's talk about it. 

Transcript

Good morning. Welcome to, if I'm honest, today is podcast day. Uh, and before I provide the synopsis of what the episode is about, and actually, you know what, just go over and listen to it. I wanna shift the atmosphere of the podcast on the social media presence and, within the podcast itself. I said at the beginning of this, that this would be the beginning of conversations and what it's starting to feel like.

Is a monologue, okay? It's giving soliloquy, it's giving Keisha's, talking her head off. And here's the thing, I don't actually enjoy hearing myself speak, contrary to popular belief. But I do have a lot to say. But in order for this to be a conversation where growth can actually happen, you gotta talk back to me because people cannot be trusted.

Let me lay some ground rules. So the first housekeeping rule that we need to make sure has happened is I don't care where you comment, I don't care if you agree or if you disagree. I don't care if you ask questions. I want you to do it all, right? But I want you to keep it cute. And my primary goal and priority is to keep the space safe for me.

So if you can't keep it cute, take it somewhere else, right? Um, and that also includes people who look like me, but I want it to be a safe, educational, engaging space for everyone, right? So no bashing anybody and harassing people in the comments or in their dm's. Take it somewhere else. All right. And so the second thing I want to address is that often in these kinds of conversations and spaces, white people are told to sit down and be quiet and to say nothing.

 And I think that is a great rule of thumb. I think you should keep following that and keep doing that. I just don't want that to happen in this space, right? I want you to talk back to me and so I've addressed it and I don't want no more private text message talking about me, how great I am.

Because I know I'm great, right? And I got a great team that's cheering me on. What I wanna do is clear up some confusion. What I wanna do is answer some questions. What I wanna do is create conversations and add more voices to the conversation, and I can't do that without you. So I hope that we shift right.

All right now, the episode I recorded back closer to when the Keith Juan debacle happened. So I actually remember what it's about and I didn't want to hear myself speak again on this issue. So you're just gonna have to go and listen to it. I hope to see you there. Welcome to, if I'm honest, a podcast where we address and discuss issues in the sign language interpreting profession using an anti-racist lens.

Here we intentionally take up space and we say the thing, we named the thing that previously hasn't been named in Efforts to Change, challenge and dismantle problematic narratives in our field. And we do this because an anti-racist interpreter is just a better interpreter period. I'm your host, keisha osborne, and I've been having these conversations.

For over a decade on an individual level, I think it's high time that we expand the conversation to include you. Let's talk about it. Today, I'd like us to revisit the Keith Wann conversation. I think we've talked about it. I think a lot of people have seen the conversation surrounding it, but I think it would be a missed opportunity for us not to look at this in a more nuanced way.

For those of you who have not seen the Keith Wann debacle, Keith Wann is a white interpreter who was asked to subbed in For Lion Kings on Broadway. Right, which is a largely BIPOC and historically is represented in South Africa. It is and was a cartoon. However, when they moved to Broadway, they changed the makeup of the cast to represent culture.

Right. And so Keith was asked to sub into  The Lion Kings on Broadway for a bipoc interpreter who was not able to do it and did after so many shows, when that interpreter could not return, the staff asked him to not return because he misrepresented the culture. And what Keith did was instead of reading the room, And seeing that he was not a cultural fit and understanding that that disqualified him from being able to do the work well and claimed to reverse racism.

And why I wanna revisit this conversation is because his thing was very egregious. It was this huge stink, I think. Lots of white people who are doing anti-racist work are able to look at this Keith Wa debacle and say, oh no, I'm not, I'm not gonna use that. Oh, that. That was horrible. Right? Because not only did he claim reverse racism, right?

He also made no apologies. He says, I stand with black and brown interpreters. I stand with black and brown deaf people. I all I have. I always will. And then he did The equivalent of my neighbors black. By saying, I'm married to a strong Latina woman who's a trilingual interpreter. In other words, I'm not racist.

My wife is Hispanic. Right? Right. And I think there are so many white people who are doing anti-racist work who can look at that situation and say, ah, that's some bullshit. I'm absolutely not gonna do that. Right? But if we don't scale this down to a reasonable size that many white interpreters might act on and activate.

Then it's a missed opportunity. And so that's where I want the conversation to go today instead of just like looking at Keith as this kind of billboard, don't be like him. Right? I, I think about my interpreting experience earlier this year. I did a job I. Where was tir, right? I had driven across the country at that time, and when I get to the job, I hadn't read the prep, I didn't see who the speaker was.

I didn't know what the keynote was about. I had no idea. But I get there. My team is white, and the speaker is talking about African American language. She's talking about how, um, language is used. Amongst middle class African Americans, and she's giving all these different examples of what that looks like, what that sounds like.

