Snarky grump

[cosmolinguist]

"Things blind or partially sighted people wish sighted people knew..." goes the social media post.

The third comment is already from the parent of a blind child.

And of course it's saying "my child can do anything a sighted person can do!"

Yeah. Including grow up with a lot of ableist thought patterns, which is what I did in that environment.

When I went back later, it was a whole thread. Full of stuff like "nothing will stop my VI grandson!"

Okay I hope he can get a job or benefits, I hope he can get a bus or a train!

I know we're still fighting the same misconceptions that were old when I was young, that if the default assumption is that blind people can't do things it's an improvement to say we can. I just wish there was a bit more nuance and less defensiveness, less evidence that the adults in the situation have accepted the ableist premise of society and are still defining success as "exactly the same as a sighted person."

I dunno. Maybe I was just seeing this in the middle of an incredibly busy and kind of demoralizing work day, maybe I'm just projecting from my own visually inspired childhood.

But if nothing else, the question was what blind and partially sighted people want sighted people to know. Can we not have one social media thread without sighted people immediately butting in?

Comments

[andrewducker]

That's ridiculously annoying. I'm sorry people are like that.

[forests_of_fire]

Ugh, I'm so sorry. When I see able people speaking over the disabled and saying shit like this, I really do wonder if it's some way of the commenter trying to soothe their subconscious fear of becoming disabled. If your VI [enter relative here] can do anything and everything, your life isn't going to change if you become disabled. Right??

[cosmolinguist]

I absolutely think this is terror-management on their part, yeah. And our individualist society wants to make this problem "my VI son is so capable" rather than "systemic barriers prevent visually impaired people from doing things." Maybe fixing systemic barriers sounds too difficult and unlikely to work, whereas if you can just get everyone who encounters your son to engage their toxic-positivity and "good manners" to him, you can feel like you have some control over the situation.

[barakta]

This is why so many spaces hard-ban parents/carers-of cos they won't shut up, won't listen and take over the space (and sometimes wider narrative esp with shit like teaching sign language incompetently).

Agree about nuance between low aspiration/expectation and unrealistic or plain erasure. One of the things I was saying when we chatted on Sunday is how lucky I am that my mum managed to get that level right. I could do what I wanted BUT I was also "DEAF!" and those things can exist in a sort of liminal space with nuance like "If you work really really hard with all-the=spoons" or "if you're lucky" such as deaf people i know with spoken-foreign-language degrees. They might have managed, but I never had the spoons... I also have to remind myself, I'm not "just deaf" but have other impairments sapping spoons to exist in society.

And if X-group can't discuss the things they experience with nuance and without being drowned by abled bullshit, no one ever gets to think about this stuff, compare/contrast/explore with nuance and low/non-judgement but can think/talk it through for each person to find their narrative and experience reflected and the similarities/differences with others even with the same ostensible impairment.

Also annoying for wannabe-allies who love reading threads of "Things X-group would love not-X people to know" cos interesting and we can learn without being annoying and try not to be the Annoying people. A very low priority thing of course.

[cosmolinguist]

I mean you say it's low-priority but literally the thread was set up as "what blind people want sighted people to know," so the whole point of it was exactly that kind of education! The dynamic was directed in that exact way, precisely because it benefits the affected group to talk together and the not-affected group to listen in the ways you describe here.

It's not as if there are a lot of these opportunities so it's annoying when they fall at the first hurdle like this.

[silveradept]

Ah, it's always nice to know how many people feel very qualified to jump into a thing they were not invited to. (Which has and will include me at some point in my life, I'm sure.)

The "sit and listen" part doesn't seem to ping for so many.