Remembering the time I posted on Reddit about a waitress at a chain restaurant treating a blind person like she didn’t exist, repeatedly, despite very pointed suggestions from both the blind and sighted customer that she not do that. I got a lot of interesting responses from all over the map, and most of them sided against the waitress, but there were two diametrically opposed arguments that were repeated many times:
1. “She probably didn’t know how to make eye contact so she felt awkward and didn’t know how to address a blind person.”
2. “I’m not blind, but am <insert disability here>. This happens to me all the time.”Some non-disabled people will defend ableism at all costs. Obviously, there are lots of solutions to argument #1, but it’s clear that isn’t even the problem. What would happen if I substituted “blind” with some other disability? Would people find another way to apologize on behalf of the abled, or is blindness just at the bottom of the totem pole?
We all need to learn to call this out when we see it. We are never in the wrong when we demand autonomy.
#disability #blind #blindness #ableism