And because I was tired, I told my team to go first. So my team gets up and immediately, once the keynote starts, I could tell she shouldn't have been there. But at the time, I wasn't a place where I was afraid to hurt this interpreter's feelings, and so I left her up. And the speaker is talking about things like different genres of language in the African American community or black community, is what I really like to say.

One of the things that she talked about was like the dozens, which is, you know, What we used to do in middle school in high school where we would joke on one another, it's a series of Yo Mama jokes. Yo mama's so fat. She sat on a rainbow and Skittles popped out. Yo mama's so ugly, right? You get the picture.

And obviously I didn't do a good job of that cuz I couldn't recall very many examples of the yo Mama jokes, but I wasn't very good at it. That's what it entailed, right? And when you don't culturally understand, What's being talked about, you think the ASL sign for 12 can effectively encompass the concept of the dozens, which has historical and linguistic implications for the black community.

Now, I bring this up not to bash my team. I think she honestly didn't know. I think she thought she was doing a good job, and I think that is the problem, right? Not in dc. Anyway, but she thought it's no big deal because she didn't have the awareness within the entire presentation to hear that the speaker was talking about and substantiating more evidence that African American English is a bonafide dialect of standard English, and I think it has to be said that anytime you show up to a space where you culturally aren't a good fit, this is the risk you pose.

I think it, my team, I don't if I should give her the benefit of doubt. I don't think she was even aware that she was suppressing the message, but she was suppressing the message and that's oppressive. You can't afford to go into a space where you're not aware that you're a cultural misfit because what happens is you're a translation is a gross mischaracterization of the intended message.

And so I knew that the deaf person sitting there on the front row who looked at me like, are you kidding me? Like, are you just gonna let her stay? So what I did was I called the agency coordinator and told him I need another black interpreter in here. So he gets in there and I swap her out, but I let her finish her 20.

My new team comes, does another 20. And then we had one more turn to do. And so again, in my fearful state, which is a completely different conversation about how I was a co-author of an impressive message that was being filtered through a white interpreter, and the message was then being whitewashed because she did not have the cultural insight to be able to interpret that.

Well, don't miss that. Like that's a big point is that sometimes just bodies, right? Our bodies can whitewash a message or just impact a message. My body cannot whitewash, but a white person's body could whitewash the message. It doesn't mean that she wasn't a good interpreter, that she couldn't interpret well, that the content wasn't there.

That's not what that means. What it means is that she damaged the integrity of the message and when she was asked to if, if she wanted to do a second turn, she didn't even have the self-awareness to know that she was doing that. And I think that is what we should talk about. And there are lots of other versions and varieties of this.

There are so many ways where the cultural mismatch. Automatically makes you unqualified. Doesn't mean that you don't have 20, 30 years of experience. Doesn't mean that being a native user of ASL and a CODA and someone who has an in with the community and has been doing this a long time, right? It doesn't disqualify all that or your education or any of that.

It just says I'm not a good fit for this because I cannot understand preacher speak, right? I can't understand the dozens. I can't understand some of the nuances that happen cross-culturally. That another black interpreter or another Bipoc interpreter who is directly from that community would understand.

And that's what I think we're missing. Um, I think there are also other things that we should talk about because we've now scaled down what Keith did. It's just a lack of awareness. I think what's worse is that he. You know, created this big stink by going, you know, saying I was ousted. No, you weren't ousted, you were, has to respect cultural boundaries.

And I think interpreters do this all the time because we, a couple, few years ago, There was a huge push that white interpreters are like, I should not do Hispanic heritage, month. I'm white. I should not do that. I'm not qualified. I'm black and I should not do that. Right. I should not do this. Or Black History month.

Ooh, we need a black interpreter for this. Hadn't gotten a, a direct call from this agency and they call me directly and said, Hey, keisha, we want to know if you would interpret this recorded message. We'll pay you for your time. Thank you so much. We're really grateful. Right? They don't see you. They don't see what you offer and what you bring until it comes to your skin and whether or not you'll match the cultural message.

So like side of that, there are two things that are happening right there. Is one, a recognization that cultural matches are important, right? And also I know there are white interpreters who have done this treating you as if you are invisible until this cultural thing shows up. And that is also under the umbrella of what Keith did, and I think we should just think about the different layers of the problem and understanding that my experience, my education, my certificates, the spaces I've been in, the people I know don't always qualify me for the work I'm meant to do.

