Okay, we all know that it’s just a metaphor, but there are times when the reality of being blind and the metaphoric use of the word “blind” get confused—the blind person may get incorporated into the metaphor or the metaphor may become the describer of the blind person. This confusion is often humorous. For instance, I grew up hearing, “God is love. Love is blind. Stevie Wonder is blind; therefore, Stevie Wonder must be God.”
Most of the time I can forgive the inappropriate use of “blind”. Love and justice’s blindness signify impartiality, lack of prejudice, and accentuating the positive. Blind faith imagines absolute trust. These are not bad attributes. Even so, one should question using blindness as a metaphor in these ways.
When the confusion surrounds negativity, the metaphor and the reality of being blind can be painful. When one interprets the Blind Guide (Matt. 15:14) in Scripture as a metaphor in terms of unable to know where one is going, or ignorant of perils surrounding the people, or incompetent, it is especially problematic. Much harm is transferred between the metaphor and the characteristics attributed to those who are blind.
The use of disabilities as adjectives in our everyday language —lame arguments, dumb ideas, and people spazzing out—can be easily understood as micro-aggression. I heard a news analyst recently say that a particular public official had turned a deaf ear to the legitimate complaints of the people. When I hear a statement such as this, I cringe although I may excuse the speaker for being ableist and not knowing any better.
But the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came for me April 5 on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight. One guest, Maya Wiley, reported on the voting issues in Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina. She spoke of the Supreme Court’s lack of timeliness and the work of some states to deprive Black communities of their democratic voice by “bleaching” their voting districts. Through gerrymandering, the Black vote can then be divided among stronger White districts. At the end of the interview, Ms. Wiley referred to the situation in this way, “Being race blind in this country today means being blind to injustice and refusing to address it. That is not good for democracy, and that’s why we are not going to stop fighting for voting rights.”
I appreciate what Ms. Wiley was trying to say, but I take umbrage at her use of blind in this case. First, since the entire concept of race is a sighted invention and is a means of discrimination sustained by visual cues such as skin color, hair texture, and facial characteristics, therefore, “race blindness” cannot be a factual representation even when race blindness is used by ableist, sighted people. In fact, it is an excuse for being racist. It is a lie that sighted people tell themselves in order to deny the personal identities of Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos, anyone other than themselves. “I do not see your color as a difference. I think of you as being just like me—White.”
This is not to say that the blind, especially those totally blind, cannot be prejudiced, but their reference points for being “racist” more likely come from sighted slanders repeated rather than any personal observation. “Race blindness” in this context means that there is no category of race which accurately describes the genetic reality of humanity. This blindness allows for cultural and ethnic differences but not for the sighted distinctions which make racism fully possible.
Secondly, injustice is not the result of the actions of the blind! They know all too well what injustice is. As a group, blind people encounter injustice on a daily basis: inaccessible voting platforms, lack of signage in braille and large print, inaccessible menus in restaurants, Uber drivers who won’t let a blind person with a guide dog in their cars, collapsing mass transit service, being able to know the denomination of the currency you are given as change at any place of business, and let’s not talk about packaging that does not let the blind know what they are purchasing. Beyond those inconveniences, have you ever, with your eyes closed, tried to use a kiosk to register for a doctor’s appointment?
Instead, members of the blindness community have and do advocate not only for themselves but for our society as a whole. Jacobus Tenbroek, president of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), worked as legal counsel for Brown vs Education. George Card, a member of the American Council of the Blind (ACB), was part of the legal team for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Currently, blind lawyers are working for prison reform. The Blind were involved in the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and they are involved in the many issues that influence the blindness and greater disability community today including reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.
We cry out not only for accessibility to the physical world in general, but also accessibility to the technology that keeps trying to run away without us. At this time, members of ACB and NFB advocate for accessible web sites, audible pedestrian signals, accessible durable medical devices, and audible description tv programming, movies, and live theater performances.
In the advocacy that we do for our own community, we also work for the many ways we intersect with the marginalized communities around us. We are blind, but we are also Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, 2SLGBTQIA, and all ages and genders. We are neither superheroes nor objects of pity. We struggle with the rest of society, losing our hearing as we get older and using wheelchairs and walkers as we become less mobile.
So be aware: blindness does not lead to injustice. On the contrary, blindness leads to advocating for justice for all people and lifts up all people as being worthy of inclusion. Blind people across the country are speaking out for DEI because we are part of the diversity in our country. We speak for equity because we are trying to get jobs that pay us for equal work in a work force of equal opportunity. We speak for inclusion because we have been standing on the outside, knocking on the door to be let in for many years. We are DEI demanding Accessibility; and we are voters seeking equal representation and justice.
