Kamala Harris name sign

A team of Black and Indian Deaf women worked together for several weeks to come up with a name sign for Vice President Kamala Harris, who made history by being the first Black, Indian, and woman person in the role.

The group worked within itself to come up with a list of possible sign names, and then sent out a public survey to the deaf community at large to collect their votes from February 1 to 5.

Today, the group made the announcement for the sign name. This video clip will reveal it and the team will explain why. "

Arlene Ngalle-Paryani: We’ve given our VP Kamala Harris a sign name. What is it?

Smita Kothari, Ebony Gooden, Kavita Pipalia, Candace Jones: (shows sign for Kamala)

Arlene: Kamala. How did we pick this particular sign name? I want to explain briefly about Kamala Harris. She did ask people to use her name, Kamala, because it means a lot to her. “Kamala” means a lotus flower. I will explain briefly what a lotus flower means. Purity. Enlightenment. Rebirth. A lotus flower has strong roots that can bore through dirt. The flower shows its beauty when it blooms. I am making it an analogy with Kamala, who appears in the midst of a dark and divided America. She brings enlightenment and purity. Rebirth. Why do we use three fingers? It’s because she is the first Black, Indian, and female, and it is represented in the three fingers that bloom. She’s not the “first” but has “three firsts.” Kamala!

Alex: Kamala. That’s a sign name with a deep meaning behind it.

The lotus flower is the national flower of India.

I asked two of the leaders from the team, Ebony Gooden and Kavita Pipalia, how they started the idea for this process.

Ebony: Why is this important? She is the first Black, first Indian, and first woman! This is a very important moment of history! Everyone started discussing this and trying to come up with her sign name. As I watched those discussions, I became uncomfortable. Because I noticed those who were typically leading those discussions were by the white Deaf community, especially the men in the Deaf community. I felt that this wasn’t right and decided that it was important to set up this group for Black Deaf women and Indian Deaf women. They all came together to discuss in a safe and healthy way.

Kavita: I completely supported Ebony’s view to have a safe space where we as Deaf Black, Indian women could gather to feel free to contribute and discuss. That moment was special.

Ebony: I didn’t want to lead this myself. I knew there were others who wanted to join. Because the key word was “collectivism” which means working together in a group, not as individuals.

Alex: The team said the winning sign name, which was #5, received almost half of the votes.

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Alex: I asked them how they felt after the voting process.

Video Clip

Ebony: I know that in Deaf culture we tend to take action and discuss everything with urgency. But we have to pause, move slowly and respect both communities: the Black Deaf community and the Indian Deaf community. Both communities have to work together in a safe and healthy way. Honestly, I am only aware of my own Black identity and culture as I presented those during my discussions, but I was not aware of the Indian Deaf culture. We tend to be loud and directly share what is on our mind but for them, they are more quiet-mannered and prefer discussing in private. So we have to work together and make sure that we don’t exclude them. We have to make sure that both communities are united. So, I was extremely honored to work with both Indian Deaf women, Kavita and Smita, who taught me so much about their culture. They shared their knowledge, their movies, and many other things. It made me realize that I have a lot to learn.

Kavita: This process was a rich, learning experience. Why? I, as a Deaf Indian woman - I worked with Lele, Candace, Ebony - and these three are wonderful Black women. Myself and Smita are both Indian. We all learned so much from each other. One thing we all had in common was that we all love dancing. The second thing was that we love bold, bright colors. There were a few other things also. We truly learned so much. We laughed as we worked together. We goofed around for sure!

Alex: Both Ebony and Kavita opened up that the process was not easy for them.

Video Clip

Ebony: However, this process wasn’t always positive. Some negativity was involved. It was because those who were involved in the white Deaf community, especially men, would always share demeaning, belittling, negative, destructive, mean, and awful comments, awful emails, awful videos, and awful vlogs. They think that we’re pushing them aside, which isn’t true. We value Black and Indian Deaf women’s voices and want to make sure that their voices are not censored.

Kavita: It wasn’t easy too because the community out there was negative towards us. They often protested that we were rejecting them. I said “Wait a minute, no!” We weren’t pushing them aside. We only felt it was time for us to band together and stand up as women. It’s time for us to represent and show the world how amazing we are.

Ebony: So, I am hoping that this process will teach everyone in the Deaf community to acknowledge that we have a problem. We need to talk about it.

Kavita: Our experience was rich. It’s time for them to recognize our abilities and our creativity, as we can be leaders too.

Alex: Thank you both for your time and efforts. We now have a name sign that we can use. No more fingerspelling “Kamala Harris” — it’s now this sign.

I want to add here that Black and South Asian deaf women in the U.K. came up with a name sign. The name sign they came up for Kamala was this.

If you want more information about the U.K., sign, check out an article and video in “The Limping Chicken,” the link is in the transcript.

https://youtu.be/ydXWjE3JNII

https://twitter.com/Beingher1/status/1332311838764249088

https://limpingchicken.com/2020/11/17/nadia-nadarajah-how-we-created-a-bsl-sign-name-for-kamela-harris-us-vice-president-elect/