And if I'm honest, Keith was never qualified to interpret the Lion King on Broadway. I said what? I said, okay, so this is not a let's bash Keith session, but what I want white interpreters to think about is can they recognize when culturally, socially, based on identity, you're not qualified to do a job?

Like that is not a conversation that I had in my IT P, which I also think leads me to this comment because I can hear the naysayers now say, if you are suggesting that body, that your race and your identity can disqualify you from an interpreting a message well and maintaining its integrity, then. That has to be true for black interpreters as well, which means a black interpreter can be unqualified to interpret a specific message, and I would agree with you, right?

I will say there are some situations where keisha is not going to be qualified to interpret that message and maintenance integrity. But I also would challenge you to think about what do our current ITPs and educational systems look like? So if we just use keisha, for example, my background is I went to Eastern Kentucky to get my bachelor's.

I went to Gallaudet University to get my master's. So here's a question. Within my six years of education now, four years of undergrad, my two years of grad school, how many of my professors were black? I'll take it further. In my six years, how many. Black deaf people were used as language samples. How many black interpreters were used as examples?

Let me just go ahead and skip to the end and say None. Absolutely none. And that is really important. It's very America, because in this country we often hear the narrative speak English. This is America, and within our field, we carry on that same narrative. Sign wiped. Right? And so we do, okay, so the final point I'd like to make about Keith is he had this real sense of entitlement.

He felt entitled to be there. He felt like I belong here and therefore I should fight to be here. Uh, and this is something that we see within our field regularly. Four or five years ago, I did a job. In a QTPOC space, and for those of you who don't know, QTPOC stands for queer trans people of color.

It was in this huge ballroom where maybe four or 500 attendees were present, uh, and it was spread out, right? It was a, a flat layered ballroom, and so the way that the coordinator staffed the room was they just sent a gang of interpreters there. About 30 interpreters in this room were spread all across the room.

20 of them are bipoc and the other 10 are white. So first we have to address the issue that the coordinator staffed white interpreters to be in a cutie pop safe space. All right, so that's number one. Number two, those interpreters said, I'm an interpreter. I'm just doing my job. My race does not matter. I'm entitled to be here because it is my job.

And so we get to the space and there is a misunderstanding about an attendee, and so there is a white person there. The coordinators were asked a clarifying question, Hey, there's this white person here. We don't want to isolate them, but we do wanna make sure that we're respecting the space. Would you like us to ask her to leave?

And the coordinator said, yes, uh, we absolutely want this person to not be here. Right? And they said, in fact, anybody who's white, get the fuck out verbatim. This is what they said. And so now we're having to interpret this very straightforward and direct, get the fuck out. And they had to clarify for the interpreters because the interpreters didn't wanna move.

Right? They had to add that caveat to their statement because the interpreters felt entitled. And when I tell you they were mad, they were mad. Mad. I mean, they were big mad. They were cussing angry. That they were kicked out of a cutie pot safe space because their job qualified them to be there without recognizing the harm that they were causing by just being there and that they weren't safe.

And even more proving the point by throwing a fit in this professional setting. And I think that is what is also missed, is that the sense of entitlement disregards the safety of other people's and damages the integrity of our message, which is part of the C P C, which is why I keep saying it. Before I move on, I wanted to address this whole sense of entitlement, which is wrapped up in this notion of servitude.

I am an ally. I serve deaf people. I help advocate for their needs and rights. I provide access. I belong here. I. Right. There are good intentions here, but this kind of thinking will have you in a place where you do not belong and will cause harm. This is why Keith thought he was qualified to interpret the Lion King and he wasn't.

This is also very akin to, or falls under the same umbrella of Dr. Naomi Shenaman's complaint that she made several years ago when she went to see Michelle Obama speak, who was also being interviewed by a black woman. But both of the interpreters were white.

This is the problem with the whole notion of entitlement, as well as not knowing when you're a cultural misfit for an interpreting situation is what happens is you kind of operate in this white saviorism as if you're the only qualified interpreter, as if catch and throw is a reasonable interpretation.

When there are qualified black interpreters able to do the job much better. So, if I'm honest, there are these things that I think white interpreters should consider that Keith set examples for. He really set the bar high. Let's bring it down to size, right, to something more relatable, to something that people would do on a regular basis and overlook and therefore cause more harm.

All right. That was a lot. I think that's enough for today. Join me next time as we tackle the conversation around blending, asking Bipoc interpreters to blend into majority culture and how that breeds a sense of loss of identity in creating sameness and how damaging that is. Thanks again for joining.

Until next time, this has been, if I'm honest, I'm your host, Keisha Osborne, and this is a place where we have hard conversations. Until next time.