I don’t mind normal people, as long as they act disabled in public

I recently learned to walk with a white cane. I am visually impaired, which due to my upbringing, is actually difficult for me to even type without feeling exposed and uncomfortable. I have nystagmus and I am sevrely nearsighted. I admit I myself don’t know much about my own disabilities, because when I was born my condition wasn’t well understood, and as I’ve already alluded to, there was a pervasive pressure to look ‘normal’ in public. I never learned cane travel, Braille, or any other blind skills as a child.

Because I never tried to learn these things until recently, I hadn’t been exposed to the constant, subtle discrimination that is the cross to bear for most, if not all, disabled folks. There was a certain amount; cruel little children love to ask you how many fingers they are holding up, or wonder aloud in obnoxious tones why it is you have to sit so close to the computer screen.

Since I began advertising that I am in fact blind, the disturbing sociological information has been pouring in by the bucketful. Ragged Edge is currently talking about these “little acts of degredation,” and I thought that I could tell them quite a few stories already.

1. I now have to sit behind the driver on Greyhound buses. I have yet to understand why this is. Someone suggested to me that it was because of safety, i.e. if there was an emergency I could get off the bus first. I think that’s pretty damn silly because, even if I was completely blind, a bus is pretty much one big long aisle. If I can’t figure that out, then it’s a wonder I’ve survived this long.

2. Invasions of personal space and/or baby talk. I swear to god, baby talk. I know this may be hard to believe, dear reader, but I am actually too nice to tell people who talk to me like I am a sweet, slightly confused child to fuck themselves. There is something deeply rooted in my psyche that goes all wibbly when I am called kiddo, hon, dear or any other things you might conceviably hear your average grandmother utter.

3. I like this one the best. I get to hear all the weird misconceptions people have about how blind folks do things. I was at the Greyhound station last weekend, paying for a ticket to get back home from Seattle, WA. I took out a twenty dollar bill and handed it to the person behind the counter, who asked me how I could tell it was a twenty. I explained that I can still see the numbers in the corner of the bills, but that some blind people fold different bills different ways, i.e. a twenty might be folded length wise whereas a ten might have all its corners folded inward, and so on. I really don’t mind answering these questions, and to his credit he had the decency to look embarrased by his next question, which was: “I heard you can tell the difference between bills by how they feel. Is that true?”

4. People not only assume that a disabled person can’t do anything for themselves, but that two disabled people together is a miracle akin to walking on water. Actually, it might be more accurate to say it’s akin to a strange, extraordinarily rare phenomenom such as frog rain or spontaneous combustion, judging by the looks my friend (who is in a wheelchair) and I get when we go out together. If we’re going on a long trip, multiply the basic number of strange looks by ten for every day you’re out of your protective plastic bubble, because god knows all disabled people are required to live completely insulated from society.

These are just a few examples of some of the sublte indignites that the disabled have to deal with, not to mention the more obvious ones like the fact that if you happen to be in a wheelchair, you can be assured that all neccesary buildings and consequently, services, will be as inaccesible to you as possible. If you want to get the word out about these and other issues facing the disabled, I encourage you to join The Goldfish’s Blog Against Disabilsm Day. Check back here on that day as well, since I will be participating. At this point I think I will write about the other side of the blind coin and explore the notion of the blind priestess or oracle as an archetype in history, myth, and fiction.