[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Kelby Carlson]

Hi everybody!

So, since I'm not aware of any incendiary debates flaring up 
around here recently, I thought I'd bring up something I read 
recently that I found utterly baffling.  This was on a blog 
thread about proper etiquette around people with disabilities.  
Towards the end, a discussion of language appropriateness came 
up, and someone said that "visually impaired" was an unacceptable 
term that should not be used.  Instead, one should say "with a 
visual impairment." I have heard similar things regaring the 
phrasing of a "blind person" versus "a person with blindness", 
but this was especially perplexing because I can't recall ever 
meeting someone in my entire life who was opposed to the term 
"visually impaired", at least when it was used to describe 
someone who had some functional vision.  I don't have strong 
feelings either way, but I would actually lean more to towards 
preferring visually impaired than "partially sighted", though I 
think neither one is more linguistically accurate than the other.

I have encountered the issue of language surrounding disability 
many times, and it's always been a bit strange-don't we, as blind 
people (among other people with various kinds of disabilities) 
have higher priorities on our lists of "things to fix in the 
world"? These are just my thoughts on the matter.

Kelby S.  Carlson

Vanderbilt University