More Politicing: None So Blind as Those Who Refuse to See Disability

[davidgillon]

Provoked into writing again by following exchange on Twitter with a supposed charity:

<Redacted> Diversity @<Redacted>Diversity Remember to see the person and NOT the disability. #disabilityconfident 
David Gillon @WTBDavidG 

@RedactedDiversity Remember to see the person, AND the disability, or you deny a huge part of us. That's #disabilityconfident 

<Redacted>Diversity @<Redacted>Diversity  @WTBDavidG of course that goes without saying.

 

 

Then why say the exact opposite?

None So Blind as Those Who Refuse to See Disability

And by the time I'd finished writing it another charity had tweeted exactly the same thing.

*headdesk*

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

It's the disability version of "colorblind" -- a concept that actually makes people more racist, and I'm sure the same can be said about people's attitudes toward disabled people.

[davidgillon]

Absolutely - it's encouraging 'Oh, I don't think of you as disabled/black/gay/whatever' thinking.

[sasha_feather]

OK... but... why use "blind" in a negative way in your title?

[cosmolinguist]

Haha, I noticed this too -- one of my pet peeves is the metaphorical use of blindness, which invariably means either "doesn't know" or "doesn't care." I wrote a whole essay about this a couple of months ago... :)

[davidgillon]

That's a fair point. But in this case we have people being expressly requested to not see, to be blind to - using the sense you (very reasonably) dislike, disability, so it's deliberately taking their usage and reversing it in order to show them why it's problematical.

[davidgillon]

Irony.

Also, as a larger hammer to beat metaphor through resistant normie brains.

(I did consider whether it was appropriate, but IMO the originl metaphorical line isn't spectacularly negative about visual impairment itself - admittedly YMMV)