[Blindtlk] Use of the Term Visually Impaired

[Danielle Antoine]

Amen Sister Karly!

On 6/22/13, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net> wrote:
> 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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