Case Study: Interpreting the N-word

Transcript

 Welcome to, if I'm honest, on today's episode, we are talking about a case study. Now I wanna do something a little bit different today. And today I'd like to poll you on what you would do. So the idea of a case study comes from,  the anti-racist groups that I've been a part of, and many of them just bring a situation that has happened that they've seen at work.

They bring it to the group so we can talk about how they handled the situation. If it was right, what was wrong,  or how they could have handled it differently. And so today's case study is about interpreting the N-word at work. Now, before I post this episode today, I wanna poll you. If you were given the permission to voice the N-word as a non-Black interpreter, would you do it?

Come on in the room. Let's talk about it. 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 name 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.

All right, so let's get right into it. So I can imagine that some of you are thinking this is a redundant and unnecessary conversation, right? Like, we know that we are not supposed to say the N-word as as non-black people. We know that. However, let me tell you what happened. So I'm currently working with a group, uh, who are working on their anti-racism journey, and one of the interpreters bring forth this case study.

And the case study goes as such. There are four white interpreters that are assigned to a job and they are assigned last minute. Once they get there, none of them were able to prepare or read the PowerPoint. They weren't able to strategize. They just had to sit down and go. And the presenter is a Black Deaf woman.

She is presenting to this group of people what the taboo words are in this environment. And so she goes through this list of words until she gets to the N-word and the on interpreter doesn't voice it, but her team says, Hey, you're supposed to say the word, she's saying it, I think we're supposed to say it.

And the on interpreter says, Yeah, I'm not gonna do that. Right? And so they go back and forth a bit. So much so that the team eventually flags down the  Black Deaf presenter and says, do you want us to say the word? And the Black Deaf woman says, yes. I want you to say the word, absolutely want you to say the word.

And so the team is feeling vindicated and validated. And she says, say the word. And the on interpreter says, I don't care what she says. I'm still not saying. And so, When they asked me, keisha, you know, what should we have done? What do you think about the situation? Like, how would you have wanted us to handle this?

And I said, as a black person, if I was just in the room and I heard the word come out of a white mouth, I would've been offended as a team who wasn't in the On chair. I would've been offended even if I was the person who was. In the on chair, I probably would not have said it, and I would've felt very uncomfortable with all the eyes on me watching me say it.

I would've been very uncomfortable about how visible my race would've become in this situation. It's not that I don't think my race is already present and visible to people, but it would've been enhanced. Let keisha say it, I'd hated that. All right, so I'm so excited about this conversation that I take it to work

the next day I get to work and I'm in an on-call and my team is an older white woman, and I relay the story and I tell her like how the conversation went, how productive it was. I tell her what my stance would've been. I tell her how I would've been uncomfortable in any version of the story as the bystander, as a team, that it was not on.

And as a team that was on, I would've been very uncomfortable in that setting with this word being discussed when I said to her, You know, I advised them not to say it. She looked at me flat face with no affect, with a little bit of defiance that said if she said we should say it, then we should say it. And so I asked her, what about the harm that would've been caused?

What about the harm to me in the room? What about the harm to other Black people, what about the harm that would've been caused to your colleagues that heard you say they didn't hear you say it? They heard you said it. What about the damage? And she said, we don't get to choose which words that we say and we don't say her stance quite honestly and very like on-brand was that it is dangerous to start picking and choosing what words we will say.

And what words we don't say.  And that's harmful and oppressive to Deaf people. I reiterated my stance, but listening to her and looking at the expression on her face, I knew she didn't give a flying flip what I had to say about it. She was gonna say it if it was supposed to be interpreted. The funny thing is the story doesn't actually stop there. Weeks later,

I work with her team who works with her the following day. So I worked with her on Tuesdays. The team that I ended up working with later worked with her on Wednesday. And I remember, like it's sitting in my gut that this woman didn't care about the harm that had been caused by this word. She didn't care about the damage, she didn't need permission to say it, it was her job.

She was gonna say it if her job required it. And so I remember working with,  her team and her team said, so I really wasn't gonna tell you this, but I, I know the story that you told. Your team that day, and when she retold it to me, she said it. This is why we have to talk about it. So in today's episode, there are several things I want to address, and the first is can, or should you say it as a non-black interpreter.

I'd also like to discuss the implications of saying it as well as the notion of the permission of this Black Deaf woman. All right, so let's go ahead and answer the question of can or should you say it if you are a non-black interpreter. And I'm gonna say no. Obviously, please take note that as a black woman who's got an entire podcast episode on it, I haven't said it and I haven't said it because of who I hope my audience is, who my audience currently is, and because you just shouldn't say it.

