Seeking Blind Justice

Love Is Blind

by Peter Heide

I must be love because I’m blind.

I must have faith because I’m blind;

And justice should rightfully be my estate

Because I’m blind;

But I, scaly-eyed, seek justice

In blind alleys, around blind turns

That lead to unseen possibilities.

Maybe I’m just batty,

Or Christ’s faithful fool

Following blindly.

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.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Suppose for a moment that the paper currency of the United States were recalled and reissued. The new bills were red, white, and blue, but there were no pictures of past presidents and ambassadors on them nor were there any numeric designations. Although everybody was issued a stack of currency whose value was equal to that turned in, the value of each bill received was indeterminate. Its worth would be whatever a merchant claimed it to be, and change received would then also be what the merchant claimed it to be.

Consider what might result while shopping one day. After choosing an item priced at $35, Merchant Joe claims the bill offered for payment is worth $50 and returns two bills. MJ says one is worth $5; the other $10. The next purchase is at Merchant Sally for $14 using the two bills from Merchant Joe. MS claims the two bills are only worth $2. Did Merchant Joe give you the wrong currency or is Merchant Sally changing the value of the red, white, and blue currency?

This is the dilemma many blind people in the U.S. face every day. Money is worth what the government says it is through a social contract that some pieces of “paper” are worth more than others, but the blind, independently, cannot know paper’s value and live in a world of dependence. For those who are blind, “knowing” the worth of paper currency is really given through the good will of sighted people around them (or using a time-consuming electronic process to check each bill). Think about it. If the money you carry in your wallet is only worth what others say it is and you had to depend on someone else always telling you what your money was worth, would you be satisfied?

The blindness community through the work of the American Council of the Blind (ACB) has been asking for “accessible and inclusive” currency since 1972. The process of making our money fully accessible and inclusive is not so difficult. More than a hundred other countries have found a way to make their currencies fully accessible. In 2006 and 2008, the courts ordered the U.S. Treasury to issue any newly designed paper currency in an accessible and inclusive format.

Fully accessible and inclusive currency is a minimal gesture of our government which says that all who live here have a right to full participation in the economy of our country. The new $20 bill is particularly important. It must neither be a concession to those who have asked to be recognized nor a crumb that falls from the master’s table. This new bill must recognize the value black women and blind people have in the United States and the positive contributions they have made here.

One hundred ten years to the day since Harriet Tubman’s death, ACB, Women on 20s, and others rallied in La Fayette Square (Wash., D.C.) Friday, March 10, 2023, to demand that the Treasury fulfill its promise to include accessible and inclusive markings for the blind and visually impaired people on paper currency and to include the picture of Tubman on the $20. She will be the first woman and the first black person portrayed on U.S. paper currency.

The planned rally led to a meeting of representatives from ACB and the Treasury, including the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, to discuss and prepare for accessible and inclusive currency. For the first time, five blind people were able to touch a $10 bill with the proposed braille feature. The meeting ended with a plan for the Treasury and ACB to work together to perfect the design for new paper money.

The first accessible $10 bill should roll off the presses in 2026. The Harriet Tubman $20 bill is scheduled for 2030. Other bills will be released in 2028 and 2032.

SHOW US THE MONEY! THE PROMISE HAS BEEN MADE. NOW LET’S FINISH THE JOB.

 

Show Me the Money: Marching Together for Accessible and Inclusive Currency - YouTube

To Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of The Americans with Disabilities Act

To Commemorate the 30th Anniversary 

of 

The Americans with Disabilities Act

July 26, 2020  

Gathering Litany

Lord, as we gather in your word today, we join with your first followers—with paralytics, epileptics, the mentally ill—and commend to your care those who are sick and have various diseases.

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

We, your disciples, repeatedly neglect children with disabilities even as their parents bring them for you to touch and bless. Help us remember You are always inviting them, recognizing their value, saying “Let the children come to me.”

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

When we chain the developmentally disabled and mentally ill amid the caves and tombs, You sit with them, listen to them,  touch them, give wholeness, give a way to walk in your ways, and send them back into the world, to their home, to tell everyone what they have heard and seen.

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

When people wonder whether You are the promised one, You tell them to report what is begun: The unclean are cleansed. The lame are given ways to walk. The blind receive your vision, and the poor hear good news proclaimed. Indeed, the dead are raised!

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

We recognize that all policies of discrimination hide the needs of the disabled from us and contribute to them being ignored which creates a stigma of social death. We admit our care for people with disabilities is incomplete. The only jobs offered them are often demeaning and meaningless. We pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage and gain tax incentives from their labor, or we leave them underemployed and impoverished, without adequate healthcare protection, other essential services, and the ability to lead independent lives.

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

Disabilities are often shame-filled epithets, uncaring and abusive: He is blind to others’ needs. She is deaf to the cries of the people. Their reasoning is lame. His actions are dumb. Their plans are short-sighted. She’s just such a spaz, and more. Forgive us, Lord, for these and other unthinking utterances of dishonoring shame. Help us to lift these conditions of life from the trash heap of dishonor. Then help us to see others as your children, not their disability.

You give the blind your vision to see.

You give the mute your voice to speak.

You speak in ways the deaf can hear.

You recognize the poor, the meek.

Today, on this thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we remember that we are not whole without all your children with us. In You, we individually are members one of another and that the gifts of all are needed if the Body of Christ is to be whole. We commit ourselves to learn more about the issues surrounding disabilities; to work for equity in employment and all aspects of life;  to learn the many gifts that people with disabilities have and long to share, that we might know the wholeness of Your beloved community with all the saints, to be your body for the sake of the world.

As we gather in these days

And walk in your new ways,

It is your name we praise

Reaching out, the dead to raise. Amen

Because the Stone Is Rolled Away CORRECTED

Because the Stone Is Rolled Away 

corrected 3/18

Peter Heide

In wilderness contention, from Jabbok water baptisms, 
Wrest us to your restoration highway, to resurrection gardens of possibility—
For we walk, limp, grope, and crawl
In your likeness, in your imago dei, in your gifts of touch and action.
With loving grace, help us reveal your saving works and goodness,
The joy of justification healing,
And your active incarnate presence
As we claim your living body and find our distinctive wholeness in the midst of this broken world.
So, as Braille is known by the touch of the blind,
Let our lives be known to you, O Lord.
As action speaks meaning to the lives of the deaf,
Let our actions bear witness to your Word, O Christ.
As wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and crutches support us in our lives,
Let our lives support others in your Spirit.

Because the Stone Is Rolled Away

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