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2
of conversation
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Michael
:
What sorts of action would you like to see on a large scale--laws,
media campaigns, whatever--to improve accessibility for the blind
and raise awareness among the sighted?
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Joel:
Since the 1991 passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, handicapped
individuals understand that "niceties" like wheelchair-access curb
cuts and building ramps, blind-friendly ATM's and voting booths, are
not only possible but entitlements. And wherever a legitimate need
remains unmet or an accommodation is implemented without intelligent
prior consultation with its intended beneficiaries, effective advocacy
and remedial action is now possible where once it wasn' t. Still,
at the level of daily activities and interactions with the general
public and service personnel such as bus drivers, we're a long way
from a climate in which most people have even a rudimentary comprehension
of a disabled person's capabilities, incapabilities, and just plain
human feelings. More frequent, realistic and insightful portrayal
of the disabled in movies and TV shows would help. So would laws making
it mandatory, for example, that public transit operators call every
stop along their routes.
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Michael:
Have you felt a sense of shifting identity now that you' re a member
of a group with particular grievances and, sometimes, a shared political
agenda?
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Parital
blindness vs.
total blindness
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Joel:
My sense of identity is certainly shifting or expanding (more
the latter, I hope) to include feeling related to other disabled
people, especially the blind. But the movement feels as gradual
as the progression of my retinal degeneration, and is marked
by much ambivalence. Once, on a blind writers' mailing list,
a regional honcho from a national blind group apparently mistook
me for a raw neophyte to sight loss, and when, in a private
email, apropos to a discussion of practical issues, I tried
to describe the uses and limitations of my remaining vision,
he shot back: "Joel, never mind the details. You're a blind
guy now. Get used
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to
it." I presume he meant well by this "tough love" evangelical
approach, but I was horrified. He reminded me of Pennywise,
the demon sewer-clown in Stephen King's It. "Come on in. You'll
float. We all float down here."
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