[humanser] Ellen DeGeneres' Ignorance

[Shannon Cook]

I have to throw my two cents in here too.  I think we all should take things with more of a grain of salt.  There are going to be so many times when we are truly insulted or discriminated against, that a situation like this, to me, does not even warrant getting upset over.  Especially, given the comments already stated about not know if the woman was actually blind and given that Ellen is not a mean-spirited comedian.  Her jabs are not done in an insulting way.  I have had times that I have taken comments too personally, when in retrospect, that is not how they were meant, but I really do not feel that this particular situation is one to hold up as an example of how we as a blind community are mistreated.

That is all I have to add.

Thanks,
Shannon Cook, MSW
-----Original Message-----
From: humanser-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:humanser-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of brlboss at aol.com
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 10:38 AM
To: humanser at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [humanser] Ellen DeGeneres' Ignorance

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



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