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The Voiceless Blind
Imagine a movie in which the main character was a blind Social Security recipient who, in his twenties, lived at home with his parents. Imagine the outcry that would come from blind people, cries of inaccurately portraying blind people. Never mind that there are many blind people living in exactly these kinds of circumstances, often justifiably. What blind people want isn't accurate portrayal, it's favorable portrayal. And, in the fight for this favorable portrayal, who speaks for these blind twenty-somethings living with parents on Social Security? Who will give them a voice if they are shunned by other blind people for not being able to function at the same level?
When I was a kid, I attended a camp for the blind. This camp had the audacity to group all blind people together, which meant that I might share a cabin with people who, in addition to being blind, might have other mental, emotional or developmental disabilities as well. I asked one of the workers for the organization sponsoring the camp about this. I may not know it, he told me, but a large percentage of blind people fall into this category. First I'd known about it. I'd been so busy trying to prevent sighted people from falling for stereotypes, I'd completely missed the fact that there were many people all around me who did fit this stereotype. And, with us "higher-functioning" blind people marginalizing them, even being ashamed to count them among us, who will give them a voice?
I'm privileged to have a reasonable amount of computer skills and the ability to work with these skills. This has led me, sometimes, to express my frustration with other blind people who don't "get" concepts which, to me, are incredibly basic in nature. I was bemoaning this to a friend once, when, in exasperation, she jabbed a figurative finger into my chest and said, "Bruce, you are a member of a privileged minority. Many people don't have the computer knowledge you have, many people just don't get it. You have no more right to put these people down than other people have the right to put you down because you don't understand things that they do." She was right, I was behaving incredibly snobbishly. I still sometimes find myself doing it.
I've long wanted to write an article about the voiceless blind, those blind people shunned by "higher-functioning" blind people because they don't exude the image of independence that sighted people are supposed to see. These living, breathing, feeling people are rendered mute because, in essense, those of us with loud voices are ashamed to acknowledge them. We marginalize them. I've given up on the idea of writing profoundly on the subject, so I'm just going to write this.
If we shush these "embarrassments" to the blindness image, who will speak for them? We certainly don't. We're too busy wiping stereotypes off the sighted radar to acknowledge those people who, through no fault of their own, might fall into some or all of those very stereotypes. It's denial of a very brutal, inhumane nature, and many of us so-called higher-functioning blind people are extremely guilty of it
So who will speak for these voiceless blind? Perhaps if we remember that it wasn't too long ago that all blind people, regardless of inate ability, were marginalized, perhaps then we can look at these other people and proudly count them among us, just as worthy as we are of recognition and inclusion.
When I was a kid, I attended a camp for the blind. This camp had the audacity to group all blind people together, which meant that I might share a cabin with people who, in addition to being blind, might have other mental, emotional or developmental disabilities as well. I asked one of the workers for the organization sponsoring the camp about this. I may not know it, he told me, but a large percentage of blind people fall into this category. First I'd known about it. I'd been so busy trying to prevent sighted people from falling for stereotypes, I'd completely missed the fact that there were many people all around me who did fit this stereotype. And, with us "higher-functioning" blind people marginalizing them, even being ashamed to count them among us, who will give them a voice?
I'm privileged to have a reasonable amount of computer skills and the ability to work with these skills. This has led me, sometimes, to express my frustration with other blind people who don't "get" concepts which, to me, are incredibly basic in nature. I was bemoaning this to a friend once, when, in exasperation, she jabbed a figurative finger into my chest and said, "Bruce, you are a member of a privileged minority. Many people don't have the computer knowledge you have, many people just don't get it. You have no more right to put these people down than other people have the right to put you down because you don't understand things that they do." She was right, I was behaving incredibly snobbishly. I still sometimes find myself doing it.
I've long wanted to write an article about the voiceless blind, those blind people shunned by "higher-functioning" blind people because they don't exude the image of independence that sighted people are supposed to see. These living, breathing, feeling people are rendered mute because, in essense, those of us with loud voices are ashamed to acknowledge them. We marginalize them. I've given up on the idea of writing profoundly on the subject, so I'm just going to write this.
If we shush these "embarrassments" to the blindness image, who will speak for them? We certainly don't. We're too busy wiping stereotypes off the sighted radar to acknowledge those people who, through no fault of their own, might fall into some or all of those very stereotypes. It's denial of a very brutal, inhumane nature, and many of us so-called higher-functioning blind people are extremely guilty of it
So who will speak for these voiceless blind? Perhaps if we remember that it wasn't too long ago that all blind people, regardless of inate ability, were marginalized, perhaps then we can look at these other people and proudly count them among us, just as worthy as we are of recognition and inclusion.