Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

AutoModerator t1_isxl353 wrote

Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here.

All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban.


I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

cgally OP t1_isxl9g6 wrote

Edit Harvard Law Grad.

This is such an inspirational story.

61

Wyvernator1 t1_isygw1g wrote

Becoming deaf and blind at the same time is my biggest nightmare. How would one communicate at all? You can't see anything and if you were suddenly deaf and blind nobody would be able to tell or show you what's going on and you would be so confused and scared

101

cgally OP t1_isyi1vm wrote

I agree it's an awful thought. In the video, they detail how she has developed a braille system that interfaces with a keyboard connected to other keyboards. She also works with someone who transcribes the conversation which is then converted to braille text for Haben to read. She is an amazing woman. She travels the world, salsa dances, and even has been surfing in Hawaii!!!!!!

90

Darryl_Lict t1_isynjuw wrote

It doesn't really go into when she became deaf and blind. I thought that most deaf from birth people had a real difficult time speaking clearly, Marlee Matlin being an example. She speaks really clearly. Amazing woman.

19

frealfr t1_isyuvgv wrote

Is deafblind even a word?

2

cgally OP t1_isyx80w wrote

As harsh as it sounds, apparently so. In fact, Ms. Girma used that term herself in one of the videos I watched about her this morning.

18

Romeo9594 t1_isz71ls wrote

The same way Helen Keller did like 100 years ago. Hands on the face to feel vibrations and movements of someone's speech, then lots and lots and lots of practice with someone who has the patience to help you learn to replicate those vibrations yourself

14

TriGurl t1_iszetig wrote

How blind is she? Can she see colors or is it all black for her? I used to assume that blind meant all darkness without the ability to see light or shapes but then realized some legally blind folks can see some varying degree of things. Was curious what her blindness was…

5

cgally OP t1_iszf7m8 wrote

I initially did not get your joke bc I have no idea who Lillias White is. I searched her name and read about her major F-up last week.. That was pretty bad. Here's the Instagram post from the woman who was ridiculed. In fairness, she actually is sticking up for Lillias White, which is very commendable.

3

davidgrayPhotography t1_it01ee1 wrote

Wikipedia says she has about 1% of her eyesight. Even 1% of eyesight can vary between people, so I wouldn't want to guess on what she can and can't see in terms of colour, brightness and such, but yeah 1% is well and truly legally blind.

9

Qwearman t1_it0jtmi wrote

Pete Gustin does vids on his life as a blind voice actor (as well as the Blind Surfer). It’s crazy the kind of tech and memorization that goes into it.

He has macular degeneration so one of his vids was explaining how he can look people in the eyes and point cameras.

2

fatchamy t1_it0r6c0 wrote

I saw her speak at a conference fireside chat event and she was HILARIOUS! Really incredible person, her book and story is very compelling.

She was using this typewriter looking gadget that I suppose is the relay with her translator/interpreter.

2

LuLuDeStruggle t1_it0sjnt wrote

{{Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law}} is an excellent memoir for anyone interested in learning about her life experiences.

1

Darryl_Lict t1_it1h83k wrote

Man, what a fiasco. It's pretty amaing that people can use real time captioning devices but I can see why Lillias White made that mistake. I remember 40 years ago when a visiting professor from Bell Labs teaching a voice recognition class was telling us all the difficulties in performing that task and single speaker single word recognition was still 5 years in the future and speaker independent full flow sentences would be 20 years in the future. Now our phones do it easily and we don't even think about it.

1

zahliailhaz t1_it1p5is wrote

She graduated in 2013. Haben is amazing, I’ve met her twice, but this isn’t news.

1

zahliailhaz t1_it4k2qu wrote

Considering Haben Girma herself has said she does not want to be seen as inspirational or uplifting just because she graduated college (something that isn't a news article for non-disabled people) I think we should respect that.

​

The fact that it took until 2013 for a deafblind person to graduate Harvard speaks to the ableism the university had previously, not the triumph or inspiration of Haben.

​

As I said, I've worked with Haben on a couple different occasions, as I work in disability. Looking at disabled people and considering them inspiring for doing things that wouldn't be inspiring if non-disabled people did them is generally seen as unwanted by disabled people. I'd encourage you to look into this TED talk by Stella Young which speaks on this concept.

0