Now, here's where I get torn. My experience with that interpreter just has me questioning all white interpreters. My question to me right now is, do white interpreters understand why you shouldn't say it? Right? Like, is it my responsibility on this podcast who's trying to help you along in this

anti-racist journey to explain it to you? To educate you on why you shouldn't say it? And maybe, maybe you think that, but I'm not gonna do it right because as long as I've been alive, as long as you've been alive, and I don't care how much older you are than me, the answer to whether you should say it is no.

It has been no over and over again. The answer is no. And so the issue here is that this particular interpreter and interpreters like her resent the notion of being told no or simply want to say it. And that begs a question of why do you wanna say it? Right. Why do you wanna say a word that has caused so much harm?

Why do you wanna say it? I just recently saw a video where Ta-Nehisi Coates is being asked by a young white girl who's a student of what she's supposed to do when her friends want to say the word while they're listening to music. This is like the common question, right? It comes up in music, and I really, really, really wish I could attach the audio here, but when I set up the podcast both

spotify and Apple Music asked me if I had third party audio and I clicked no. So let's be honest, let's keep it 100. And I'll just repackage what he said. He starts a video by saying words don't have meaning without context. He begins by illustrating the point that his wife and her friends, they call each other bitch.

He says, I don't just join in with that, right? Like I, I'll have that kind of relationship. And this resonates with me because with my friends, We call each other bitch, and I love the word because it's so dynamic that depending on tone, depending on duration, depending on affect, it means something different.

It's such a fun word, right? But it's relationship dependent. Another example that he pulls from is the word faggot. And this is one of those words that used to be this derogatory a negative term and probably still functions as such that gay men have reclaimed. And just recently I, I saw this drag queen perform and.

Gorgeous. Long leg. Just yes. Fabulous. And when she called herself a faggot and a sissy, it was with pride. This term that was supposed to be a term that was supposed to bring shame, was being worn as a badge of honor. It was being flown as a flag of victory, but just because they've reclaimed it doesn't mean that when it comes outta my mouth, it's not still painful because of the history, because of relationship, because it has been used as a weapon, right?

Ta-Nehisi Coates says, I don't have that relationship with the L G B T community. I'm not gonna just hold off and say faggot. I'm not saying hate faggot to Dan Savage. I'm not gonna do that because. In context, I don't have that relationship that allows for me to do so. A simpler example that he provides is what he called his dad.

In my home growing up, I called my my mama, right? My mom has severe A D H D, and on occasion when I was trying to get her attention, because she had zoned out, I had talked to her. I'd asked her a question two or three times, and she hadn't heard me. Her name was a tool I used to get her attention, but it was a tool to do just that.

It was not something I called her, and I didn't call her Terri, because it would've been disrespectful, because it wasn't our relationship. Because she would've hauled off and slapped the shit outta me. Our relationship as mother and daughter required that I address her by her title. This is something that we do naturally and regularly.

We do it when we go to the doctor's office or to the dentist or to the chiropractor. Hello doctor so-and-so. We do this in the classroom. Hello, Dr. So-and-so and so in context, sometimes relationship requires a specific language use. And it disallows for you to call them something that may seem more natural like by their first name.

We do this at church, father, Reverend, Doctor, Pastor. We get this right? We get that within context sometimes there are words that I can or cannot use. I can remember an example from high school, how I heard the word redneck used was derogatory, right? So I didn't say it. I ain't say it. And I remember I went to a predominantly white school in Louisville, Kentucky, and I can remember coming to school and seeing people have redneck girl or redneck boy on the back of their pickup trucks, and I was just like, oh my goodness gracious.

Right? Like it's something you can say. It's not something I can say. Now, whether or not it also carries the same weight,  is neither here nor there. I'm talking about perception. I'm talking about how I naturally adapted to something that I perceived as derogatory, how I excuse myself from even wanting to say something that may be harmful.

There are even signs that follow these kind of rules of decorum, right? In Kentucky, I learned the sign for pad, like sanitary napkin. There was a sign that men could not sign. There was a way that men couldn't sign it. Likewise, there was this, the sign for profoundly Deaf. You can't sign it in Kentucky, the one that goes at the ear hearing people were not allowed to sign, right?

Like, these are basic laws and rules of human decorum. So the question then becomes why or white people resistant to extending basic human decency to black people in the same way that everyone else gets it. Why would you want to say this thing that you shouldn't say? He answers the question by saying, when you're white in this country, you're taught through the culture, through the laws that everything belongs to you, and so you think you should have it.

