[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Laz Mesa]

I myself am totally blind and resist being labeled visually impaired.
I do however wish to point out that the term visually impaired has a
negative connotation that the person is visually unacceptable in some
way, as in ugly. This was pointed out to me by an Australian friend.
For that reason, I choose to use the term vision impaired instead. Of
course if the person is butt-ugly, then I guess the term visually
impaired might be acceptable. (just kidding) But I'll tell you what,
since I lost my eyesight, I haven't run into one ugly person. Everyone
I come across is beautiful to me, unless their behaviour or actions
make them ugly.

All the best,

Laz

-----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

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