By: Conner Williams Editor in Chief Information contributed By:Jenna Beresheim News Editor
The third annual TEDx Salem conference took place last Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 at the Convention Center in Salem.
The event drew a crowd of approximately 450 people, according to Brian Hart, co-curator of the conference.
TEDx events are different than TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences as the “x” denotes that it is a local an independently sponsored event.
TED is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1984 under the slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading.” The organization has hosted some very significant individuals as speakers, including Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, J.J. Abrams, and many others.
The famous “TED Talks” cover everything from scientific ideas, to academia, to cultural and social topics.
The theme of the Salem talks was fearlessness; specifically, what it means to be fearless.
But rather than attempt to define the term or represent it in one avenue of thought, Hart emphasized that the objective of the conference was to allow each individual to decide for themselves after hearing all of the speakers’ presentations.
Among the 13 speakers was CM Hall, project coordinator of the Western Region Interpreter Education Center at Western Oregon University, and professor of deafblind interpreting and LGBTQ+ studies.
Hall said that everyone who can hear is an audist – someone that believes or are treated as if they are superior based on their ability to hear – and her presentation was aimed at bringing social justice along with better access and fairness to those of the deafblind community.
Hall was originally invited to speak at the TEDx Salem conference after she launched a petition in July on Change.org to get the American Sign Language (ASL) “I Love You” hand-shape to become an emoji.
Hall hopes that after her talk, people who can hear and see will, “work to engage with deaf people and work to dismantle audists, and see it similar to racism, heterosexism and albeism – as a social justice issue.”
In addition to her service as an advocate for the deafblind community and professor at Western, Hall hinted that she plans to run for office someday.
Hall said that she was not as nervous for her presentation as she was for what comes next, particularly about the “haters” that come to the surface once the talk is edited and posted online.
“I know we are so thick in the middle of a hater/troll Internet culture and I don’t want to be affected by that negativity,” Hall said in an email interview.
“That’s what I think about the most: how the message will resonate, and I just assume there will be hater sentiment as we now assume there is for everything.”
“I may just need to sing a lot of Tay-Tay’s “Shake It Off” cuz the haters gonna hate hate hate. And really, what can I do but shake it off?”
