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One of the things about social networking which is, in my view, both positive and negative is the ability to very quickly and without a lot of thought express your opinion. Instead of having to write a magazine article, commentary
to an e-mail list, or blog entry about what an idiot the next person over is, you can just zap it off in 140 characters or less. And heaven forbid that the next twenty people over are idiots: throwing out twenty or thirty tweets or Facebook posts is nothing. Everyone's put in their place and you still have
time for a cup of coffee before you leave for work. I've been guilty of this: sending out an opinion that hasn't really been thought through, and a little while later wondering, Did I really need to tell everyone that? Is the world a better place because I tweeted my righteous indignation about this delivery person or that customer service agent? Are my followers enlightened because I vented?
Among blind people, there seems to be a trend on social networking to let the world know just what a bunch of useless and cerebrally-deficient jerks sighted people are. If a sighted person doesn't intuitively know how to treat a blind person, or their guide dog, or if a sighted person dares to take courage and draw inspiration from a blind person's ability to do something when that sighted person simply can't imagine doing it without sight, to offer a few examples, then that sightless person is guilty of an insult so dastardly that he or she isn't worthy of an explanation. Too many people, I fear, regard sighted people as "the help": they're expected to, via some form of osmosis, know exactly what to say or think, when to say or think it, and precisely how to act. What's more, they're supposed to have a positive, respectful view of blind people, even though their human status, parentage, and right to be on the planet have just been called into question by these same blind people. Their (our, if I'm to be honest, I've done it too) own mistakes, shortcomings, and insulting words get conveniently forgotten in a litany of righteous indignation, entitlement, generalization, and unrealistic expectations.
Sure, maybe it's tough expending the energy to explain to someone what is expected of them, what is appropriate and what isn't, and why. We're all people, we don't always have the time or inclination to do this. But if you don't have the energy to educate, where did you get the energy to lambaste and rail against the uneducated?
Are there sighted people who act stupidly? Sure there are. People are people, it happens. But guess what? There are blind people who act stupidly too. Can you imagine sighted people tweeting or blogging about ways that some blind people have annoyed them? Getting publicly angry at a blind person who didn't know that a behavior was inappropriate or embarrassing? We expect sighted people to explain these things to us; we would be very upset if sighted people humiliated us because of what we didn't know. I know this, it's happened to me, it's probably happened to most blind people. So why then do we feel entitled to lambaste, to embarrass, to humiliate sighted people for their unawareness? IT's got to go both ways.
Over the last few years, I have really come to understand the importance of living by the Golden rule. Every comment we hurl out in blogs, articles, or social media deserves the question: Would I want someone to say this if the shoe were on the other foot?
to an e-mail list, or blog entry about what an idiot the next person over is, you can just zap it off in 140 characters or less. And heaven forbid that the next twenty people over are idiots: throwing out twenty or thirty tweets or Facebook posts is nothing. Everyone's put in their place and you still have
time for a cup of coffee before you leave for work. I've been guilty of this: sending out an opinion that hasn't really been thought through, and a little while later wondering, Did I really need to tell everyone that? Is the world a better place because I tweeted my righteous indignation about this delivery person or that customer service agent? Are my followers enlightened because I vented?
Among blind people, there seems to be a trend on social networking to let the world know just what a bunch of useless and cerebrally-deficient jerks sighted people are. If a sighted person doesn't intuitively know how to treat a blind person, or their guide dog, or if a sighted person dares to take courage and draw inspiration from a blind person's ability to do something when that sighted person simply can't imagine doing it without sight, to offer a few examples, then that sightless person is guilty of an insult so dastardly that he or she isn't worthy of an explanation. Too many people, I fear, regard sighted people as "the help": they're expected to, via some form of osmosis, know exactly what to say or think, when to say or think it, and precisely how to act. What's more, they're supposed to have a positive, respectful view of blind people, even though their human status, parentage, and right to be on the planet have just been called into question by these same blind people. Their (our, if I'm to be honest, I've done it too) own mistakes, shortcomings, and insulting words get conveniently forgotten in a litany of righteous indignation, entitlement, generalization, and unrealistic expectations.
Sure, maybe it's tough expending the energy to explain to someone what is expected of them, what is appropriate and what isn't, and why. We're all people, we don't always have the time or inclination to do this. But if you don't have the energy to educate, where did you get the energy to lambaste and rail against the uneducated?
Are there sighted people who act stupidly? Sure there are. People are people, it happens. But guess what? There are blind people who act stupidly too. Can you imagine sighted people tweeting or blogging about ways that some blind people have annoyed them? Getting publicly angry at a blind person who didn't know that a behavior was inappropriate or embarrassing? We expect sighted people to explain these things to us; we would be very upset if sighted people humiliated us because of what we didn't know. I know this, it's happened to me, it's probably happened to most blind people. So why then do we feel entitled to lambaste, to embarrass, to humiliate sighted people for their unawareness? IT's got to go both ways.
Over the last few years, I have really come to understand the importance of living by the Golden rule. Every comment we hurl out in blogs, articles, or social media deserves the question: Would I want someone to say this if the shoe were on the other foot?
