Uh Oh, Charlie Kirk Is Oppressed By Sign Language Now
Coming after people with disabilities, so on-brand.
The right-wing rage-train requires fresh RRR GRRR targets every other day to keep running on track. M&Ms stealing Tucker Carlson’s boner can’t stoke the fires forever!
The latest outrage: American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters.
Charlie Kirk kicked off his mukluks from his ridiculous trip to Greenland with Donald Trump Junior and got right back into pushing conspiracy theories and lies about the fires in Southern California, and demanding California get no aid unless they fire lesbian firefighters. But he took a break to further pinch-up his little face and roll up his gums and stamp his little foot that we shouldn’t have ASL interpreters during emergencies either, because they distract him, and he can’t watch and listen to something at the same time.
“I'm gonna say this just off the cuff before I introduce our guest. Can we please just go away with half the screen during these emergency briefings to the sign language interpreters? I have nothing against, obviously, people that cannot hear, but there's closed captioning. I mean, this is just over the top. We can't do this. We gotta get back to how it used to be. It's just, oh, it's just too much. It's a distraction is what it is. The reason is they do these emergency briefings for fires or terrorist attacks, and you're looking at this and you're not listening. I don't like it. So we got — we just gotta — closed captioning's perfectly fine. I think we have to — we gotta get back to basics here.”
Just close your eyes, maybe? Hope this guy does not regularly operate a motor vehicle!
Here’s the clip he was SO mad about:
Kirk’s grousing led to a conservative pile-on on Elon’s hellsite, starting with fascist Howdy Doody doll Christopher Rufo:
“I'm sorry, but we have to stop with the ridiculous sign language interpreters, who turn serious press conferences into a farce. There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services. No wild human gesticulators necessary.
“Deaf friends: Am I missing something? Is closed captioning not sufficient? Why did these live interpreters suddenly appear everywhere, right at the moment in which CC and AI made this obsolete?
“Why the wild gesticulations? And the closed captions are paired with the image of the speaker, so why is this not sufficient visual context?”
They did not “suddenly appear,” weirdo. ASL interpreters have been required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) since 1990. It’s been 35 years! The law was signed by famously woke Republican George Herbert Walker Bush. And closed captioning has been an FCC rule since 1998. Fun fact, the first captioned broadcast was Julia Child cooking a chicken on August 5, 1972.
And no, closed captioning is not sufficient, especially in an emergency situation where somebody can’t type that fast (even though they use steno machines). And if you’ve ever tried to watch closed captions on a live event, you know how delayed, error-prone and incomplete they can be. And still, not all broadcasts are required to have closed captioning. Furthermore, ASL is a distinct language, not just some kind of version of English. (Hence why they’re called ASL interpreters.) The gestures are important to convey tone. Not all deaf people understand English, either, for that matter. And, a whole lot of deaf kids have been failed by the educational system.
Closed-captioning is so frequently wrong that there’s a whole YouTube/TikTok video genre of fails, because they’re often hilarious.
Anyway, eugenics aficionado and Project 2025 contributor Richard Hanania chimed in, eager to get in on the action.
The community note shows that the process has been captured by the disability lobby. It’s not about access, CC works fine. They have to pretend like it doesn’t to force this absurdity onto us.
And the ADA amendments of 2008 have led to a nightmare, as I explain in my book.
Those deaf and disabled people, always getting the good stuff and trying to put one over on the rest of us! Won’t somebody think of the people who are so easily distracted by motion on television that the thought of deaf people sends them into a rage?
Also, there was no community note.
Hanania’s been mad about accommodations for deaf people for a while, tweeting about it repeatedly for years. Such as back in 2020: “I’ll vote for any candidate who will stand against the tyranny of the deaf getting like 40 percent of the screen in speeches and distracting everyone else, instead of just pushing the CC button.”
TYRANNY! And whining in 2022: “Trying to watch the French presidential debate. The sign language at the bottom is obnoxious! Makes it completely unwatchable.” And again back this May: “It's absolutely nuts that the deaf are a like 1% of the population and get maybe a fifth of the screen. Don't we already have a closed caption option? Do we really need to be distracting everyone with someone waving their hands in the air?”
So easily distracted! Why the anger? Did a deaf guy steal his wife? Just kidding, he’s 39 and has never been married.
Hanania’s commenters dogpiled on with some wild shit to say, calling ASL interpreters “mimes,” “distracting and narcissistically animated,” and questioning “Why is there a separate culture for the deaf?”
Why is there a separate culture for these fucks? America is a diverse and inclusive place, love it or leave it. If you want to watch paraplegics be forced to crawl up the steps of a bus, move to Russia. There was a whole other group in Germany in the ‘30s who hated disabled people too, speaking of “culture.”
Instead of these assholes, let’s enjoy Holly Maniatty signing Eminem’s Rap God at the 2018 Firefly festival!
And Justina Miles interpreting Rihanna at the Super Bowl!
David Cowan signing Beyoncé at Atlanta Pride!
Much better. Hey, maybe we should all learn ASL! You could carry on a conversation in a club, and piss off those assholes at the same time.
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I'm severely hearing impaired. Small d-deaf. Been this way since I was a toddler.
I'm not surprised by this, not even bothered. People who say they're 'fine' with your disability or have 'nothing against it', and will rail against having to make an accommodation or change their behaviour in any way whatsoever, well -- it's pretty typical.
I know that it has everything to do with them and their own fears. They cannot handle the fact that disabled people exist, and that one day, they might be disabled too. Live long enough, and it'll happen to you.
And that's their problem, not mine. I don't need to make an accommodation of their fears. Some people cannot or will not see that improving accessibility helps *everyone*, and are convinced that they're somehow losing something to disabled people. I stopped caring about correcting those opinions a long time ago. I simply gave up on those deplorables.
What if we all took ASL classes and started communicating only in ASL? Would they shrivel away?