You don't get to tell me, no, I came up with this word. It's my word. If you get to say it, I get to say it. When you are conditioned to believe that this is your God given, right, that every opportunity belongs to you, that everything that you want, you should have. Simply being told no feels like discrimination, racism, or oppression.

The extension of basic human decorum and decency feels like oppression. That's wild. All right. So I've done the best I could at trying to repackage his message, but it was fantastic. Right? And the reason that we have to have the conversation, the reason why that girl's school sent out an email because a rapper was coming to her school.

The reason why,  I go to shows and at the beginning of every show, it is announced that white people should not say this word is because there are white people who want to say it. There are white interpreters who want to say it. And so if you hear anything today, let me admonish you don't. And if you don't understand why, find out.

I think the next question that is raised from the people who want to say it, who want the permission to say it, is that this Black Deaf woman gave those interpreters the permission. And I just wanna challenge you with a series of questions. Does this Black Deaf woman understand the implications of Black hearing people hearing the word from a white

body. I'm not sure she does, but I can tell you that even seeing the sign feels really different to me than hearing it. I didn't grow up with language being visually accessible. So if I saw a white person sign it, it would not have the same impact on me personally then it would if I heard a white person say it.

So my question again is, does this Black Deaf woman understand the implications of hearing the word through a white voice? Let's suppose that she does. Right, and she wants you to say it anyway. Your job is to develop a culturally responsive practice, and that means that you culturally mediate, you make decisions based on the message and the people involved, right?

Like you wouldn't sign a s l to someone who needs SEE. That's culturally responsive interpreting for someone who needs something closer to international sign. You wouldn't sign P S E. You wouldn't do that. You would adapt your language to get the message across. And likewise, if you understood that the language being used could cause harm because it came from you, you should adapt.

So many people who want to say it are hiding in, I must maintain the integrity of the message. I must honor the C p c. And the truth of the matter is, you can maintain the integrity of the message and honor the C P C and say what's being said without causing harm. You can do it. And in the case of these four interpreters, the word, the A version and the Hard R version were both written on the slide.

It was there, the language was accessible. What she said was visible, available. It did not have to also be said by the interpreter. And guess what? That will be people who listened to this podcast that to the episode, they listen to stories and anecdotes. They have seen examples. They have seen arguments, and they'll still want to say it.

Right. And so my question to you and your question to you is how do you maintain a culturally responsive message when your team wants to say it? What is your responsibility to not contributing to standards of white supremacy and oppression and harm when your team interprets it? And this is their argument.

I'd wager a guess from a poll today that most people, if not all, will answer. No, I should not voice or interpret the N-word if I see it signed. Right? Like there are people who simply know that that is not okay to do and that's great. Right. But your team. Will make you complicit in their behavior. And so what do you do then?

And I think it's such a great question because in the case of the interpreter that I team with the following day after my,  anti-racism group meeting, and then the team that she interpreted with the other white woman, she was safe saying the N-word to her because she thought that she was safe. And, and let me say this differently because it's not clear on who I'm talking about with the she's and the she's and the she's and not naming these people. Although,

one of them should absolutely be named. There will be racist people who think that you are safe because you're white. They'll think that you are safe to be racist with. They'll think that you are safe to say the N-word too, and not just the N-word. And I think I should hear now bring in all the derogatory slurs.

They'll think that you are safe because you look like them. Don't be safe for them. What are you gonna do? And saying nothing is complicit, but what are you gonna do when your fellow white person thinks you are safe to be racist with? What do you say? How do you stand up? How do you make sure you are not complicit in the BS?

Because it's one thing that you can say, no, I'm not interpreted and actually not interpreted. It's a whole nother thing for you to disa disallow someone else for doing the same thing, from creating the harm with you. While I'm a proponent of both and they can't say it and not be racist. That's not a thing, and in this case they can't say it.

And you say nothing and not be complicit. Pick your battles and own your decisions In the group, when I was talking about the implications of what happens, if they would've said the words, there were several things I said to them. The first thing I said was, if I had heard you say it, I had to listened to it, play in my head over and over again.

I would've been hurt and offended and I would start thinking to myself,  man, that sounded real smooth. I wonder if she says it at home? Did she grow up saying it? Now, I've got all these questions about your entire identity and belief system that were just created because you didn't understand the history and the implication of what would've happened if you said it right, and even more so, you sound better than I sound saying it.

If I had caught wind of them saying it, I would've been completely hurt, right? And  the same questions and the same stories would've come up. Because you're not just creating a new trauma, you're building on old traumas. And I think one of the really important tenets of this work, just like the medical profession, is to do no harm.

Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you 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.