Category: Cram Session
Hey all,
I was put in the below situation earlier today and thought it would be interesting to see what other blind people who attend sighted colleges / universities would have done:
Universities tend to have a fair few societiesand I wanted to join one of them. In this situation, people who want to join usually write on the societies facebook page and then their given the time of the next meeting or what ever. This one is a swimming club, so I'm banking on someone being kind and showing me around things like the changing rooms for the first couple of sessions at least.
Like employment, this begs the question of if we should mention being blind or not before we attend and if we do, how we should phrase it.
I thought it would be a bit weird if I introduced myself without mentioning it so I did, but this opened up a whole other can of beans:
I didn't want my post to end with me being blind so I tried to humor it up a little bit by joking that they might see someone wandering around looking slightly lost. In reality, this probably won't happen - I pretty much know where we're meant to meet & at what time and it’s very likely that the only group of people in this location at the time will be people from the club, but I thought I should put something.
I actually spent a stupidly long amount of time thinking of what to say (considering that its only a wall post), but I found it quite hard since essentially, I had to try and come across as being "normal" in a post where the main objective was to let everyone know that I'm blind - e.g. not "normal". (FYI, if your screen reader didn't tell you, the normals in the last sentence were in quotations)
The strategy of joking about your blindness takes a *long* time to perfect imo; in hindsight, in my first year, I probably tried too hard to be normal which alienated me from everyone else a bit. To give you an idea, in my second and third years where I've been much more relaxed about it all, people started asking me blindness related questions within the first few days that hardly anyone asked me in my first year, even having lived with them for 9 months. I always like it when people feel comfortable enough with me to ask blind questions.
I felt that the getting lost joke did its job - I wasn't really trying to be that funny, but if you end an introduction with something like "and btw, I'm blind", it just seems a bit strange to me.
What does everyone else think? Realistically, I think it was best that I disclosed everything, but I'm guessing some of you would have gone about it in a different way.
Cheers,
Ben.
Honestly, I've had very few negative experience when I make light of my blindness. people usually laugh. Granted, some of them do so nervously, but overall it works. I myself prefer my blindness be known in person, rather than during the preliminary net introductions. When you're right in someone's face (so to speak) and are cheerful and smiling and not making a big deal out of your blindness, in my personal experience it seems to go pretty well. it takes people aback sometimes, but usually I find being up front about what I need and what I can do works wonders to eleviate that.
I wouldn't have made my blindness known till I was face to face with those in question. if you want people to treat you as an equal, don't draw attention to your blindness and, most likely, they won't either. just be yourself, and let the chips fall where they may.
I think it is almost always better to tell people about your blindness ahead of time. From my experience, people can handle the fact you are blind and not feel so awkward and nervous about it if they know about it first than if you just show up and tell them then. Plus, if you are going to an interview to a place you've never been to before, you'll probably need assistance to get to where you need to be. So if you tell the people in question ahead of time that you're blind and that you'll need assistance, they'll know about it and someone can help you.
I disagree, because then, that gives them the right to say, "well, we've already found someone for said position".
while I wouldn't wanna work for people who didn't accept me as a person as is, I still think it's best to let them see your blindness as they're meeting you. that way, they're forced to deal with it, can ask any questions, and you, as the one who's blind can explain how you'll do the job at hand.
to put it bluntly, you have to embrace yourself before expecting others to be able to do so.
Really, the answer for any so-called minority has to do with whether or not it's relevant.
If someone wants to know if I have a pilot license, or can get one, naturally being blind would play into it. But for more and more things now, it's less and less relevant to say we're blind, because we can read more material than ever, and do more than we ever could before. Whether someone thinks I can do the job or not is only relevant if that person is making the decision to include me or not.
What many people don't realize is it's far better to only say what's relevant. This isn't restricted to the blind, or even to minorities. People do it with their religion or lack thereof, family status or lack thereof, even age.
For me it's a matter of being relevant, and putting my best foot forward. I've never quite seen how my inability to sense light is a best foot to put forward under any circumstance.
For your swim club, I'd probably put forward your accomplishments, or if you are new, or something that helps the other participants evaluate your potential contributions.
I really agree with Leo, but the other two have good points as well. The real problem here is there's never one good sure answer to this question. Everyone's different. Certain approaches will work better for certain people. It's entirely possible that interviewer will hear you're blind and say "actually we've already found someone". It happens more than it should, though it hasn't happened to me personally yet. That said, there are times when it may be valuable to do this. it's just really hard to know which approach to use with who.
I agree with Chelsea and Leo. I don't reveal my blindness before meeting the people involved unless they absolutely need to know. The societies I joined in college didn't require that you post to a Facebook wall before attending a meeting, so I just showed up. Most people made me feel welcome and, I think, felt pretty relaxed around me after a few meetings. As the meetings were held at night, I asked someone to walk back to my dorm with me, and people were always willing to do this. This was good both for safety and social purposes.
Hi,
Sorry for the bump, but incase people are reading this and looking for help, I thought I'd give a quick update.
All sessions & socials have been fine so far, the first week I came someone did ask me if I was the "blind person" - I would have thought it would have been pretty obvious but what ever, so things seem to be working out ok. I think sometimes we worry too much about this sort of thing; we're so concerned about putting our best foot forward & looking normal that I think we perhaps over analize what people might think of something we've written.
Ultimately, what I think is important to remember is that you can write pretty much what ever you want on the wall of a group on Facebook, but how you conduct yourself when dealing face to face with people is much more important, so even if I did spend way too long trying to be normal whilst telling everyone I was disabled in my post, I'm fairly sure that being around the people I was trying to reassure online did much more for me than trying to explain myself on Facebook ever did.
If you're at university or college and are thinking of joining a club just do it; the absolute worst that could happen is you hate it in which case just don't turn up to any of the meetings.
Cheers,
Ben.
I usually make it pretty obvious and present myself well to which I usually get oh. or yeah, well, and, you're doing well for being blind. hahaha! so we usually end up having a lot of fun, and getting a long well. blindness, is usually never too much of an issue, it's the other things.....