09:22
McCaskill Sisters
Marsha James
Philip Alexiou
Washington, D.C.
I’m Carolyn.
And I’m Angela.
We are the McCaskill sisters.
She’s the older one, just to let you know that.
Hello, I’m Dr. Angela McCaskill and I’m the first Black deaf woman to receive a PhD in the history of Gallaudet University.
I’m Dr. Carolyn McCaskill and I’m the second Black deaf woman to receive a PhD from Gallaudet University and that’s history.
We’re both from Mobile, Alabama
and we were born and raised there. And then later in life, we moved here to Upper Marlboro area in Maryland.
So, I became deaf at age 13. Noticed my hearing started to deteriorate. So, it was more hard of hearing. I could hear but I could not comprehend what I was hearing. So, throughout school it was a little bit frustrating. But I was always sitting in the front of the class, making sure that I didn't miss any of the instructions. And I had tutoring, so I was able to function okay.
I was born hearing and I lost my
hearing at age five. We went to a hearing school and I continued to go to hearing school up until the 7th grade. But at that time, I was so frustrated because at that time, I didn’t know sign language at all and there were no resources to help me with my hearing loss in this school. And I remember often that the kids at the school would often laugh at me
and tease me because of my voice. They weren't sensitive to my needs. So, my mom allowed my sister and I to transfer to Alabama School for the Deaf.
When I heard about Gallaudet while I was there, I was shocked. That was like a college for deaf kids.
And I remember learning that was the only liberal arts school in the world for the deaf. And for me, I was like OMG [an abbreviation of the expression oh my god or oh my goodness or oh my gosh]. Deaf people in college like me.
That was an awesome experience for me, just to hear about Gallaudet and be able to attend.
Currently, I’m the director of the Center for Black Deaf Studies and I am a professor from the Deaf Studies Communication Department.
We have the opportunity now to share with everyone more about the Black deaf experience, about our history and our culture and our language.
So, this book was published in 2011. So, it tells the story about Black ASL [American Sign Language] and how it emerged. And it emerged as a result of segregation and that was in deaf residential schools.
So, Black deaf signers much more used two-handed signing. Another feature that we found amongst Black deaf people was the actual location of where the sign was placed. And it was higher up on the head.
Obstacles I faced as a Black deaf woman had always to do with equity in terms of access. I can remember when I applied for a job. And it took three months, at that time, for the agency to make a decision to even offer me the job. After they hired me and I had worked there for a while, I asked because I was so curious about that. I talked with other co-workers. And people were a bit uncomfortable to actually even be honest with me about what had happened. But they said, “You know, first of all you're a woman.” And I asked, “Was there anything else?” And they said, “Because you're Black.” And then I asked, “Anything else, even to that?” And they added, “Well, because you're deaf.”
So, just in that one situation there was audism, racism and sexism at play.
So, being the first Black deaf woman to receive a PhD from Gallaudet University, to be honest, it was bittersweet. So first, I couldn’t believe that there was no one before me that had obtained this.
I received my degree in 2004
and so, of course, I was incredibly happy.
But at the same time, I knew this has to change.
There are many deaf Black people. We, as a community, are very intelligent, very smart and we can obtain these types of degrees.
And so, that was even more motivation for me and to continue on to write the book, Black Deaf Professionals with Doctorate Degrees.
I wanted to continue to encourage people to pursue these degrees of higher education and doctoral degrees and I am happy to say that in my recent book, I’ve documented a total of 22 Black deaf people, who have earned PhDs or other terminal degrees. And this is the second edition of Black Deaf Professionals with Doctorate Degrees.
And in addition, I was able to come up with a set of recommendations for higher education. And that’s because these students talked about some of the institutional racism and the systemic racism that they faced. And so these recommendations were made and there were four main recommendations: