Masks
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he’ll tell you the truth.”
--- Oscar Wilde
Profoundly deaf since birth, I grew up in an oral-aural world. Enveloped in silence, I did not sign, and experienced life as a landscape of inscrutability – trying to understand a stranger’s speech; watching TV shows like Combat, and I Dream of Jeannie or movies like The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde without captions; unable to listen to radio shows or use the telephone. Not all was doom and gloom. Life had flashes of clarity and beauty – speaking with my brother who articulated each word clearly and crisply on his lips; watching a captioned movie or video; reading textual material like books and newspapers; attending a Marcel Marceau performance; appreciating Michelangelo’s David and Rembrandt’s Night Watch. There was a lot of boom and zoom to go around. I’ve since then learned to sign and appreciate captioning and interpreters.
Now a deadly pandemic stalks the world. The contagiousness and lethality of the novel coronavirus are forcing people to wear masks, but unfortunately in covering the wearer’s lips, the mask cuts off communication between Deaf and hearing people. Recently a visit to the eye doctor drove home the physical reality of a mask; our conversation was reduced to writing notes on a whiteboard. Our usual easy give and take was compromised. At that moment I realized the mask stands at the intersection of plague and inaccessibility and has become normalized as an everyday accoutrement.
Thinking about masks and what it all means, I recalled the scene in the 1956 movie, Moby Dick, with the legendary Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. Told it was blasphemous to treat the white whale, Moby Dick, as a rational being with malice in its heart, Captain Ahab retorted,
Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The White Whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.
Although my situation as a Deaf child growing up in an inaccessible world wasn’t as dramatic as leaving me with “half a heart and half a lung,” Ahab’s words resonate for me. Today, the lack of captioning and sign language interpreters renders the world as a pasteboard mask. Not being able to hear led me to imagine an “inscrutable yet reasoning” being behind the mask, a language I could not access. As Moby Dick represented a mask to Captain Ahab, spoken language constituted a mask for me, and what was behind the mask shaped the course of my life.
Masks poses a challenge for Deaf and hard of hearing people. For more on the barriers masks pose for the Deaf community, see this link.
There are two choices. One is a mask with a clear, transparent window framing the lips.
Problem is, this is a nightmare visage – the rictus of a smile is frightening. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the middle of a coronavirus-induced hallucination to this spectre over my bed. Having said that, this is a reasonable accommodation for people who need it.
The other is a clear plastic face shield.
The face shield is better, but the supply shortage of personal protection equipment, including face shields, makes it imperative that the shield be prioritized for health care workers and first responders.
Various public accommodations such as hospitals, restaurants, government offices and retail establishments hand out opaque masks, but not the clear-view masks. Transparent masks are a no-brainer for the ease of communication, but society at large does not realize the mask’s challenge to the interaction between people. It does not have the foresight to anticipate the need for the clear mask. This can have negative consequences. For instance, a police officer wearing an opaque mask would fail to communicate effectively with a deaf person, and that could lead to tragic consequences.
In any case, I’m not sure I subscribe to Oscar Wilde’s “Give him a mask, and he’ll tell you the truth.” For Deaf and hard of hearing people, the opaque mask silences communication and in doing so, deprives access to the truth.