[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Christine Szostak]

Hi,
  I suspect that actually the issue was not really with the term visually 
impaired, but rather with the order. When you say a "visually impaired 
person" the disability comes first as  opposed to saying a "person with a 
visual impairment". Thus, having the disability first is objected to, at 
least this is what I am assuming the blogger was getting at.
Happy Friday!
Chris

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kelby Carlson" <kelbycarlson at gmail.com>
To: <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 4:24 PM
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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