Category: Let's talk
Hey. Just wondering, why do you gys think so many people with the same disability stick together kind of separate from the rest of other people? I'm not saying this is always the case, but there are some of us blindies who only associate themselves with other blind people...not that this is a bad thing..its just interesting since visual impairments are so uncommon yet some of us know so many people like that.
Maybe because those with the same disability know how to help each other, and they have a better chance of understanding each other...I personally haven't encountered this yet, because Whenever I'm with blindies, I'm with mostly all blindies, and when I'm not with blindies, I'm with all sighties. LOL.
yeah same here. thats a good tthought. i guess it is something that we can relate to and people who have things in common tend to hang together
yeah. They do. This doesn't have anything to do with blindies, or anything, but I suppose people may flock together because of other people making fun of them. you know, safety in numbers, and all that?...yeah. Just a thought.
As has already been said, I guess it's that we feel that we have something in common with other blindys. I mean I can say "I watched television last night" and the whole room won't crack up.
Bob
yeah, or say "you mean, you listened to television last night?" All my sightie...erm, peers...tend to say that when I say that I don't watch television, or that I watched the movie, or that that looks weird. Gets annoying sometimes. LOL
i agree with you all. it's annoying when people say, "have you ever watched such and such show? oh wait, you can't see the tv".
People with disabilities, be it blind, deaf, or anything else, aren't the only ones that stick together. Usually any group that has some kind of common bond does. That's where you get churches and other religious communities. Or organizations of people of certain cultures. Heck, take a look at a site like yahoogroups. People with some commonality forming a group to talk and compare notes. We as blind folks might do it a bit more than some, but most of us don't limit ourselves to only blind folks. We live and interact with a sighted world. But it's good to have each other to bounce things off of.
We feel a need to be accepted by our peers; the people around us. People with disabilities, or people with common trates feel that someone like them, or with the same problem are more likely to accept them, not to judge them. I think it's all about self-esteme. We do, and associate with what protects our pride.
that's just my view.
It'd be nice if we could all just mingle with everybody, but unfortunately, there are just some things about living as a blind person or a disabled person that the sighted or able-bodied will not understand or at least might kind of half understand. We want to be able to be at ease with ourselves and discuss all aspects of our lives, even the negative ones, without being judged or talked down to. BTW, for those of you who keep getting corrected when you talk about watching a movie or TV, just explain that some words ahve more than one meaning or can be used more than one way. If you watch a movie, yeah, it can mean you saw it with your eyes, but it can slso mean you are taking it in, the whole experience of it, because a movie also has audio to it. Same goes with TV or even a live show. They took it in mostly visually, you took in with your other senses.
well for me, we can talk about how our screen readers react to certain things, or how accessible or inaccessible things are with it, and all blind people understand that, but most sighted people don't, and a lot of times they just aren't interested, though I get various reactions on irc when i do go on sighted networks and tell people i'm blind and using screen reading software. some ask questions, and some just don't acknowledge it or just say, oh, and change the subject. I wish there was a blind network on mirc, but thats the only thing where there isn't a network especially for that. also, sighted people can't help us too much navigating some things, because we use the keyboard and they use the mouse, so if we are new to a program, it's a matter of pushing keys till jaws finds something, where sighted people use th emouse for everything. I've been treated better in some sighted irc communities than i have in some blind places, but then again, I've been treated badly also. so I think it's a case where we have problems ande situations that we al understand and most sighted people don't.
wonderwoman