Category: Let's talk
does anyone have any storries, where because of there blindness, another person was going out there way to be unhelpfull, or rude. i always find (and i don't like it at all) people with disabillity are iver judged, or ignored
I don't really know of any instance where someone was deliberately trying to be unhelpful, but this woman once tried pointing me in the right dirrection. I didn't notice, obviously, but her English wasn't very fluent.
Gosh, i've had this several times. and some from people i know too, which is rather sickening. i can't mention them on here, just in case. There was one insodent where i got off the train in nottingham and noticed my assistant hadn't turned up to help me up to the station front. i noticed people getting off at the side of me and said politely, excuse me, can you give me a hand? they just completely ignored me and carried on.
Your not kidding I've been pushed to places I'd no intention of visiting. It could drive a saint to drink.
Stevie
I don't think people are mean or ignore us on purpose as such, but since lots of folks have never met a blind person in their life, due to being very self-involved or whatever, they don't know how to act or what to do, so most folks tend to just do nothing when confronted with such a situation. This is probably how they react in any unfamiliar situation, whether it's a blind person or something totally unrelated. Although I do think some folks have a cultural belief that says blind people are not as worthy overall as sighted folk, it's not the majority that think so and there's no big hate conspiracy. Some folks need educating, and some folks need to be taught how to act, and a few folks who see themselves as saintly for helping us even if we don't ask for such help need to seriously get over themselves.
You're definitely right about that. I also remember another incident at school. I thought I'd passed the elevator, and I walked up to these kids who were by a locker, and asked them where it was, and one of them was like, "Um, it's that way." I assumed he was pointing behind me, so I turned around and walked back. He started laughing and said, "I pointed She's---" I found it.
I have come across unhelpful and unkind people. Some were sighted, others were blind. As for sighted people ignoring blind people, that isn't always done to be unkind, so I wouldn't recommend that the kindness of sighted people be judged by their decision to ignore a blind person, especially if the blind person being ignored hates been judged.
What happened to you? Any specific situations stick out in your memory?
Unfortunately people just don't know how to react with something they don't know.
At the school for the blind in Cyprus the blind students avoid a deaf and blind girl which is disapointing. We would asume that a blind person would be better with another person with a disability. So it's not just sighted people who are like that.
I've had to give up the illusion that blind people can't be racist or discriminate. We're just like everybody else, which means we can be pretty harsh if we have a mind to, and we tend to judge our fellow blind folks a lot when we should perhaps be more supportive, but where's the entertainment and ego gratification in being supportive, right?