[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Carly Mihalakis]

Hi, Laz,

Good point. Only way someone embodyies "ugly" is by their actions, 
self-serving, erogant, hateful. Those charicturistics are not seen ocularly.
Carly/21/2013, Laz Mesa wrote:
>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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