dead giveaway

Braille and a white cane are dead giveaways that you are blind. 

 

The attack on Braille goes much deeper than the usual statements of being too costly and bulky. 

I believe that what we are dealing with here is a deep seated fear of blindness and the desperate desire by blind people to "Look Normal" despite being blind. 

Sitting at my desk listening to the newspaper on the telephone gives me the appearance of being "normal".  So does using a computer with a screen reader.  I can put on head phones and look quite sighted. 

And if I have just enough vision to travel without the white cane and I can do that little toe dance at curbs and stairs, I will not be singled out as a blind person. 

Our families and friends do not help us in this denial.  They want us to be "normal", too.  Parents will go great distances to avoid having their child forced to learn Braille.  Family members and friends discourage us from using the white cane. 

In turn, we blind folk also look down on blindness as if it were a disease. 

Other minorities learned long ago that they must build pride in who they are before they could take their place as first-class members of society.  Negroes come to mind.  When they became Black and wore it on their chests proudly, and said"Black is beautiful", then they began to overcome the inferiority that had helped to hold them down. 

We blind need to take a page from the Black population.  We need to be proud of who we are.  We need to accept and use the tools of the blind.  And we must tolerate and be sympathetic to those of our members who cannot face up to who they are. 

 

Curious Carl

 

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