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dogriverIn reading the social media entries (Twitter, blogs, etc.) of my fellow blind people, it seems to me that some blind people have but three expectations of sighted people: 1) make all the accomodations, behavioral changes, and attitude adjustments demanded of them immediately and without question; 2) Completely ignore their blindness when they don't want attention drawn to it; and 3) know intuitively, without fail, exactly when 1) and 2) apply, and how to comply. Oh, and we have a fourth expectation as well: 4) if 2) above causes trouble to the blind person, sighted people are to compensate for it immediately.
Essentially, these blind people want sighted people to be at their beck and call when they're needed, to fade into the background when they're not, and woe to the person who can't figure it out on the first try. These blind people launch vicious, bitter attacks on the sighted, and then wonder why so many sighted people don't seem to know what to do, and why they don't do it cheerily. They see every failure to comply with the four demands as discrimination, and they tend to adopt a take-no-prisoners attitude on social media. When someone suggests that maybe we need to nicely let sighted people know what we need and don't need from them, these people will almost invariably say that they don't have the energy to educate sighted people, but it never occurs to them that throwing a tantrum in a blog takes way more energy than letting someone know what they need and perhaps even getting a new friend out of the deal.
Now don't get me wrong. Discrimination and shabby treatment do exist. And I agree, that such behavior is unacceptable, and that perpetrators need to be held accountable for it. I also know that blind people will have bad days just like everyone else when things just rub them the wrong way. But by and large, I've found, sighted people aren't on some kind of campaign to make the lives of blind people miserable, as some of the tantrum-throwers seem to believe. Generally, I've found sighted people to be well-meaning and wanting to help, and a good majority of them are willing to listen to us when we try to explain something to them that they may not have had experience with before.
Part of the reason that it's important not to react in anger, bitterness and tyrades is that people are conditioned. If a sighted person holds a door open for a blind person, and the blind person turns around and gets angry at the sighted person for doing it (believe me, it happens), that sighted person is going to feel much less inclined to help a future blind person who may genuinely need assistance of some kind. Result? The blind person's ten seconds of "righteous rage" has netted losses all around.
The fact is, how to deal with blind people isn't always as intuitive as some of us may think it should be. Sighted people sometimes need this stuff explained in a caring, understanding way, and sometimes it falls on us to do the explaining. And those explanations will yield much higher dividends than railing against society, than throwing a fit, than insisting that every misunderstanding is a blatant act of discrimination. It also means that, when there truly is discrimination to be called out, when people truly do treat us badly and need to be held accountable, our words will carry more weight, and in this day and age when blind people need all the voices they can get, that's always a good thing.
Essentially, these blind people want sighted people to be at their beck and call when they're needed, to fade into the background when they're not, and woe to the person who can't figure it out on the first try. These blind people launch vicious, bitter attacks on the sighted, and then wonder why so many sighted people don't seem to know what to do, and why they don't do it cheerily. They see every failure to comply with the four demands as discrimination, and they tend to adopt a take-no-prisoners attitude on social media. When someone suggests that maybe we need to nicely let sighted people know what we need and don't need from them, these people will almost invariably say that they don't have the energy to educate sighted people, but it never occurs to them that throwing a tantrum in a blog takes way more energy than letting someone know what they need and perhaps even getting a new friend out of the deal.
Now don't get me wrong. Discrimination and shabby treatment do exist. And I agree, that such behavior is unacceptable, and that perpetrators need to be held accountable for it. I also know that blind people will have bad days just like everyone else when things just rub them the wrong way. But by and large, I've found, sighted people aren't on some kind of campaign to make the lives of blind people miserable, as some of the tantrum-throwers seem to believe. Generally, I've found sighted people to be well-meaning and wanting to help, and a good majority of them are willing to listen to us when we try to explain something to them that they may not have had experience with before.
Part of the reason that it's important not to react in anger, bitterness and tyrades is that people are conditioned. If a sighted person holds a door open for a blind person, and the blind person turns around and gets angry at the sighted person for doing it (believe me, it happens), that sighted person is going to feel much less inclined to help a future blind person who may genuinely need assistance of some kind. Result? The blind person's ten seconds of "righteous rage" has netted losses all around.
The fact is, how to deal with blind people isn't always as intuitive as some of us may think it should be. Sighted people sometimes need this stuff explained in a caring, understanding way, and sometimes it falls on us to do the explaining. And those explanations will yield much higher dividends than railing against society, than throwing a fit, than insisting that every misunderstanding is a blatant act of discrimination. It also means that, when there truly is discrimination to be called out, when people truly do treat us badly and need to be held accountable, our words will carry more weight, and in this day and age when blind people need all the voices they can get, that's always a good thing.
