language

While listening to the lecture on the deaf community I was reminded of the section in The Amistad when the lawyer broke a promise and tried to convince the translator to tell the prisoners that he “should” have done something else. Frustrated the translator screamed “there is no word for should, either you do something or you don’t do it,” that line struck me. I realized that what a society values comes out in that societies language. While Jean Blackburn talked about the deaf community I realized one of the underlining theme of their language is sharing.
The story that Jean shared about the man talking to her at church. He told her that his wife started drinking slim fast. She lost twenty pounds, and now she is wearing a beautiful dress. Then he told Jean that she should drink slim fast. On face value this sounds like an insult, but as Jean explained he was complementing his wife, and saying how slim fast made him happy. If it made him happy why would it not make Jean happy too. In direct translation that idea got lost. It is important to not only understand the translation, but the values behind a language.
The direct translation of the word Proud is pretty harsh, but when a parent says “I am proud of you,” it is a deep complement. I wonder if the love in saying “I am proud of you,“ gets lost a translation? While all of these thoughts were turning in my head I realized that people want to convey a message, and the deaf use sign language. Simply knowing this hand signal and that hand signal is not understanding the ‘language’ a translator has to understand the message too. I was very impressed with Jean Blackburn, and her ability to understand sign language.

Me in history

Durring American Heratige our class watched “The Amistad”. It was edited-- I am at Brigham Young University. Although I spent most of the time in class transfixed to the screen gripping the top of my desk refraining from bursting out in all sorts of emotions I did glance over at my professor. He was wearing his ‘sunglasses’. On the first day of class he came in wearing ‘sunglasses’ and began the lecture by explaining that we all are biased. We see the world through ‘sunglasses’ our own personal set of biased opinions beliefs and views. According to my professor understanding history is not memorizing dates and names, but having the ability to take off your personal ‘sunglasses’ or cultural influences and viewing the story and events through someone else’s eyes. When I saw him leaning up against the wall wearing his ‘sunglasses’ I turned back to the movie with a new outlook. I did not want to just watch the show, but to become apart of the story. Pathetically, but truthfully for the first time in my life I realized that slavery was and is a horrific thing done to MY brothers and sisters.
Prior to this I have felt this awkward social ideal that slavery was a black and white issue. My piece in understanding slavery is to recognize that my white ancestors were in the wrong. I expected nothing more from my self, but to establish my white ancestors were wrong to put black people into bondage. When ever I thought of slaver there were two main thought streams; How could people do that to someone else? And how did they endure that?
As I looked into the eyes of the slaves in the movie (fortunately the were all good actors and actresses) the realization that understanding slavery is realizing that those millions of men, women, and children bound in chains were my heavenly brothers and sisters. I do not have to have black skin to be their sister. I might not be their literal descendent, but that does not mean that I can not feel a fire passion against slavery and what it stood for.
When I understand slavery better I am not saying I need to down size my opinion of my white ancestors. My impression of slavery has became more personal than ever before. For some reason I held this social stigma that because I am not black I can not understand the hardship of slaves. NO ONE can truly understand the hardships of slavery, but I can imagine. My heart and mind should not be restricted by the color of my skin. I was so glad to watch that movie and make this realization.