TikToker Raises Awareness on Black Sign Language, New Center Will Push the Conversation Forward
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In the same way that you can add a ‘Blackcent’ to your style of speech, it can also be done when communicating in sign language. Now, a 22-year-old TikTok user is being credited for making the Black version of American Sign Language more widespread.
Nakia Smith became a popular influencer on the social networking app through her daily videos that included sign language lessons and educating people on some of the issues deaf people face,
Dallas Observer reports. Her popularity even resulted in a deal with Netflix’s Strong Black Lead where she appeared in a video teaching people “How To Sign In BASL (Black American Sign Language).”
Black American Sign Language gains new interest thanks to TikTok app wgrz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wgrz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
This year, the celebration will be virtual, but no less joyous.
The celebration began in the late 1970s as a “block party” at the end of the academic year, and was held in various locations on campus over the next decade or so. In the 1980s, it received its current name, and through the years, it evolved into a weeklong celebration. For the past nine years, each festival has used a Swahili word as its theme. This year, the word is “Furaha,” which translates as “rejoicing.”
The festival is now held under the auspices of the Multicultural Center at Ohio State, where Intercultural Specialist for African and African American Studies Initiatives Katherine Betts has been supervising the students who plan and carry it out for the past nine years.
Preserving Black American Sign Language in the Deaf community go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
14 Black Women to Celebrate During Black History Month
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Black History Month is a glorious celebration of the infinite ways that Black people have influenced global culture for centuries. Our innovative and diverse cuisines, music, fashion, hairstyles, art, entertainment, and colloquialisms are often appropriated and imitated by people who value our culture more than our actual lives. But, they can and will never be able to duplicate it.
We are the progenitors of trends and lasting precedents, the barrier breakers, the peacemakers, and when we need to be, the hell raisers to make things happen. The literal chains of Black American’s ancestors begat the enduring weight of systemic racism, prejudice, and oppression on their descendants, yet we continue to rise and thrive as a phenomenal collective. This goes double for Black women; we have to navigate a patriarchal and misogynistic world and are undoubtedly the foundation of Black life and culture. Our contribut