The Dictatorship
People are dying in wildfires. And this conservative attacks sign language interpreters.
On Friday, Christopher Rufo, the Manhattan Institute senior fellow who played a major role in whipping up people against critical race theoryquote-tweeted a video of a press conference by the Los Angeles County Emergency Management about the area wildfires that included a man using American Sign Language.
“I’m sorry, but we have to stop with the ridiculous sign language interpreters, who turn serious press conferences into a farce,” Rufo wrote. “There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services. No wild human gesticulators necessary.”
Hanania argued that captioning “works fine” and that the so-called disability lobby has “to pretend like it doesn’t to force this absurdity onto us.”
Users added community notes to refute Rufo’s claims, saying accurately that closed captioning is not universal nor universally effective and that ASL captures nuance that captioning misses. Richard Hanania, the right-wing commentator who previously wrote for white supremacist websites under a pseudonym, jumped on this, saying “that the process has been captured by the disability lobby,” a phrase that is laughable in that disabled people don’t have a lobby. Disabled people have some advocates, of course, but none with the power of Washington’s real power brokers.
Hanania argued that captioning “works fine” and that the so-called disability lobby has “to pretend like it doesn’t to force this absurdity onto us.”
The pair’s words reveal a lack of understanding about deaf people. ASL is the first language for many people who are born deaf or become deaf early in life; many people who become deaf or hard of hearing later in life tend to prefer captioning. In addition, while closed captioning works better for scripted television, delays for live television are inevitable or they can be garbled or displayed too quickly.
The expressiveness that Rufo dismissed as wild gesticulating has a utility, in the same way accenting certain words can in spoken language.
Though it was clearly not his intent, Rufo expressing irritation at the county emergency management agency including an ASL interpreter brings attention to an aspect of natural disasters and emergencies that isn’t discussed enough: People with disabilities are especially vulnerable during such disasters and emergencies.
The fires in Southern California have offered horrible examples already. Anthony Mitchell, 67, died in Altadena along with his son Justin Mitchell, who was in his early 20s. The father, who’d had a leg amputated, used a wheelchair to get around. His son had cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk. The ambulance he was waiting for to get him and his son out didn’t arrive in time, and they both died. “He probably could have gotten himself out, but he wasn’t going to leave my brother,” a surviving son told NBC News on Friday. “He really loved his kids.”
The father, who’d had a leg amputated, used a wheelchair to get around. His son had cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk.
Former Australian child actor Rory Sykes, who was born blind and with cerebral palsy, also died after his mother failed to save him as the wildfires in Malibu raged. Sykes lived in a cottage on his family’s 17-acre estate and his mother reportedly “couldn’t put out the cinders on his roof with a hose.” She says the “water was switched off” by Las Virgenes Municipal Water. A spokesperson for Las Virgenes Municipal Water disputed that claim, saying “water service did remain available and uninterrupted to her property and the entire surrounding community.”
His mother told Australian outlet 10 News Firstthat she has a broken arm and could not lift or move her son. “He said, ‘Mom, leave me.’ And no mom could leave their kid,” she said, crying. But when she returned from trying to enlist the aid of the fire department, she said, her son’s cottage had burned down.
Data shows that natural disasters create dire circumstances for people with disabilities. According to the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs, they are two to four times more likely to die in conflict zones and natural disasters.
In addition, a 2024 study in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction found that deaf people and people with hearing loss are uniquely vulnerable during emergencies because of the lack of “access to critical information at the right time and in an adequate format.” While many of the people interviewed did not suffer injury, most of them suffered property damage.
But if people with disabilities struggle to escape during natural disasters, they face just as terrible prospects when they do escape.
The U.S. Census Bureau found that 70 percent of adults who are deaf reported living in unsanitary conditions a month after a disaster compared to 7 percent of people who can hear. E&E News reported last year that the Census Bureau recorded data over 10 days in December 2022, and found that, a month after a natural disaster, more than 74 percent of people who are unable to walk faced food shortages compared to 9 percent of people who can walk.
The International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction found that deaf people and people with hearing loss are uniquely vulnerable during emergencies.
Furthermore, while only 1 percent of adults in 2022 had to leave their homes due to natural disaster, 31 percent of adults who cannot care for themselves had to leave their homes; 21 percent of blind adults had to leave their homes; and 59 percent of adults who left their homes never returned.
Natural disasters can also end up costing people with disabilities not only their homes, but their fundamental freedoms. A 2019 report by the National Council on Disability described the distressing frequency with which people with disabilities wind up institutionalized after natural disasters, which leads to families being separated, people with disabilities losing their jobs and students missing out on education.
Rufo’s words have special resonance on the right. So it’s important that we not dismiss his attack on ASL interpreters as silly jabbering but take it with the utmost seriousness. It’s unfortunate that instead of acknowledging that people with disabilities — in whatever form — are in greater danger during disasters, Rufo would choose to attack one of the ways to keep them informed.
Eric Garcia is the senior Washington correspondent and bureau chief for The Independent. He is the author of “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation.”