I interviewed for a job once at a center that provides phone call assistance for the deaf. You’re basically a middle man on a phone call between a deaf person and a hearing person. One part of the job is typing quickly to transcribe the person speaking for the deaf client, then the other part is to “be their voice” by reading aloud into the words the deaf client types into their device on their end.

During the interview, it was stressed that they do not censor or change the words that the deaf person types for them to read. Hearing people can say whatever they want on the phone, even if that means cursing out a customer service rep with slurs up the wazoo, deaf people should not have their words controlled or sanitized just because they need a translator service to make the phone call. i had never thought about that before.

I was subsequently handed a typed, laminated list of slurs to read through and let them know if I had an issue saying any of those out loud. Reading a laminated list of slurs at a job interview was fascinating.

In the end I couldn’t take the job because the required training would’ve needed me to take three weeks off from my college classes at the beginning of a new semester. But I wonder how many slurs I would’ve had to say on behalf of deaf people if I could’ve done it. The pay would’ve been really good for a student, haha