[humanser] Ellen DeGeneres' Ignorance

[brlboss at aol.com]

I've been watching this discussion, and I just have to ask.  Do we have 
any proof that the woman using the binoculars was visually impaired?  
Sighted people, if seated far back at a live performance, have been 
known to use binoculars too.  Also, I honestly don't think that Ellen 
was in any way insulting the blind community.  It's not like she (based 
on what I've heard) got up on stage and said "look at that blind woman 
using binoculars!  Isn't that funny?"  If she had, I would agree that 
it was wrong, but she was making fun, it sounds, more of the binoculars 
than the person using them.

Also, it was a joke.  Ellen is a comedian.  She pokes fun at everyone, 
and, apparently, up until now, that was completely acceptable.  It 
appears, the moment a visually impairment even becomes implied it turns 
into some awful thing.  I'm not saying that visually impaired people 
should sit back while being made fun of, far from it.  What I am 
suggesting is that we should be sure of the situation before making the 
issue public.  Let's say that the woman using the binoculars wasn't 
visually impaired or, perhaps, she was but didn't care about the joke.  
What if she even found it funny.  I'm the kind of person who laughs 
because, unless someone honest to truth maliciously insults me, it's 
not worth the effort to get angry.  So, no one in the studio audience 
cared about the binoculars.  Posting on a public forum (facebook) 
without all the facts then only looks like someone is lashing out for 
the sake of lashing out.

Mary