[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Michael Capelle]

my theory on this, is personal preference.
I am totally blind, but if someone calls me visually impaired, or legally 
blind, who cares, i am blind, no big deal, i am visually impaired, no big 
deal.
I don't let stuff like that bother me.
good topic for discussion though.


-----Original Message----- 
From: Kelby Carlson
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 3:24 PM
To: blindtlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

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


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