Variations and dialects of spoken English, including what linguists refer to as African-American English, have been the subject of intensive study for years. But research on Black ASL, which differs considerably from American Sign Language, is decades behind, obscuring a major part of the history of sign language.
About 11 million Americans consider themselves deaf or hard of hearing, according to the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey, and Black people make up nearly 8 percent of that population. Carolyn McCaskill, founding director of the Center for Black Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, a private university in Washington for the deaf and hard of hearing, estimates that about 50 percent of deaf Black people use Black ASL.
Now, young Black signers are celebrating the language on social media,
exposing millions to the history of a dialect preserved by its users and
enriched by their lived experiences.