Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What would you Do?
I was just curious if anyone had seen last week's episode of "What Would You Do?" (Friday, Feb 4th). For anyone who hasn't heard of the show, they use actors to create situations in public settings to see how people will react to the actors' behavior. For this episode, two actors, Deaf students from NTID went into a coffee shop and one tried to apply for a kitchen position. The manager of the shop, another actor, told her that he couldn't accept her application because she was Deaf. Then, the hidden cameras filmed how customers reacted. If you get the chance, you can watch this episode on HULU and you might be surprised by how some of the people reacted. Anyone else see it?
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I just watched it on hulu. That was horrible. I can't believe the human resource people said that! Usually on that show, they have a couple of people who stand up for the person. It's sad to see that only one man stood up for the two women. At the small grocery store I work at, we have a deaf man that works in the kitchen. He is clearly capable of doing anything. It's horrific to think my boss could have not hired him just because he was deaf.
ReplyDeleteThis show is always interesting. I didn't happen to see this episode but I want to go watch it now. Deaf individuals always get different kinds of reactions from people, so I wonder how this one turned out.
ReplyDeleteI just got done watching that and all I can say is wow. I cannot believe that only one man really stood up for these Deaf girls. It just goes to show how much of America does not know about Deaf people and all the struggles they still face today. This really aggravated me with how the human resource people went about telling the manager what to do. It just sad to think about how people think things like that are ok as long as they are not out in the open for the world to see.
ReplyDeleteI am going to say that I did not catch that show, but I went to youtube and watched a 7min I guess preview of the show. That stuff was awful how so many people were just sitting there and saying nothing. Shocking, but I guess that is how the world is today. Protect your own and don't bother with other people. Now I'm not saying that everyone is like this, but clearly there are people in this world who are. I'm happy for the man who stood up to the manager and spoke his peace. I'm shocked at the people who work in hiring people to give advice about not informing the Deaf. Just to let them fill out the application and then not to call them. That is worst then what the man was doing. That would just give them false hope for a job, when the manager already knows that he is not going to hire them any ways. This really bugs me to no end, even though I know it happens everyday. Sad.
ReplyDeleteSome of the reactions were certainly terrible. However, I was pleased to see the emphasis that the producers placed on giving viewers a background of the Deaf actors. Before they started to show the scenario, they took a trip to NTID and interviewed several Deaf students. Even though it was very sad to see how people reacted to the manager refusing the girl, hopefully this sort of exposure will help people stop and think about Deafness in a different way.
ReplyDeleteI just watched parts of that episode on Hulu, and I'm just a little bewildered. In one part one woman was willing to drive two strangers away to avoid deportation, and yet most people just huffed off angrily when that manager acted that way towards the deaf women.
ReplyDeleteThat just makes me wonder are people really upset because they think that man is being ignorant or are they mad because he said it out loud? I just wonder how many people would think that that man would have a point in that situation and that saying it that way was just rude. That would bother me more than people not saying anything at all. To be honest I don't know that I would say anything necessarily; maybe a snide comment as I left and then just not go there ever again, and tell people not to go there because of his stupidity, but I don't know that I would actually stand up to him. That is an interesting scenerio.
I did watch this episode of "What Would You Do?" I thought it was very interesting and it made me mad. I especially thought it was weird that different people from HR were encouraging not hiring a person simply because they were Deaf. Their way of 'beating the system' was just being discrete about the whole thing. I think this says alot about society in general. Even people who are supposed to be unbiased and provide fair opportunities for everyone has the mindset that anyone who is different than them is not qualified for a certain job or position. I was also shocked at the amount of people who just sat there. Yeah, they seemed angry and disturbed about what was happening, but they did NOTHING about it. What good is seeing something wrong like that and not doing anything or speaking up about it? Without someone standing up, this cycle will never be broken. These people were just actors trying to prove a point, but this same situation still occurs in the world today. We need more people like the gentleman who actually stood up for the Deaf girl who was being denied a job based on her hearing status.
ReplyDeleteI generally love this show because you can be shocked by the reaction of some people but this one really disappointed me and my faith in the general population suffered a blow. Hopefully this show opens people's eyes to the reality that deaf people go through on a daily basis and even if only one person changed their outlook and decided to stand up and help a deaf person if they saw this happen, the show is changing people's opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt's still sad that only one person stood up for them out of the many people in the area. It's ridiculous, to put it simply.