by Adele R. Minissale
During the past nine years I have become legally blind, and I've discovered that the needs of the blind community differ greatly from other disabled groups, though the needs of one group do not diminish the needs of another.
When my visual impairment became significant, I thought, "I'm becoming part of an unseen minority, neither seeing nor being seen" -- in other words, someone easily ignored. Later, I was surprised to discover an excellent work written by a blind woman entitled "The Unseen Minority." Others, it seemed, have shared my experience and felt the same way; I had not coined the phrase.
There is a certain medieval superstitious aura surrounding blindness, as if it's a contagious agent to be avoided. We are often aware that people turn away from us not because of overwhelming compassion but rather because of fear of association. If we have lost our vision, maybe they too could lose theirs. This phenomenon, at least in part, derives from ancient punishments such as branding or leaving visible marks on the body as a sign of societal or divine retribution for crimes or transgressions committed -- a perception further reinforced by tragic figures like Oedipus Rex whose blindness becomes a metaphor for calamity. The solution is not to censor great works of literature, but to confront the fear that lies deep within the human psyche.
It is interesting to note that while Christopher Reeve is an outstanding spokesman for people with spinal cord injuries and has provided an incomparable service to that community to further the cause of accelerated medical research, severely visually impaired individuals with celebrity are reluctant, for whatever reasons, to become advocates on our behalf. As Christopher Reeve demonstrates, the value of a person in a wheelchair remains intact despite being unable to walk. Similarly, we of the blind and sight-impaired community would benefit from a high profile advocate willing to solicit congressional support and public recognition to address our needs and convey our worth as human beings, blindness or vision loss notwithstanding.
Furthermore, the solutions to our problems are not easy. Only a very small percentage of blind people read braille. For many of those who are adventitiously blind, lessened tactile sensitivity is also an obstacle to learning braille. A white cane cannot traverse every inch of ground, and it is very easy to stumble over the smallest of objects. Nor does a cane help with overhead obstacles, such as tree branches, protruding architectural structures, or extended mirrors on vehicles. A guide dog, while extremely helpful and an excellent companion after extensive mutual training, cannot be counted on to reach an unfamiliar destination and return to the original point of departure.
While I'd be very much in favor of language which doesn't single us out as "different" and contains an element of compassion as opposed to pity, many times it seems as though society grows more antagonistic when constrained by correct terminology. If the language is so sanitized that it causes further marginalization and a rationalized view of us as individuals devoid of any emotion except hypersensitivity, then there is little benefit. Semantics is a field which requires much work in relation to the disabled community. Somehow we must strive to combine language and images which communicate our intrinsic worth.
There is an ongoing movement to diminish the effectiveness of the ADA which should engender a tremendous response among the disabled. We must become politically involved if we are to determine our own destiny. I can tell you from numerous personal experiences that for every lawsuit filed, there are countless legitimate grievances which remain unaddressed and cause disabled people to further isolate themselves into seclusion.
Facing the world on a daily basis requires tremendous courage. We are attempting to function in an environment structured for what we formerly were (or perhaps weren't), not as we presently are, and too few are willing to allow us a few extra moments to acclimate ourselves to stairways, indistinguishable faces, the noises of moving traffic, and for many of us, a whirl of flashing images and optical illusions. We are not unreasonable; we are just asking society to demonstrate its humanity.